NEW ZEALANDHISTORY

2. EUROPEANS TO 1840

ABEL TASMAN 1642• In 1642 the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman made the first

confirmed European discovery of New Zealand. • He charted the country’s west coast from about Hokitika

up to Cape Maria van Diemen. • A Dutch map maker gave the name Nieuw Zeeland to

the land Tasman had discovered. • A surprisingly long time – 127 years – passed before

another European reached New Zealand.

JAMES COOK 1769• James Cook first visited New Zealand in 1769, on the

first of three voyages. • He circumnavigated and mapped both main islands and

returned to Britain with reports about the country’s inhabitants and resources.

AN AUSTRALIAN OUTPOST• For 50 years after Sydney was founded in 1788, New

Zealand was an economic and cultural outpost of New South Wales, and most of the earliest European settlers came from Sydney. • In the late 18th century sealers and whalers began

visiting; by the early 19th century some began to settle, and some to farm. • During these years, New Zealand was part of a Pacific-

wide trade system, and New Zealand goods were sold in China.

MAORI - EUROPEAN INTERACTION• The first European ‘town’ grew at Kororāreka when whalers

began calling into the Bay of Islands for food and water. • From the 1790s, Māori produced pork and potatoes for this

trade. • The other main area of early interaction between Māori

and others was the Foveaux Strait sealing grounds. • The presence of traders drew Māori to particular places;

having a European living among them gave some tribal groups an advantage in the race to acquire European goods, especially firearms.

MISSIONARIES• A Sydney chaplain, Samuel Marsden, founded the first

Christian mission station in the Bay of Islands in 1814. • By 1840 over 20 stations had been established. From

missionaries, Māori learnt not just about Christianity but also about European farming techniques and trades, and how to read and write. • The missionaries also transcribed the Māori language into

written form. • In the 1830s, French missionaries brought Catholicism to

Māori.

BOOKS AND BULLETS• The missionaries brought literacy as well as Christianity to the

Māori. • The missionary William Yate began printing in Māori in the

early 1830s. The Church Missionary Society later sent a trained printer, William Colenso, and a proper press to Paihia, enabling complete books to be printed. • By 1837 the full New Testament in Māori was available.

However, some Māori were more interested in acquiring the lead type to cast bullets than in the books the missionaries printed.

INTER-TRIBAL WARS• Christianity would become important for Māori, but they

were slow to convert. • Muskets, traded for flax and potatoes, had a greater impact

in the 1820s and 1830s than religion, and escalated the killings in tribal conflicts. • The Ngāpuhi tribe, led by Hongi Hika, devastated southerly

tribes, and Ngāti Toa, under Te Rauparaha, attacked Ngāi Tahu in the South Island. • But diseases introduced by Europeans caused more

fatalities than firearms.