History

The history of New Zealand dates back at least seven hundred years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians. Europeans visited the country in 1642 and began to settle in large numbers from the 1840s.

Polynesian Beginnings

New Zealand is one of the most recently settled major land masses. The first New Zealand settlers were Eastern Polynesians who came to New Zealand, probably in a series of migrations, between around 800 and 1300 AD. The population was divided into hapu (subtribes) which would co-operate, compete and sometimes fight with each other. As was usual in Polynesia, when resources became more scarce, conflict increased and warfare took place. A new and indigenous culture, which would be known as Maori, had developed, although strongly based on, and akin to the cultures of Eastern Polynesia. At some point a group of Maori migrated to the Chatham Islands where they developed their own distinct culture, known as the Moriori.

The Arrival of the First Explorers

The first Europeans known to reach New Zealand were the crew of Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who arrived with his ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen. Tasman anchored at the northern end of the South Island in December 1642 but sailed northward to Tonga following a clash with local Maori. Tasman sketched sections of the two main islands' west coasts. Tasman called them Staten Landt, which appeared on his first maps of the country. Dutch cartographers changed the name to Nova Zeelandia in Latin which derived from Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch (after the Dutch province of Zeeland). It was subsequently Anglicised as New Zealand by British naval captain James Cook of the HM Bark Endeavour who visited the islands more than 100 years after Tasman (1769-1770). Cook returned to New Zealand on both of his subsequent voyages.

From the 1790s, the waters around New Zealand were visited by British, French and American whaling and trading ships. Their crews traded European goods, including guns and metal tools, for Maori food, water, wood, flax and sex. Maori were reputed as enthusiastic and canny traders. Although there were some conflicts, such as the killing of French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne and the destruction of the Boyd, most contact between Maori and European was peaceful. European Settlement

From the 1800s missionaries began settling in New Zealand and attempting to convert Maori to Christianity and control the somewhat lawless European visitors.

European settlement increased through the early decades of the nineteenth century, with numerous trading stations established, especially in the North. Many Europeans bought land from Maori, but misunderstanding and different concepts of land ownership led to conflict and bitterness.

The impact of contact on Maori varied. In some inland areas life went on more or less unchanged, although a European metal tool such as a fish-hook or hand axe might be acquired through trade with other tribes. At the other end of the scale, tribes which frequently encountered Europeans, such as Nga Puhi in Northland, underwent major changes. Pre-European Maori had no distance weapons, and so the introduction of the musket had an enormous impact on Maori warfare. Tribes with muskets would attack tribes without them, killing or enslaving many. As a result, guns became very valuable, and Maori would trade huge quantities of goods for a single musket. The Musket Wars died out in the 1830s after most tribes had acquired muskets and so a balance of power was achieved.

British Sovereignty

In 1788 the colony of New South Wales had been founded, which included "all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean" and running westward on the continent to the 135th meridian. Until 1840, this technically included New Zealand, but this had no real impact as the New South Wales administration had little interest in New Zealand.

In response to complaints about lawless white sailors and adventurers in New Zealand, the British government appointed James Busby as Official Resident in 1832. In 1834, he encouraged Maori chiefs to assert their sovereignty with the signing of the "Declaration of Independence" in 1835. This was acknowledged by King William IV. Busby was provided with neither authority nor military support, and was thus ineffective in controlling the European population.

1840: Treaty of Waitangi

In 1839, the New Zealand Company announced its plans to establish colonies in New Zealand. This and the continuing lawlessness of many of the established settlers spurred the British to take stronger action. Captain William Hobson was sent to New Zealand to persuade Maori to cede their sovereignty to the British Crown.

On 6 February 1840, Hobson and about forty Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. Copies of the Treaty were subsequently taken around the country to be signed by other chiefs. A significant number refused to sign or were not asked, but in total more than five hundred Maori eventually signed.

The Treaty itself was short, consisting of only three articles. The first article of the English version grants the Queen of the United Kingdom sovereignty over New Zealand. The second article guarantees to the chiefs continued chieftainship and ownership of their lands and treasures (taonga). It also specifies that Maori will sell land only to the Crown. The third article guarantees to all Maori the same rights as all other British subjects.

However, the English and Maori versions differ, which has made it difficult to interpret the Treaty and continues to undermine its effect to this day. The most critical difference revolves around the interpretation of two Maori words, kawanatanga (literally, governorship) which is ceded to the Queen in the first article and rangatiratanga (literally chieftainship) which is retained by the chiefs in the second. Few Maori had good understanding of either sovereignty or 'governorship' and some question whether Maori fully understood that they were ceding sovereignty to the British Crown. The issue is further complicated by the fact that, at the time, Maori society was an oral rather than literate one. Maori present at the signing of the Treaty would have placed more value and reliance on what Hobson and the missionaries said, rather than the words of the actual Treaty.

Britain was motivated by the desire to forestall other European powers (France established a very small settlement at Akaroa in the South Island later in 1840) and to end the lawlessness of European (predominantly British) whalers and traders. Maori chiefs were motivated by a desire for protection from foreign powers, the establishment of governship over European settlers and traders in New Zealand, and to allow for wider settlement which would increase trade and prosperity for Maori.

Hobson died in September 1842. Robert FitzRoy, the new governor, took some legal steps to recognise Maori custom. However his successor, George Grey, promoted rapid cultural assimilation. The practical effect of the Treaty was only gradually felt, especially in predominantly Maori regions.

1841-1907: Colonial Period

Administered in 1840 as a part of the Australian colony of New South Wales, New Zealand became a colony in its own right on 3 May 1841. It was divided into provinces, which were reorganised in 1846 and 1853, when they acquired their own legislatures, and abolished in 1876. The country rapidly gained some measure of self-government through the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, which established central and provincial government.

Immigration

From 1840 there was considerable European settlement, primarily from England, Scotland and Wales, but also from Ireland and to a lesser extent the United States, India, and various parts of continental Europe, including the province of Dalmatia in what is now Croatia and Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic. Already a majority of the population by 1859, white settlers, (called Pakeha by Maori), multiplied to reach a million by 1911.

In the 1870s and 1880s, several thousand Chinese men, mostly from the Guangdong province, migrated to New Zealand to work on the South Island goldfields. Although the first Chinese migrants had been invited by the Otago Provincial government, they quickly became the target of hostility from white settlers, and laws were enacted specifically to discourage them from coming to New Zealand.

Maori Adaptation and Resistance

Maori had initially welcomed Pakeha for the trading opportunities they brought. However it soon became clear that they had underestimated the number of settlers that would arrive in their lands. Iwi (tribes) whose land was the base of the main settlements quickly lost much of their land and autonomy. Others prospered; until about 1860, the city of Auckland bought most of its food from Maori who grew and sold it themselves. Many iwi owned flour mills, ships and other items of European technology, and some exported food to Australia. Although race relations were generally peaceful in this period, there were some conflicts over who had ultimate power in particular areas: the Governor or the Maori chiefs. One such conflict was the Northern or Flagstaff War of the 1840s, in which the town of Kororareka was destroyed.

As the Pakeha population increased, pressure grew on Maori to sell more land. A few tribes had become nearly landless, and others were fearful of losing theirs. As well as an economic resource, land is the basis of Maori identity and a connection with the ancestors. Pakeha had little understanding of this, and accused Maori of holding onto land which they did not use efficiently. Competition for land was a primary cause of the New Zealand Land Wars of the 1860s and 1870s, in which the Waikato and Taranaki regions were invaded by colonial troops and Maori of these regions had much of their land taken from them. The wars and confiscation have left a legacy of bitterness which remains to this day.

Some iwi fought on the government side. They were motivated partly by the thought that an alliance with the government would benefit them, and partly by old feuds with the iwi they fought against. One result of their co-operation strategy was the establishment of the four Maori seats in parliament, in 1867.

Following the wars, some Maori began a strategy of passive resistance, most famously at Parihaka in Taranaki. Others continued co-operating with Pakeha, for example tourism ventures were established by Te Arawa around Rotorua. Resisting and co-operating iwi both found that the Pakeha desire for land had not gone away. In the last decades of the century most iwi lost substantial amounts of land through the Native Land Court. This was set up to give Maori land European-style titles and establish exactly who owned it. Due to its Eurocentric rules, high fees, locations remote from the lands in question, and unfair practice by many Pakeha land agents, its main effect was to directly or indirectly separate Maori from their land.

The combination of war, disease, land loss leading to poor housing and alcohol abuse, and general disillusionment caused a fall in the Maori population from around 86,000 in 1769 to around 70,000 in 1840 and around 48,000 by 1874, hitting a low point of 42,000 in 1896. Subsequently their numbers began to recover.

South Island

While the North Island was convulsed by the Land Wars, the South Island, with its low Maori population, was peaceful. In 1861, gold was discovered at Gabriel's Gully in Central Otago, sparking a gold rush. Dunedin became the wealthiest city in the country, and many in the South Island resented financing the North Island's war. In 1865, Parliament voted on whether to make the South Island independent, but this proposal was defeated 17 to 31.

The South Island contained most of the Pakeha population until around 1900 when the North Island again took the lead and has supported an ever greater majority of the country's total population through the twentieth and into the twenty-first.

New Zealand in the 1890s

Major changes occurred in this decade. The economy ceased to be based on wool and local trade and became based on the export of frozen meat and dairy products to Britain. This change was enabled by the invention of refrigerated shipping, which allowed foodstuff to be transported over long distances. Refrigerated shipping remained the basis of New Zealand's economy until the 1970s.

The decade also saw the advent of party politics with the establishment of the First Liberal government. This government established the basis of the welfare state, with old age pensions; developed a system for settling industrial disputes which was accepted by both employers and unions; and extended voting rights to women, making New Zealand the first country in the world to enact universal female suffrage.

1907 to Present Day: New Zealand as a Dominion and Realm

New Zealand decided against joining the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, and instead changed from being a colony to a separate "dominion" in 1907, equal in status to Australia and Canada. The country remained an enthusiastic member of the British Empire, and many New Zealanders fought in World War I. NZ forces took Western Samoa from Germany in the early stages of the war, and New Zealand administered the country until Samoan Independence in 1962.

1930's: Depression

Like most other countries, New Zealand was hard hit by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Attempts by the conservative Liberal-Reform coalition to deal with the situation with spending cuts and relief work were ineffective and unpopular. In 1935, the First Labour Government was elected and established a full welfare state, which included free healthcare and education and state assistance for the elderly, infirm, and unemployed. The programme was retained and expanded by successive National governments.

World War II

When the Second World War broke out, New Zealand again contributed many troops. They mostly fought in Europe, relying on the British Navy and later the United States to protect New Zealand from the Japanese forces. This began a policy of co-operation with the United States which resulted in the ANZUS Treaty between New Zealand, America and Australia in 1951.

Many Maori fought in World War II, and many others moved from their rural homes to the cities to take up jobs vacated by Pakeha servicemen. The Maori population had increased in the early twentieth century and the culture had undergone a renaissance thanks in part to politician Apirana Ngata. World War II saw the beginning of a mass Maori migration to the cities, and by the 1980s 80% of the Maori population was urban, in contrast to only 20% before the war. The migration led to better pay, standards of living and education for most Maori, but also exposed problems of racism and discrimination. By the late 1960s, a protest movement had emerged to combat racism, promote Maori culture and seek fulfilment of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Late 20th Century New Zealand

The Maori protest movement was just one of several movements which emerged at this time to challenge the conservatism of mainstream New Zealand culture. This culture, and the country's economy, was based on being an offshoot of Britain. From the 1890s, the economy had been based almost entirely on the export of frozen meat and dairy products to Britain. This system was irreparably damaged by Britain joining the European Economic Community in 1973. Britain's accession to the European Community forced New Zealand to not only find new markets, but also re-examine its national identity and place in the world.

In 1984, the Fourth Labour government was elected, and embarked on a major campaign of restructuring, cutting government spending, reducing most taxes, floating the New Zealand dollar and removing many subsidies. Although many of these changes improved the economy, they also created widespread unemployment, which was made worse by the 1987 stock market crash.

Unhappy with the speed and extent of reforms, voters elected a new National government in 1990. However the new government continued the reforms. Unhappy with what seemed to be a pattern of governments failing to reflect the mood of the electorate, New Zealanders changed the electoral system to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), a form of proportional representation. New Zealand's first MMP election was held in 1996.

The Fourth Labour Government also revolutionised New Zealand's foreign policy, making the country a nuclear-free zone and effectively leaving the ANZUS alliance. Immigration policy was liberalised, allowing an influx of immigrants from Asia. Previously most immigrants to New Zealand had been European and especially British, apart from some migrants from other Pacific Islands such as Samoa. Other fourth Labour government innovations included greater recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi through the Waitangi Tribunal, and Homosexual Law Reform.

New Zealand Today

The Fifth Labour government, elected in 1999, maintained most of the previous governments' reforms. However more effort was made towards protecting vulnerable members of society. For example employment law was modified to give more protection to workers, and the student loan system was reformed to reduce (and eventually eliminate) interest payments.

New Zealand retains strong but informal links to Britain, with many young New Zealanders travelling to Britain for their "OE" (Overseas experience). The British are the largest group of migrants to New Zealand, thanks in part to recent immigration law changes which privilege fluent speakers of English. However foreign policy has been essentially independent since the mid 1980s. New Zealand did not contribute troops to the Iraq War, although some medical and engineering units were sent.

For a developed country, New Zealand's economy is still very dependent on farming, although the old trinity of meat, dairy and wool has been supplemented by fruit, wine, timber and other products. Tourism is a major industry, and the country has been successful in attracting several major film productions, most notably the Lord of the Rings trilogy, directed by New Zealander Peter Jackson.