James Busby

James Busby , British Resident in New Zealand , portrait of James Ingram McDonald

James Busby (born February 7, 1802 in Edinburgh , Scotland , † July 15, 1871 in Penge , Surrey , England ) was a viticulture expert, author of several publications, British resident in New Zealand , politician and in 1840 involved in the conclusion of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand.

Life

James Busby was the second son of Sarah Kennedy and John Busby , a civil engineer and mineral expert. Before he emigrated to New South Wales with his parents in 1824 , he had studied viticulture in France .

He bought around 2,000  acres of land in the Hunter River District of New South Wales and began experimenting with growing grapes. In 1825 he published in Sydney for the first time on viticulture. Further publications followed in the following years. At around the same time he took on the role of superintendent of an orphanage school for boys in the city of Cabramatta , near Liverpool . When the Church and School Corporation took control of the school in 1827, Busby lost his position. He then got a temporary job in which he had to collect taxes.

Frustrated by the loss of his job and the transitional job, he made his way back to England in February 1831, also to be able to present his case to the Colonial Office . In September 1831 he toured Spain and France for four months , visiting wine-growing regions and working on the publication of his travel experiences. Impressed by his lecture to the Colonial Office , he was seen as the right man to solve the emerging problems in New Zealand for the British Crown, and he was made British Resident in New Zealand . Busby returned to Sydney on October 16, 1832 and married Agnes Dow of Segenhoe on November 1 . Of the six children who resulted from their marriage, only three survived him.

Political activity

In the 1820s the Māori of New Zealand fought their musket wars , in 1823 the British Crown placed New Zealand under the control of the Court of Justice of New South Wales, and in 1831 a French warship docked in the Bay of Islands to help France claim annexation of New Zealand document. The British government, which had previously shown only moderate interest in New Zealand, has now changed its stance. In this situation, Busby was sent to New Zealand by the Colonial Office , on the one hand to show the official British presence and on the other hand to ensure order in the European settlement center, the Bay of Islands and the surrounding area. Equally important was his task to ensure the safety of the British settlers and to convince the Māori for a government that was civilized according to British ideas. He was also to assist the missionaries and assist the warships on their arrival.

Flag of the United Tribes (1834-1840)

Busby had no real power, no soldiers or warships to come to his aid if necessary. But he was widely accepted by the Māori to act as a mediator. On 20 March 1834 the assembled Māori - Chiefs of the region, to select one of three he designed flags for the union of all Māori should be strains. He also got the northern Māori chiefs on October 28, 1835 34 to sign an alliance called the Confederation of United Tribes, the Declaration of Independence for New Zealand . Although the Māori had no say in the preparation of this document, other chiefs signed in the following years , so that Busby had a total of 52 signatories by 1839. Little changed for the Māori , nor did the declaration have any particular effect on them, but the British government was now better able to assert its foreign policy claims against France.

In 1839 William Hobson was sent to New Zealand in order to put the Māori under the protection of the British Crown with the help of Busby and to be able to annex New Zealand at the same time. On February 6, 1840, under Hobson's negotiation, at least 43 Māori chiefs signed  the Treaty of Waitangi in Busby's house in Waitangi . James Busby had worked out the contract himself with James Freeman .

In March 1840, Busby had to travel to Sydney with his wife and children to fight for the legality and recognition of his land acquisition from 1834, as Governor George Gipps, who was then responsible for New Zealand, had on January 29, 1840, before the contract was signed, voided all land purchases and ordered their review. When he returned in November 1840, he found his house and land occupied and his purchase under consideration. He tried to raise cattle on his land anyway, but was not lucky. In June 1841 he returned to Sydney to raise funds for further investments and to bring his wife and children back to New Zealand. But the following years were more difficult than expected and so Busby found himself in serious financial difficulties in the late 1840s.

Busby spent a long time of his life after 1840 getting his land purchase recognized and fair. In addition to his commitment as a farmer, he also worked from 1861 to 1863 as editor of the twice weekly Aucklander and sat twice as a representative of the Bay of Islands from 1853 to 1855, and 1857 to 1863 in the provincial government of Auckland .

In 1871, Busby traveled to England with his wife for eye surgery. There he died on July 15th of a lung congestion . His wife Agnes went back to New Zealand, where she died in 1889.

Works

• A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine, and the Art of Making Wine . R. Howe (Government Printer) , Sydney , Australia 1825 (English).
• A Manual of Plain Directions for Planting and Cultivating Vineyards and for Making Wine in New South Wales . Sydney 1830 (English).
• Journal of a Tour Through Some of the Vineyards of Spain and France . Sydney 1833 (English).
• Journal of a Recent Visit to the Principal Vineyards of Spain and France . London 1834 (English).

literature

• JW Davidson : Busby, James (1801-1871) . In: Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 1. Melbourne University Press , 1966, ISSN  1833-7538 , pp. 186–188 ( online [accessed July 30, 2010]).

Web links

• Claudia Orange : Busby, James (1801-1871) . In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , September 1, 2010, accessed August 19, 2012 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christina Anette Dölling: New Zealand - A Nation of Immigrants . Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag (DWV), Baden-Baden 2008, ISBN 978-3-935176-85-9 , p. 49 .
2. ↑ Busby, James (1801-1871) . Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition , accessed July 30, 2010 .  
3. ^ The 1835 Declaration of Independence . New Zealand History Online , accessed July 30, 2010 (English, flashplayer, the document to be viewed is in the Māori language).  
4. ^ Edmund Bohan : New Zealand - The Story so far - A short History . HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Ltd. , Auckland 1997, ISBN 1-86950-222-1 , pp.  22nd ff . (English).