Following a day of heated debate at the house of James Busby, the British Resident, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands on 6
February 1840 by Captain William Hobson, several English residents and approximately forty-five Maori chiefs. The influential chief Whaka Nene turned the debate
in favour of the Treaty. The first Maori to sign was Hone Heke; three other chiefs placed their signature above his later that day. The document signed at Waitangi
was then taken to various other Northland locations to obtain additional Maori signatures.

To extend Crown authority over parts of the North Island that had not yet been covered, and the South Island, a further seven copies of the Waitangi document
were sent around the country for signing. The Church Missionary Society press at Paihia, near Waitangi, printed copies of the Treaty and one of these also was used
to obtain further signatures.

Rescued from the fire that burnt the government offices in Official Bay, Auckland, in 1841, the treaty documents were held until 1865 in an iron safe in Auckland,
and later Wellington, at the Colonial Secretary's office. The government printed facsimile copies of the Treaty documents in 1877 at which point they were put into
storage.

The Treaty was lost sight of until 1911 when it was rediscovered, stored in the Wellington Government Buildings. It was then found to be damaged by water and
rodents, particularly the two parchment sheets, viz the original Waitangi document and the HMS Herald sheet. Following restoration work by the Dominion Museum
in 1913, the Treaty was stored in specially constructed metal containers in the strong room of the Department of Internal Affairs.

The first known public display of the Treaty of Waitangi was in 1940 at Waitangi, for the Centennial celebrations. From 1949 onwards the documents were loaned
to and displayed by the Alexander Turnbull Library, then still part of the Department of Internal Affairs. In 1981 the Treaty was returned to Archives New Zealand -
established in 1957 - to join other important constitutional documents. Finally, in 1990 the Constitution Room at the new Archives New Zealand headquarters
provided the conditions suitable for the permanent display for the first time of modern New Zealand's founding documents.