Kawanatanga means “governorship” or the authority to govern. The Treaty referred to the governance ceded by the chiefs to the British Crown.

Kawanatanga is a transliteration of the English word “governor” (from kawana), used by missionaries to describe the authority of the British Crown. It appears in Article 1 of the Māori text of the Treaty of Waitangi, where Māori chiefs agreed to cede kawanatanga to Queen Victoria.

At the time, kawanatanga was widely understood by missionaries and many Māori to mean government or administrative authority, similar to what Governor Hobson represented. It conveyed the idea that the British would have the right to make laws and maintain order.

Some modern commentators argue that Māori may not have fully understood the long-term implications of ceding kawanatanga. However, contemporary records suggest that many Māori did grasp that they were accepting British rule.