... to the person of Queen Victoria (colonial governments were another matter). For Maori the relationship was a deeply personal bond, cemented through the Treaty of Waitangi that had established Victoria as a great chief of New Zealand. Long after the British government had ceased to have any meaningful role...

...This chapter argues that New Zealand’s national apologies, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries –those produced by the modern Treaty of Waitangi settlements process, as well as more recent declarations of regret – are evidence of its little-acknowledged historical role...