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In the late 1830s, following on from the report of the Select Committee on Aborigines (1836–1837) and the House of Lords inquiry into the 'present state of the islands of New Zealand' (1838), many humanitarians became concerned about the harmful effects on Māori of exposure to the various types of Europeans that arrived here. Missionaries intervened to discourage land sales, sometimes buying land themselves, at least partly in the role of trustees, to enable Māori to continue to retain access. They and others from New Zealand, Australia and England pressured the British Government to prevent the spread of immoral behaviour as well as the introduced diseases that were causing the population to markedly decline. Given Busby's inability to act, the preference was eventually for annexation and direct government.

In response to a perceived threat of French annexation, Busby drew up, without authorisation from his superiors, a Declaration of Independence, which was signed by 34 northern chiefs. Additional signatures, including some from further south, were added over the next four years. This group referred to themselves in the Declaration as the Confederation of Chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand, although there is no evidence that the confederation was ever convened again, except at the time of the signing of the Treaty in 1840. It received a puzzled and rather lukewarm reception at the Colonial Office in England, which was well aware that New Zealand was not a British possession and did not want to take responsibility for it. The Colonial Office, advised by the missionary societies, was by no means convinced that there was a viable political authority in New Zealand with which it could form diplomatic relations. The Declaration was, however, acknowledged by the British Government. Some historians suggest it was not taken seriously until it proved to be an impediment to the annexation of New Zealand. It is thought that for this reason the document was used for calling up chiefs to sign the Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840. Other experts view the Declaration as an embryonic expression of Māori nationhood, which, in conjunction with other events in the 1820s and 1830s, shows that the Treaty of Waitangi was part of a negotiated relationship and not the beginning of European power and the end of Māori sovereignty.

From its experience in other parts of the world, the British Government had found that colonies involved great expense and difficulty. As a result it had initially tried to avoid assuming responsibility in New Zealand. Instead it had tried to influence the interaction of Māori and British settlers through the missionaries and by sending Busby to try to work with the rangatira (chiefs) in the north. Busby reported pessimistically on his efforts and on the increasing number of land transactions that British settlers and New South Wales speculators were making with local chiefs. British settlers at Kororareka (now called Russell) petitioned King William IV in March 1837 for protection and expressed their disapproval of Busby's proceedings. Officials at the Colonial Office agreed that 'the state of New Zealand is shewn (sic) to be lamentably bad, and Mr Busby has long been regarded as unfit for office'. In December 1837, understanding that colonisation 'to no small extent' was already happening in New Zealand, the British Government, led by Lord Melbourne and Lord Glenelg, decided that it had to intervene to ensure that colonisation was regulated and that land transactions that defrauded Māori were stopped. By mid-1839, the British Government had decided to annex at least part of New Zealand to New South Wales.

Purchasers raced to buy as much land as they could. Apart from the few who wanted relatively small areas for their own settlement, large-scale speculators were putting pressure on Māori all over the country to enter into the flimsiest of deals, often for huge areas. Missionaries petitioned London to intervene to protect Māori. Some of the largest alleged purchases included: W.B. Rhodes, who claimed to have bought Kapiti, Banks Peninsula, Wellington and most of Hawke's Bay, the last for £150; Daniel Cooper, who claimed to have purchased 133,000 hectares of the Hawke's Bay, Cape Turnagain and Table Cape districts for £383; and especially the New Zealand Company, which claimed to have bought some 20 million acres, effectively the middle third of New Zealand from New Plymouth to Banks Peninsula, within only a few months.

Samuel Revans was a trained and experienced printer working with the New Zealand Company's London operations. When he decided to move to Wellington, he raised a loan from merchants backing the Company to buy the equipment and supplies for a printing establishment. The first issue of his newspaper, the New Zealand Gazette (August 1839), was actually published from the Company's London address before the New Zealand Company's first ships left for Petone. It folded in 1844.

With the New Zealand Company in the process of despatching colonists from London, the British Government decided to appoint naval officer Captain William Hobson as Consul. Hobson left England shortly after the New Zealand Company's first ship, the Tory. He was instructed to obtain sovereignty over all or part of New Zealand with the consent of a sufficient number of chiefs. New Zealand would come under the authority of Sir George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales, and Hobson himself would become Gipps's Lieutenant-Governor. Land-buying agents continued swarming over New Zealand in anticipation of purchasing opportunities being cut off by Hobson. It was later calculated that their combined claims amounted to more than New Zealand's total land area.

New Zealand was promoted to a colony in its own right, no longer answerable to Sydney, under Letters Patent dated 16 November 1840 and gazetted on 24 November. With communications by sailing ship taking months, Hobson only found out about this development on 30 April 1841, until then continuing to act as Lieutenant-Governor to New South Wales Governor Gipps.

In early March, while heading down the eastern coast to obtain further signatories for the Treaty, Hobson suffered a paralytic stroke and so he deputised a number of men (including seven missionaries) to collect more signatures from around the country on copies of the Treaty. Hobson wished to have signatures from the Cook Strait area (particularly that of Te Rauparaha) and so Henry Williams was despatched to get these, while other copies were sent to the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Tauranga, and Kaitaia. Major Bunbury, on the Herald, was sent to get signatures from the South Island, Stewart Island and Hawke's Bay. On 21 May, while this was still under way, Hobson proclaimed sovereignty over all of New Zealand: over the North Island on the basis of cession by the Treaty and the southern islands by right of discovery. Some historians suggest that he wanted to declare the Crown's authority over the whole country because he had learned of possible moves by the New Zealand Company to set up its own administration around Cook Strait. His second-in-command, Major Bunbury, also made proclamations of sovereignty over Stewart Island by right of discovery on 5 June, as no Māori could be found to sign the Treaty, and over the South Island on 17 June by virtue of cession.

Hobson travelled first to New South Wales to confer with his new superior, Governor Gipps. As Hobson left Sydney on 18 January 1840, Gipps, relying on his authority over British subjects at least, proclaimed a prohibition on any further private land purchases from Māori and that no existing claims would be recognised until they had been investigated by the authorities. Hobson repeated the proclamation in the Bay of Islands on 30 January 1840, soon after his arrival there. William Colenso, of the Church Missionary Society, printed both proclamations for Hobson, as he was the only printer at the Bay.

As soon as Hobson arrived at the Bay of Islands, he met with Busby on the Herald, and Busby organised an invitation to the chiefs of the 'Confederation' (which had not actually met before) to meet Hobson, 'a rangatira [chief] from the Queen of England'. The meeting was to take place on Wednesday, 5th February. Meanwhile a draft of the Treaty was prepared in English and a copy of this text was provided to Henry Williams so that he could translate it for the meeting. At the meeting, the text, in both languages, was discussed before about 500 Māori and 200 Pākehā. Most of the speakers were suspicious of what was intended but the speech of Tamati Waka Nene is thought to have swayed the chiefs towards acceptance. Hobson expected several days of discussion and lobbying, by those in favour and those opposed, and discussion did continue overnight at what is now Te Tii Marae. On the following day, 6 February, the meeting was hurriedly reassembled, the text read again, and signing commenced with Hone Wiremu Hene Pokai (Hone Heke), one of the signatories to the 1835 Declaration. Some 40 chiefs signed on the first day. The Herald fired a 21-gun salute to mark the occasion. By September, more than 500 chiefs in different parts of the country had signed (including more than five women). Almost all of the chiefs signed copies of the Māori text of the Treaty. A number of districts were not approached and some notable chiefs refused to sign. For example, Te Heuheu from Ngāti Tūwharetoa (located around Taupō) refused 'to consent to the mana of a woman [the Queen] resting on these islands'.