Michael Belgrave

Michael Peter Belgrave is a New Zealand historian. He is an emeritus professor of history at Massey University. He helped found Massey University's Albany campus in 1993. Belgrave also served as research manager of the Waitangi Tribunal and continues to work on Treaty of Waitangi research and settlements. In 2015, Belgrave received a Marsden Fund award for his research into the causes of the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s. In 2018, he received the Ernest Scott Prize for his book Dancing with the King, which examined the history of the King Country between 1864 and 1885. The Reader's reviewer Lincoln Gould praised it for exploring the impact of British colonisation on Māori land ownership in New Zealand. In April 2018, Belgrave won the Ernest Scott Prize for Dancing with the King. Belgrave disagreed with the historian Ruth Ross's view that the Treaty of Waitangi was mistranslated, instead arguing that Māori participants were well informed of the Treaty's contents and had made up their mind before missionary Henry Williams produced the Māori language version of the document. Belgrave argued that Māori advocates viewed the Treaty of Waitangi as a sacred compact between rangatira (tribal nobles) and the Crown. Chris Trotter gave a more critical review of the book in the New Zealand Listener, describing it as revisionist history and comparing it to the 1619 Project.

Views and positions In September 2019, Belgrave welcomed moves by the Sixth Labour Government to incorporate New Zealand history into the national school curriculum from 2012. He argued that making the teaching of New Zealand history compulsory would force young people to "confront the challenging questions of inequality, racism and legacies of the Empire."

In May 2023, Belgrave disputed Australian senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's assertion during the lead-up to the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum that the Waitangi Tribunal had veto powers over the New Zealand Parliament. In response, he explained that the Tribunal's purview had expanded from land claims to cover various aspects of public policy. Belgrave also regarded the Tribunal as a template for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament to "create new Indigenous rights."

Selected publications