History of New Zealand
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This article gives an outline of the history of New Zealand. See also the timeline of New Zealand history, the history of Oceania, and the history of present-day nations and states.
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Pre-European
New Zealand was originally settled by waves of Polynesians some time between 1000 and 1300, although some evidence suggests an earlier settlement. Settlers of main islands of New Zealand became the Maori people. Separate settlement of the tiny Chatham Islands in the east of New Zealand produced the Moriori people, but it is uncertain whether the Moriori ancestors came directly from Polynesia or were mainland Maori who ventured eastward.
Some of the Maori (particularly in the North Island), called their new homeland "Aotearoa", usually translated as "land of the long white cloud".
The original settlers were moa hunters. Moa were large flightless birds similar to ostriches and rheas. Moa were pushed to extinction in the 19th century or earlier, not being adapted to human or mammalian predation. 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 Maori tradition, arrived between 952 and 1150.
New Zealand has no native land mammals apart from some rare bats. Later Maori 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's ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen, which 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 "Nova Zeelanda." The name Nieuw Zeeland appeared on charts of the area shortly afterward, having earlier been applied to an island near New Guinea. Lieutenant James Cook of His Majesty's Barque Endeavour made a fuller reconnaissance, surveying the shores of both islands in 1769–1770. Cook returned to New Zealand in both his subsequent Pacific 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 Maori 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 a programme 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.
Colony
New Zealand became a British colony in 1840 following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the Crown and Maori chiefs. The Crown was represented by William Hobson, who was Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand. At that time New Zealand was a dependent colony of New South Wales.
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. Maori 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 Maori using muskets obtained from European whalers and traders (the Musket Wars of 1820–1835). 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.
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
The province of Southland (capital Invercargill) separated from but later re-joined Otago.
Already a majority of the population by 1859, the settlers, (called pakeha by Maori 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.
Maori population figures plummetted after 1820 due to tribal wars (the musket wars) and to unfamiliar diseases — measles, whooping cough, influenza and later typhoid — reducing an initial Maori population of perhaps 100,000 to 120,000 (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, Maori had lost most of their land, usually as a result of sales or of confiscations after armed conflict with the settler government.
Administered at first as a part of the Australian colony of New South Wales, New Zealand became a colony in its own right in 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, Maori won the right to a certain number of reserved 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.
Maori gradually recovered from population decline and, through interaction and intermarriage with settlers and missionaries, adopted much of European culture. In recent decades, Maori have become increasingly urbanised and have become more politically active and culturally assertive.
Dominion and Realm
New Zealand (like Fiji) 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 Boer War (1899 - 1902), World War I and World War II (see New Zealand in World War II). New Zealand's complete independence was formalised by the 1926 Balfour Declaration and the 1931 Statute of Westminster, ratified on November 25, 1947. The monarch of the United Kingdom remains the monarch of New Zealand, which has been an independent constitutional monarchy. In 1951, the Legislative Council was abolished as ineffectual, 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. The Constitution Act 1986 did away with the Statute of Westminster and 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 [New Zealand had] requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof".
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 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 (pakeha), and Maori, rather than "multicultural" like Australia or Canada. While cultural ties with Britain are still strong, with most pakeha 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 British 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 Maori 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. In 1986 the Constitution Act came into force, and 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. The current Labour government followed its November 1999 election success by outpolling National 41 per cent to 21 per cent in the July 2002 general election. Labour formed a coalition, minority government with Jim Anderton's Progressive Coalition, a left-wing party (subsequently named "Progressive Party") which holds two seats in Parliament. The coalition has a loose consultative agreement with United Future New Zealand, a small religious conservative party.
New Zealand was featured as the setting 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.
External links
- New Zealand (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11040a.htm) - Entry on New Zealand from the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia.
- History of New Zealand (http://www.historyofnations.net/oceania/newzealand.html) - Offers a history of New Zealnd.
- New Zealand in History (http://history-nz.org/) - An overview covering the pre-historic, colonial and modern periods.de:Geschichte Neuseelands