History of New Zealand

The history of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians. Europeans visited the country in 1642 but it wasn't until the 1840s onward that it experienced large scale European migrations.

Pre-European contact

New Zealand was originally settled by waves of Polynesians some time between 1000 and 1300 CE, although some evidence suggests earlier settlement. The descendants of these settlers created a distinct culture and became known as the Māori. Separate settlement of the tiny Chatham Islands in the east of New Zealand produced the Moriori people; linguistic evidence (see Clark 1994 cited in References below) indicates that the Moriori were mainland Māori who ventured eastward. Some of the Māori (particularly in the North Island), called their new homeland "Aotearoa" ("land of the long white cloud").

The original settlers were moa hunters. Moa were large flightless birds similar to ostriches and rheas that were pushed to extinction in the 19th century or earlier. Before the coming of humans, the moa were the prey of the harpagornis or Haast's eagle, the largest bird of prey ever recorded. Harpagornis became extinct along with its prey. The moa-hunters may have merged with later waves of Polynesians who, according to Māori tradition, arrived between 952 and 1150.

New Zealand has no native land mammals, apart from some rare bats. Later Māori largely subsisted by cultivating the kumara, a type of sweet potato, which they had brought with them from Polynesia, and the cabbage tree. Cannibalism, as elsewhere in the Pacific, played a very small part in the diet.

European 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 Māori. Tasman sketched sections of the two main islands' west coasts. Tasman called them Staten Landt and that name 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. 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.

Whalers and sealers

From the 1790s, the waters around New Zealand were visited by British, French, and American whaling ships, whose crews sometimes came into conflict with Māori inhabitants. The arrival of traders and missionaries in the 1800s and 1810s added to local disputes. The first full-blooded European infant in the territory, Thomas King, was born in 1815 in the Bay of Islands. The initiation of large-scale settlement and land purchases in 1839 by the New Zealand Company, coupled with increasing French interest in the islands, finally prompted the British government to take control of the situation.

Pre Treaty Of Waitangi

Immigration of British settlers continued in the early 19th century. This remained largely unregulated or controlled by British authorities. Also in this period Missionaries began arriving to spread Christianity to the local Māori population. Samuel Marsden being the first person to deliver a Christian service on Christmas Day 1814 at Oihi, Rangihoua Bay in the Bay of Islands.

Following growing tensions between local Māori and the increasing settler population, the James Busby was appointed Official Resident in New Zealand in 1832. This move was supported by the Missionary population who sought to bring British institutions to complement their Christian teachings.

In 1834 James Busby encouraged Māori chiefs to assert their sovereignty with the signing of the "Declaration of Independence" in 1835. This assertion of sovereignty became an important legal vehicle. English Common Law requires that for a nation to claim sovereignty over another nation, that nation must be either discovered or cede sovereignty to said claimant nation. Thus as the Māori had clearly already discovered New Zealand, it was important for their sovereignty to have been asserted in order for it to be ceded.

Treaty Of Waitangi

The key founding document of modern New Zealand was the Treaty of Waitangi signed on 6th February 1840, between Britain and Māori chiefs. Britain was represented by William Hobson who had arrived in January 1840 with instructions to negotiate with Māori to cede sovereignty over as much of the country as he saw fit.

Britain was motivated by the desire to forestall other European powers (France established a very small settlement on Banks Peninsula in the South Island at Akaroa also in 1840) and to end the lawlessness of European (predominantly British) whalers and traders. Māori chiefs were motivated by the promises of protection of their existing possessions (which was only partially carried out) and by the promise of protection against other Māori using muskets obtained from European whalers and traders (the Musket Wars of 1820–1835).

Two versions of the treaty were created, an English and a version translated into Māori by the missionary Henry Williams. Historians have debated the differences between the Māori and English translations. Māori recognised that the Treaty gave the Crown rights of governance. However historians debate whether this extended to their own affairs (rather than those of the settlers) or whether Māori understood the yielding of sovereignty contained in the English version of the Treaty. Māori society valued the spoken word, and Hobson's explanations were probably as important as the document.

Hobson and others stressed the Treaty's benefits while playing down the effects of British sovereignty on rangatiratanga (often translated as chieftainship or authority, which was promised to the chiefs in Article II of the Māori Treaty text). Reassured that their mana and authority would be strengthened, many rangatira (chiefs) supported the agreement. Some chiefs signed while remaining uncertain. Others refused, or had no chance to sign.

Dispute over the true meaning and intent of either party remains an issue to this day.

The Colonial Office declared that the Treaty applied even to communities that had not signed. But how British sovereignty and Māori authority would work together remained to be worked out in practice. Sovereignty was proclaimed over the country on 21 May 1840, and in 1841 it became a separate colony.

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

An early settler, Frederick Edward Maning, wrote two colourful contemporaneous accounts of life at that time which have become classics of New Zealand literature: Old New Zealand and History of the War in the North of New Zealand against the Chief Heke.

Colonial Period

A key individual in New Zealand history at the time was the Governor of New Zealand, George Grey, appointed initially from 1845 to 1853, Grey was again appointed Governor in 1861 following the granting of a degree of self-governance to New Zealand by the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, serving until 1868 before his nomination as Premier in 1877, in which capacity he served until 1879.

Considerable European settlement followed, principally from England, but also from Scotland (especially in the south of the South Island) and from Ireland. The early European settlers established provinces. From south to north:

In the South Island:
- Otago (settled from 1848), capital Dunedin
- Canterbury (settled from 1850), capital Christchurch
- Westland
- Nelson, capital Nelson
- Marlborough, capital Blenheim
In the North Island:
- Wellington (settled from 1840), capital Wellington
- Taranaki, capital New Plymouth
- Auckland (settled from 1840), capital Auckland
- Hawke's Bay, capital Napier

The province of Southland (capital Invercargill) separated from but later re-joined Otago.

Already a majority of the population by 1859, the settlers, (called pākehā by Māori who were in turn called New Zealanders by the settlers), multiplied to reach a million by 1911.

Political separation of the two islands was an issue in the 1860s. The more populous North Island was riven by war and political turmoil while the South Island was prospering, especially after gold was discovered (1861) at Gabriel's Gully in Central Otago. The South Island grew very tired of financially supporting the North Island while receiving very little in return. The feeling was particularly bitter between Auckland and Otago where Dunedin journalist, Julius Vogel began a strong campaign to make the South Island completely independent. The matter was put to a vote in Parliament on September 19, 1865. Seventeen members voted for separation and 31 for unity, so New Zealand remained united. Vogel later became Prime Minister of a united New Zealand.

The South Island contained most of the white 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 20th century and into the 21st.

Māori population figures plummeted after 1820 due to tribal wars (the musket wars) and to unfamiliar diseases — measles, whooping cough, influenza and later typhoid — reducing an initial Māori population of perhaps 120,000 to 100,000 (lower than many contemporary figures, which probably overestimated densities in the South Island) to only 62,000 by 1857 and 44,000 in 1891. Recovery began slowly (though three decades earlier than among Australia's still worse-affected Aborigines), with numbers reviving steadily after the setback of the 1918 influenza pandemic. By 1900 also, Māori had lost most of their land, usually as a result of sales or of confiscations after armed conflict with the settler government.

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.

Self-government was granted to the settler population in 1852, under the UK Parliament's New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, with a General Assembly consisting of an appointed Legislative Council and an elected House of Representatives. In 1867, Māori won the right to a certain number of reserved Māori seats in parliament. During this period, the livestock industry began to expand, and the foundations of New Zealand's modern economy took shape. By the end of the 19th century, improved transportation facilities made possible a great overseas trade in wool, meat, and dairy products.

By the 1890s, parliamentary government along democratic lines was well-established, and New Zealand's social institutions assumed their present form. In 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant women voting rights in national elections. The turn of the century brought sweeping social reforms that built the foundation for New Zealand's version of the welfare state.

Māori gradually recovered from population decline and, through interaction and intermarriage with settlers and missionaries, adopted much of European culture. In recent decades, Māori have become increasingly urbanised and have become more politically active and culturally assertive.

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. New Zealand retained an avowed loyalty to the British Empire of which it formed a part, and contributed proportionally large numbers of troops to aid Britain in the Second Boer War (1899 - 1902), World War I and World War II (see New Zealand in World War II). The independence of New Zealand and the other dominions, was recommended by the 1926 Balfour Declaration and implemented in the 1931 Statute of Westminster which was ratified on November 25, 1947. The last barrier to complete legislative freedom was also removed in 1947 with the passage through the British Parliament of the New Zealand Constitution (Amendment) Act, giving the New Zealand Parliament the power to modify its own constitution. The act also created New Zealand an independent constitutional monarchy, with the monarch of the United Kingdom remaining the monarch of New Zealand. New Zealand's monarchy is legally separate from that of the United Kingdom.

In 1951, the New Zealand Legislative Council was abolished as ineffectual, an act that required an amendment to the New Zealand Constitution Act, and thereby creating a unicameral legislature.

In 1983 the term dominion was replaced with realm by letters patent and the Queen was given a formal relationship with the Executive Council that mirrors her relationship with the Privy Council in the United Kingdom.

Confronted like Australia with the strategic implications of Britain's 20th-century eclipse as a world power of the first rank, New Zealand joined with Australia and the United States in the ANZUS pact in 1951, but the US suspended its defence commitments to the country in 1986 after the then Labour government banned nuclear-powered or armed ships from New Zealand ports.

Until 1973, New Zealand had close economic ties with Britain, enjoying preferential access to the British market for exports of its lamb and dairy products. This was abruptly ended by British entry into the European Community, and New Zealand was forced to restructure its economy and look to the neighbouring Asia Pacific region for export markets. In 1985 New Zealand concluded a Closer Economic Relations (CER) Agreement with Australia, and has also participated in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, hosting its meeting in 1999.

The Asia Pacific region has also increasingly displaced Britain as a source of immigrants. Traditionally, New Zealand has regarded itself as "bicultural", composed of those of European descent (pākehā), and Māori, rather than "multicultural" like Australia or Canada. While cultural ties with Britain are still strong, with most pākehā overwhelmingly being of British origin, even they no longer regard it as "home" or "the mother country". However, when National Prime Minister Jim Bolger suggested in 1994 that New Zealand should follow Australia in severing links with the monarchy and becoming a republic, this enjoyed little popular support, although his Labour successor Helen Clark has also expressed support for such a move.

In recent years the government has sought to address long-standing Māori grievances. Parliament established a Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 to hear claims of official violations of the Treaty of Waitangi, and in 1985 the Tribunal gained the right to consider Crown actions dating back to 1840. A programme of widespread economic de-regulation and privatisation of public enterprises undertaken by the Labour government of 1984 - 1990 continued under its National Party successors.

The Constitution Act 1986 came into effect on 1 January 1987. Until that date the Parliament of the United Kingdom could legally pass laws for New Zealand if it was "expressly declared in that Act that Zealand had requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof". The act repealed and replaced the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 and the Statute of Westminster (Adoption) Act 1947; thus repealing the ability for the British parliament to pass laws for New Zealand, a legal possibility that had remained in theory but had only been exercised once with the New Zealand Constitution (Amendment) Act back in 1947.

In 1993 the majority of New Zealanders decided to change the electoral system from the British system of single member constituencies elected by 'first past the post', to a form of proportional representation called Mixed Member Proportional (MMP).

In October 1990, the National Party again formed the government, for the first of three, three-year terms. In 1996 New Zealand elected its first MMP Parliament. The system was designed to increase representation of smaller parties in Parliament and appears to have done so. Since 1996, neither the National nor the Labour Party has had an absolute majority in Parliament, and for all but one of those years, the government has been a minority one.

Post 2000

The current Labour government followed its November 1999 election success by substantially outpolling National in the July 2002 general election, and increasing its share of party vote again in the 2005 election, although with a much narrower margin. Helen Clark became the first Labour Leader to give her party three terms since World War II. Labour has formed coalitions with the Alliance and then Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition, and been supported to varying degrees by the United Future, New Zealand First and Green parties.

New Zealand was featured as the filming location for "Middle-earth" in the renowned early 21st century trilogy of films based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books. It has brought an additional interest in tourism to the nation.

References

Clark, Ross (1994). Moriori and Maori: The Linguistic Evidence. In Sutton, Douglas G. (Ed.) (1994), The Origins of the First New Zealanders. Auckland: Auckland University Press, pp. 123–-135.

External links

History of New Zealand - Offers a history of New Zealand.
New Zealand in History - An overview of pre-historic, colonial and modern periods.
Catholic Encyclopedia - Entry on New Zealand from the 1911 edition.
NZHistory.net.nz - New Zealand history website from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage - includes an ever-growing list of multimedia features on a wide range of topics.
Official site of Treaty of Waitangi.