• New Zealand:
• History

New Zealand - History

The Polynesian ancestors of the present Maori, skilled navigators of canoes fitted with sails and outriggers, arrived in New Zealand around the 10th century from Hawaiki (Eastern Polynesia). The Maori population may have been over 100,000 at the time the first Europeans arrived. The Dutchman Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 in his search for the southern continent, i.e. Antarctica, but was driven off by Maori on his one attempt to land. He named the South Island Nieuw Zeeland after the Dutch province.

James Cook, on a search for the southern continent combined with general scientific and navigational observation, sighted the North Island in 1769. He circumnavigated both islands and charted the shores. He visited the country twice more, in 1773–74 and in 1777. His encounters with Maori were usually peaceful, though occasional skirmishes resulted in one Maori and ten European deaths. Jean de Surville (France) arrived in the country in the mid-1770s; his relations with the Maori, bad from the beginning, ended in the deaths of 25 of his men and the subsequent massacre of over 200 Maori. Cook’s good reports attracted sealers and traders, some from the new community in Sydney (established in 1788 as Port Jackson, a penal settlement), and whalers came from America, Britain and France.

With extensive European arrival, the Maori suffered severely from influenza, dysentery and diphtheria, to which they had no resistance. In 1814 the Maori were taken under the protection of the British monarch, but this protection was not always effective in practice. In 1828 the jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales was extended to New Zealand whose population of European and European-descended settlers was estimated at 2,000 by 1839. Pressure from settlers, traders and missionaries led to intervention by Britain. On 14 January 1840 the Governor of New South Wales proclaimed British sovereignty over New Zealand and appointed a governor. Under the Treaty of Waitangi (6 February 1840) the Maori received the full rights and privileges of British subjects, and 46 Maori chiefs ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria, in exchange for retaining ownership of their natural resources. The treaty has been widely interpreted and is now applied in all aspects of New Zealand public life, notably in organisation and employment practice.

When New Zealand became a British territory in 1840, it was divided into two provinces. Twelve years later the number of provinces was increased to six (and later increased still further) and a general assembly established, consisting of the governor, a nominated Legislative Council (an upper house) and an elected House of Representatives (a lower house). This bicameral system lasted until 1950. Maori-occupied land was governed according to Maori custom.

Immigration from Britain increased in the mid-19th century, and by 1858 settlers outnumbered Maori. A census of Maori, in 1857–58, put their numbers at about 56,000. Pressure to acquire land from reluctant Maori led to land wars from 1860 to 1872, which resulted in general but not absolute European domination. Sheep farming was expanded in the late 1840s. Wool overtook timber and flax as export commodities and in 1882 the first ship carrying refrigerated meat sailed for England. There was gold mining on the South Island during the 1860s; this attracted considerable European immigration but ended in a slump.

During the 1890s a series of laws turned New Zealand into what was probably the most socially advanced state in the world. New Zealand women were the first in the world to be enfranchised, obtaining the vote in 1893. Men had been enfranchised in 1890, the year of the country’s first general election. From 1936 the country developed into a pioneering welfare state.

In 1907, New Zealand became a Dominion – in effect an acknowledgement of its independence, which was formally recognised by the Statute of Westminster in 1931. In 1947 the last restrictions on the right of its parliament to amend its constitution were removed.