Māori hapū of the north and Britain proclaimed the sovereign independence of New Zealand in 1835 with the signing of He Whakaputanga (The Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand). A follow up to this was the Treaty of Waitangi that was first signed in 1840, in part that the Queen of England could control her 'lawless subjects'. New Zealand was proclaimed a British colony in 1841, and the New Zealand Parliament was established in 1852. Māori had no representation in the early years (1854-1868) of the New Zealand Parliament. Votes for the members of Parliament required individual land-ownership so Māori were not able to vote as they owned land collectively. Ranginui Walker states that this "institutionalisation of racism at the inception of democracy in New Zealand was the root cause of the conflict between Māori and Pākehā in the North Island and the colonial spoliation which followed".
