The history of New Zealand (
Aotearoa
''Aotearoa'' () is the current Māori-language name for New Zealand. The name was originally used by Māori in reference to only the North Island, with the name of the whole country being ''Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu'' ("North Island and South ...
) dates back to between 1320 and 1350 CE, when the main settlement period started, after it was discovered and settled by
Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
ns, who developed a distinct
Māori culture
Māori culture () is the customs, cultural practices, and beliefs of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand. It originated from, and is still part of, Polynesians, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture forms a distinctive part of Cul ...
. Like other Pacific cultures, Māori society was centred on kinship links and connection with the land but, unlike them, it was adapted to a cool, temperate environment rather than a warm, tropical one.
The first European explorer known to visit
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
was Dutch navigator
Abel Tasman on 13 December 1642. In 1643 he charted the west coast of the North Island, his expedition then sailed back to
Batavia
Batavia may refer to:
Historical places
* Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands
* Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...
without setting foot on New Zealand soil. British explorer
James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
, who reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of his three voyages, was the first European to circumnavigate and map New Zealand. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers.
In 1840 the
Treaty of Waitangi was signed between representatives of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
and various Māori
chiefs, bringing New Zealand into the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
and giving Māori the same rights as British subjects. Disputes over the differing translations of the Treaty and settler desire to acquire land from Māori led to the
New Zealand Wars
The New Zealand Wars took place from 1845 to 1872 between the New Zealand colonial government and allied Māori on one side and Māori and Māori-allied settlers on the other. They were previously commonly referred to as the Land Wars or the M ...
from 1843. There was extensive British settlement throughout the rest of the 19th century and into the early part of the next century. The effects of European infectious diseases, the New Zealand Wars and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to
Pākehā
Pākehā (or Pakeha; ; ) is a Māori term for New Zealanders primarily of European descent. Pākehā is not a legal concept and has no definition under New Zealand law. The term can apply to fair-skinned persons, or to any non-Māori New Ze ...
(European) ownership, and Māori became impoverished.
The colony gained
responsible government
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive bran ...
in the 1850s. From the 1890s the
New Zealand Parliament enacted a number of progressive initiatives, including
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
and
old age pensions. After becoming a self-governing
Dominion
The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire.
"Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...
with the British Empire in 1907, the country remained an enthusiastic member of the empire, and over 100,000 New Zealanders fought in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
as part of the
New Zealand Expeditionary Force
The New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) was the title of the military forces sent from New Zealand to fight alongside other British Empire and Dominion troops during World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). Ultimately, the NZE ...
. After the war, New Zealand signed the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
(1919), joined the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
, and pursued an independent foreign policy, while its defence was still controlled by Britain. When
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
broke out in 1939, New Zealand contributed to the defence of Britain and the
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
; the country contributed some 120,000 troops. From the 1930s the economy was highly regulated and an extensive
welfare state
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitabl ...
was developed. From the 1950s Māori began
moving to the cities in large numbers, and Māori culture
underwent a renaissance. This led to the development of a
Māori protest movement which in turn led to greater recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi in the late 20th century.
The country's economy suffered in the aftermath of the
1973 global energy crisis, the loss of New Zealand's biggest export market upon Britain's entry to the
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...
, and rampant inflation. In 1984, the
Fourth Labour Government
The Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand governed New Zealand from 26 July 1984 to 2 November 1990. It was the first Labour government to win a second consecutive term since the First Labour Government of 1935 to 1949. The policy agenda o ...
was elected amid a
constitutional and economic crisis. The interventionist policies of the
Third National Government were replaced by "
Rogernomics
In February 1985, journalists at the ''New Zealand Listener'' coined the term Rogernomics, a portmanteau of "Roger" and "economics" (by analogy with "Reaganomics"), to describe the neoliberal economic policies followed by Roger Douglas. Douglas ...
", a commitment to a
free market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any o ...
economy. Foreign policy after 1984 became more independent especially in pushing for a
nuclear-free zone. Subsequent governments have generally maintained these policies, although tempering the free market ethos somewhat.
Māori arrival and settlement
![Polynesian Migration](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Polynesian_Migration.svg)
New Zealand was first settled by
Polynesians
Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...
from
Eastern Polynesia
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...
. Genetic and archaeological evidence suggests that humans emigrated from
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
via southeast Asia to
Melanesia
Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea.
The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...
and then radiated eastwards into the Pacific in pulses and waves of discovery which gradually colonised islands from Samoa and Tonga all the way to Hawaii, the Marquesas, Easter Island, the
Society Islands
The Society Islands (french: Îles de la Société, officially ''Archipel de la Société;'' ty, Tōtaiete mā) are an archipelago located in the South Pacific Ocean. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country of the F ...
and, finally, New Zealand.
In New Zealand there are no human artifacts or remains dating earlier than the Kaharoa Tephra, a layer of volcanic debris deposited by the
Mount Tarawera
Mount Tarawera is a volcano on the North Island of New Zealand within the older but volcanically productive Ōkataina Caldera. Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured d ...
eruption around 1314 CE.
The 1999 dating of some
kiore (Polynesian rat) bones to as early as 100 CE
was later found to be an error; new samples of rat bone (and also of rat-gnawed shells and woody seed cases) mostly gave dates later than the Tarawera eruption with only three samples giving slightly earlier dates.
Pollen evidence of widespread forest fires a decade or two before the eruptions has been interpreted by some scientists as a possible sign of human presence, leading to a suggested first settlement period of 1280–1320 CE.
However, the most recent synthesis of archaeological and genetic evidence concludes that, whether or not some settlers arrived before the Tarawera eruption, the main settlement period was in the decades after it, somewhere between 1320 and 1350 CE, possibly involving a coordinated mass migration.
This scenario is also supported by a much debated, and now largely ignored, third line of evidence – traditional genealogies which point to 1350 AD as a probable arrival date for the main founding canoes from which most Māori trace their descent.
The descendants of these settlers became known as the
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
, forming a distinct culture of their own. The latter settlement of the tiny
Chatham Islands
The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...
in the east of New Zealand about 1500 CE produced the
Moriori; linguistic evidence indicates that the Moriori were mainland Māori who ventured eastward. There is no evidence of a
pre-Māori civilisation in mainland New Zealand.
The original settlers quickly exploited the abundant large game in New Zealand, such as
moa, which were large
flightless
Flightless birds are birds that through evolution lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant species, including the well known ratites (ostriches, emu, cassowaries, rheas, and kiwi) and penguins. The smallest flightless bird is the ...
ratite
A ratite () is any of a diverse group of flightless, large, long-necked, and long-legged birds of the infraclass Palaeognathae. Kiwi, the exception, are much smaller and shorter-legged and are the only nocturnal extant ratites.
The systematics ...
s pushed to
extinction
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
by about 1500. As moa and other large game became scarce or extinct, Māori culture underwent major change, with regional differences. In areas where it was possible to grow
taro
Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
and
kūmara
The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the bindweed or morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable. The young shoot ...
, horticulture became more important. This was not possible in the south of the South Island, but wild plants such as
fernroot were often available and
cabbage trees
Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nbs ...
were harvested and cultivated for food. Warfare also increased in importance, reflecting increased competition for land and other resources. In this period, fortified
pā
The word pā (; often spelled pa in English) can refer to any Māori village or defensive settlement, but often refers to hillforts – fortified settlements with palisades and defensive terraces – and also to fortified villages. Pā sites o ...
became more common, although there is debate about the actual frequency of warfare. As elsewhere in the Pacific,
cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...
was part of warfare.
![Famille Maori 1998-1361-139](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Famille_Maori_1998-1361-139.jpg)
Leadership was based on a system of chieftainship, which was often but not always hereditary, although chiefs (male or female) needed to demonstrate leadership abilities to avoid being superseded by more dynamic individuals. The most important units of pre-European Māori society were the
whānau or extended family, and the
hapū
In Māori and New Zealand English, a ' ("subtribe", or "clan") functions as "the basic political unit within Māori society". A Māori person can belong to or have links to many hapū. Historically, each hapū had its own chief and normally opera ...
or group of whānau. After these came the
iwi
Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...
or tribe, consisting of groups of hapū. Related hapū would often trade goods and co-operate on major projects, but conflict between hapū was also relatively common. Traditional Māori society preserved history
orally through narratives, songs, and chants; skilled experts could recite the tribal genealogies (''
whakapapa'') back for hundreds of years. Arts included whaikōrero (
oratory), song composition in multiple genres, dance forms including
haka, as well as weaving, highly developed wood carving, and
tā moko
' is the permanent marking or "tattoo" as traditionally practised by Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. It is one of the five main Polynesian tattoo styles (the other four are Marquesan, Samoan, Tahitian and Hawaiian).
(tattoois ...
(tattoo).
New Zealand has no native land mammals (apart from some rare bats) so birds, fish and sea mammals were important sources of protein. Māori cultivated food plants which they had brought with them from Polynesia, including
sweet potatoes (called kūmara),
taro
Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...
,
gourds, and
yams. They also cultivated the
cabbage tree Cabbage tree is a common name for several plant species:
* ''Andira inermis'', native to Central and South America
* Various members of the genus ''Cordyline'' native to New Zealand.
**''Cordyline australis'' (Cabbage tree)
**''Cordyline banksii'' ...
, a plant endemic to New Zealand, and exploited wild foods such as fern root, which provided a starchy paste.
Early contact periods
Early European exploration
The first Europeans known to reach New Zealand were the crew of Dutch explorer
Abel Tasman who arrived in his ships ''Heemskerck'' and ''Zeehaen''. Tasman anchored at the northern end of the
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
in
Golden Bay Golden Bay may refer to:
* Golden Bay / Mohua, a bay at the northern end of New Zealand's South Island
* Golden Bay (Malta), a bay and beach on the coastline of Malta
* Golden Bay High School, a high school in Takaka, New Zealand
* Golden Bay, Wes ...
(he named it Murderers' Bay) in December 1642, and sailed northward to
Tonga
Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...
following an attack by local Māori,
Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri
Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri is a Māori iwi (tribe) of New Zealand, who arrived on the ''Kurahaupō'' waka. In the 1600s the iwi settled northwestern South Island, becoming a major power in the region until the 1800s. In 1642, members of Ngāti Tūmat ...
. Tasman sketched sections of the two main islands' west coasts. Tasman called them ''Staten Landt'', after the ''
States General of the Netherlands
The States General of the Netherlands ( nl, Staten-Generaal ) is the supreme bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate () and the House of Representatives (). Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague.
The States ...
'', and that name appeared on his first maps of the country. In 1645 Dutch cartographers changed the name to ''Nova Zeelandia'' in Latin, from ''Nieuw Zeeland'', after the
Dutch province of ''
Zeeland''.
Over 100 years elapsed before Europeans returned to New Zealand; in 1769, British naval captain
James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
of
HM Bark ''Endeavour'' visited New Zealand, and coincidentally, only two months later, Frenchman
Jean-François de Surville, in command of his own expedition, reached the country. When Cook left on his first voyage, the
sealed orders
Sealed orders refer to directives presented to the commanding officer of a ship or squadron
Squadron may refer to:
* Squadron (army), a military unit of cavalry, tanks, or equivalent subdivided into troops or tank companies
* Squadron (aviation) ...
given to him by the
British Admiralty
The Admiralty was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of it ...
ordered him to proceed "...to the Westward between the Latitude beforementioned and the Latitude of 35° until’ you discover it, or fall in with the Eastern side of the Land discover’d by Tasman and now called ''New Zeland.''" He would return to New Zealand on both of his subsequent voyages of discovery.
Various claims have been made that New Zealand was reached by other non-Polynesian voyagers before Tasman, but these are not widely accepted. Peter Trickett, for example, argues in ''
Beyond Capricorn
''Beyond Capricorn: How Portuguese adventurers secretly discovered and mapped Australia and New Zealand 250 years before Captain Cook'' is a 2007 book by journalist Peter Trickett on the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia. Although its ...
'' that the Portuguese explorer
Cristóvão de Mendonça reached New Zealand in the 1520s, and the
Tamil bell
__NOTOC__
The Tamil Bell is a broken bronze bell discovered in approximately 1836 by missionary William Colenso. It was being used as a pot to boil potatoes by Māori women near Whangarei in the Northland Region of New Zealand.
The bell is 13&n ...
discovered by
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
William Colenso
William Colenso (17 November 1811 – 10 February 1899) FRS was a Cornish Christian missionary to New Zealand, and also a printer, botanist, explorer and politician. He attended the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and later wrote an accou ...
has given rise to a number of theories,
but historians generally believe the bell "is not in itself proof of early Tamil contact with New Zealand".
From the 1790s, the waters around New Zealand were visited by British, French and American
whaling
Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution.
It was practiced as an organized industry ...
,
sealing and trading ships. Their crews traded European goods, including guns and metal tools, for Māori food, water, wood,
flax
Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...
and
sex
Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones (ova, oft ...
. Māori were reputed to be enthusiastic and canny traders, even though the levels of technology, institutions and property rights differed greatly from the standards in European societies. Although there were some conflicts, such as the killing of French explorer
Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne in 1772 and the
destruction of the ''Boyd'' in 1809, most contact between Māori and European was peaceful.
Early European settlement
![Mission House at Kerikeri](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Mission_House_at_Kerikeri.jpg)
European (
Pākehā
Pākehā (or Pakeha; ; ) is a Māori term for New Zealanders primarily of European descent. Pākehā is not a legal concept and has no definition under New Zealand law. The term can apply to fair-skinned persons, or to any non-Māori New Ze ...
) settlement increased through the early decades of the 19th century, with numerous trading stations established, especially in the North Island.
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
was introduced to New Zealand in 1814 by
Samuel Marsden, who travelled to the
Bay of Islands where he founded a mission station on behalf of the Church of England's
Church Missionary Society
The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...
.
By 1840 over 20 stations had been established. From missionaries, the Māori learnt not just about Christianity but also about European farming practices and trades, and how to read and write.
Building on the work of the Church Missionary Society missionary
Thomas Kendall, beginning in 1820, linguist
Samuel Lee worked with Māori chief
Hongi Hika to transcribe the
Māori language
Māori (), or ('the Māori language'), also known as ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and ...
into written form.
In 1835 the country's first successful printing was two books from the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
produced by Church Missionary Society printer
William Colenso
William Colenso (17 November 1811 – 10 February 1899) FRS was a Cornish Christian missionary to New Zealand, and also a printer, botanist, explorer and politician. He attended the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and later wrote an accou ...
, translated into
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
by the
Rev. William Williams.
The first European settlement was at Rangihoua Pā where the first full-blooded European infant in the territory, Thomas Holloway King, was born on 21 February 1815 at the Oihi Mission Station near Hohi Bay in the Bay of Islands.
Kerikeri
Kerikeri () is the largest town in Northland, New Zealand. It is a tourist destination north of Auckland and north of the northern region's largest city, Whangarei. It is sometimes called the Cradle of the Nation, as it was the site of th ...
, founded in 1822, and
Bluff founded in 1823, both claim to be the oldest European settlements in New Zealand. Many European settlers bought land from Māori, but misunderstanding and different concepts of land ownership led to conflict and bitterness.
Māori response
The effect of contact on Māori 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 that frequently encountered Europeans, such as
Ngāpuhi in
Northland, underwent major changes.
Pre-European Māori had no distance weapons except for
tao
''Tao'' or ''Dao'' is the natural order of the universe, whose character one's intuition must discern to realize the potential for individual wisdom, as conceived in the context of East Asian philosophy, East Asian religions, or any other philo ...
(spears) and the introduction of the
musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually d ...
had an enormous impact on Māori warfare. Tribes with muskets would attack tribes without them, killing or enslaving many. As a result, guns became very valuable and Māori would trade huge quantities of goods for a single musket. From 1805 to 1843 the
Musket Wars raged until a new balance of power was achieved after most tribes had acquired muskets. In 1835, the peaceful
Moriori of the
Chatham Islands
The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...
were attacked, enslaved, and nearly exterminated by mainland
Ngāti Mutunga and
Ngāti Tama Māori. In the 1901 census, only 35 Moriori were recorded although the numbers subsequently increased.
Around this time, many Māori converted to Christianity.
In the 1840s, there were probably a higher percentage of Christians attending services among Māori than among people in the United Kingdom,
and their moral practices and spiritual lives were transformed. The
New Zealand Anglican Church, (the missionary church), was, and is, the largest Māori denomination. Māori made Christianity their own and spread it throughout the country often before European missionaries arrived.
Colonial period
The
Colony of New South Wales
The Colony of New South Wales was a colony of the British Empire from 1788 to 1901, when it became a State of the Commonwealth of Australia. At its greatest extent, the colony of New South Wales included the present-day Australian states of New ...
was founded by 1788. According to the future Governor, Captain
Arthur Phillip
Admiral Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first governor of the Colony of New South Wales.
Phillip was educated at Greenwich Hospital School from June 1751 unti ...
's amended Commission, dated 25 April 1787 the colony of New South Wales included "all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean within the latitudes of 10°37'S and 43°39'S" which included most of New Zealand except for the southern half of the South Island.
In 1825 with
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sepa ...
becoming a separate colony, the southern boundary of New South Wales was altered to the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean with a southern boundary of 39°12'S which included only the northern half of the North Island. However, these boundaries had no real impact as the New South Wales administration had little interest in New Zealand.
New Zealand was first mentioned in British statute in the
Murders Abroad Act 1817
The Murders Abroad Act 1817 (57 Geo 3, c 53) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It made it easier for a court to punish "murders or manslaughters committed in places not within His Majesty's dominions" ...
. It made it easier for a court to punish "murders or manslaughters committed in places not within His Majesty's
dominion
The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire.
"Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...
s", and the
Governor of New South Wales
The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the ...
was given increased legal authority over New Zealand. The jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court of New South Wales over New Zealand was initiated in the
New South Wales Act 1823, and lesser offences were included at that time. In response to complaints from missionaries, and a petition from Māori chiefs calling for King
William IV to be a "friend and guardian" of New Zealand about lawless sailors and adventurers in New Zealand, the
British Government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal Arms
, date_es ...
appointed
James Busby as
British Resident in 1832. In 1834 he encouraged Māori chiefs to assert their sovereignty with the signing of the
Declaration of Independence (') in 1835. The declaration was sent to King William IV and was recognised by Britain. Busby was provided with neither legal authority nor military support and was thus ineffective in controlling the
Pākehā (European) population.
Treaty of Waitangi
![Treatyofwaitangi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Treatyofwaitangi.jpg)
In 1839, the
New Zealand Company announced plans to buy large tracts of land and to establish colonies in New Zealand. This and the increased commercial interests of merchants in Sydney and London spurred the British Government to take stronger action.
Captain
William Hobson was sent to New Zealand by the British government with instructions to persuade Māori to cede their
sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
to the
British Crown
The Crown is the state (polity), state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, British Overseas Territories, overseas territories, Provinces and territorie ...
.
In reaction to the New Zealand Company's moves, on 15 June 1839 the issue of new
Letters Patent
Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...
expanded the territory of New South Wales to include all of New Zealand.
Governor of New South Wales
The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the ...
George Gipps was appointed
governor ''over'' New Zealand.
This represented the first clear expression of British intent to annex New Zealand.
On 6 February 1840, Hobson and about forty
Māori chiefs
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
signed the
Treaty of Waitangi at
Waitangi in the
Bay of Islands. The British subsequently took copies of the Treaty around the islands of New Zealand for signature by other chiefs. A significant number refused to sign or were not asked but, in total, more than five hundred Māori eventually signed.
The Treaty gave Māori sovereignty over their lands and possessions and all of the rights of British citizens. What it gave the British in return depends on the language-version of the Treaty used. The English version can be said to give the
British Crown
The Crown is the state (polity), state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, British Overseas Territories, overseas territories, Provinces and territorie ...
sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
over New Zealand; but in the Māori version, the Crown receives ''
kāwanatanga
''Kāwanatanga'' is a word in the Māori language of New Zealand, derived from the English word "governor". ''Kāwanatanga'' was first used in the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand, 1835. ''Kāwanatanga'' reappeared in 1840 in Article ...
'', which, arguably, is a lesser power (see
interpretations of the Treaty). The dispute over the "true" meaning and the intent of the signatories remains an issue.
Britain was motivated by the desire to forestall the New Zealand Company and other European
powers (
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
established a very small settlement at
Akaroa
Akaroa is a small town on Banks Peninsula in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand, situated within a harbour of the same name. The name Akaroa is Kāi Tahu Māori for "Long Harbour", which would be spelled in standard ...
in the
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
later in 1840), to facilitate
settlement by British subjects and, possibly, to end the lawlessness of European (predominantly British and American) whalers, sealers and traders. Officials and missionaries had their own positions and reputations to protect. Māori chiefs were motivated by a desire for protection from foreign powers, for the establishment of governorship over European settlers and traders in New Zealand, and for allowing wider European settlement that would increase trade and prosperity for Māori.
Governor Hobson died on 10 September 1842.
Robert FitzRoy, the new governor (in office: 1843–1845), took some legal steps to recognise Māori custom.
[
]
However, his successor,
George Grey
Sir George Grey, KCB (14 April 1812 – 19 September 1898) was a British soldier, explorer, colonial administrator and writer. He served in a succession of governing positions: Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Go ...
, promoted rapid
cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.
The different types of cultural assi ...
and reduction of the land-ownership, influence and rights of the Māori. The practical effect of the Treaty was, in the beginning, only gradually felt, especially in predominantly Māori regions, where the settler government had little or no authority.
Establishing the colony
![William Allsworth - The emigrants - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/William_Allsworth_-_The_emigrants_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
At first New Zealand was administered from Australia as part of the colony of New South Wales, and from 16 June 1840 New South Wales laws were deemed to operate in New Zealand. However, this was a transitional arrangement and in May 1841 New Zealand
became a colony in its own right.
Settlement continued under British plans, inspired by a vision of New Zealand as a new land of opportunity. In 1846, the British Parliament passed the
New Zealand Constitution Act 1846 for self-government for the 13,000 settlers in New Zealand. The new Governor,
George Grey
Sir George Grey, KCB (14 April 1812 – 19 September 1898) was a British soldier, explorer, colonial administrator and writer. He served in a succession of governing positions: Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Go ...
, suspended the plans. He argued that the Pākehā could not be trusted to pass laws that would protect the interests of the Māori majority – already there had been Treaty violations – and persuaded his political superiors to postpone its introduction for five years.
The
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
sponsored the
Canterbury Association colony with assisted passages from Great Britain in the early 1850s. As a result of the influx of settlers, the Pākehā population grew explosively from fewer than 1000 in 1831 to 500,000 by 1881. Some 400,000 settlers came from Britain, of whom 300,000 stayed permanently. Most were young people and 250,000 babies were born. The passage of 120,000 was paid by the colonial government. After 1880 immigration reduced, and growth was due chiefly to the excess of births over deaths.
New Zealand Company
The New Zealand Company was responsible for 15,500 settlers coming to New Zealand. Company prospectuses did not always tell the truth, and often colonists would only find out the reality once they had arrived in New Zealand. This private colonisation project was part of the reason that the British Colonial Office decided to speed up its plans for the annexation of New Zealand.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796–1862) exerted a far-reaching influence by helping create the New Zealand Company. Due to his conviction and three-year imprisonment for abducting an heiress, his role in forming the New Zealand Company was necessarily out of sight from the public. Wakefield's colonisation programmes were over-elaborate and operated on a much smaller scale than he hoped for, but his ideas influenced law and culture, especially his vision for the colony as the embodiment of post-
Enlightenment
Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to:
Age of Enlightenment
* Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
ideals, the notion of New Zealand as a model society, and the sense of fairness in employer-employee relations.
New Zealand Wars
![WilliamsNorthStar1845](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/WilliamsNorthStar1845.jpg)
Māori had welcomed Pākehā for the trading opportunities and guns they brought. However it soon became clear that they had underestimated the number of settlers that would arrive in their lands. ''
Iwi
Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...
'' (tribes) whose land was the base of the main settlements quickly lost much of their land and autonomy through government acts. Others prospered – until about 1860 the city of
Auckland
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...
bought most of its food from Māori who grew and sold it themselves. Many ''iwi'' owned flour mills, ships and other items of European technology, and some exported food to Australia for a brief period during the 1850s gold rush. Although race relations were generally peaceful in this period, there were conflicts over who had ultimate power in particular areas – the Governor or the Māori chiefs. One such conflict was the Northern or
Flagstaff War of the 1840s, during which
Kororareka
Russell, known as Kororāreka in the early 19th century, was the first permanent European settlement and seaport in New Zealand. It is situated in the Bay of Islands, in the far north of the North Island.
History and culture
Māori settle ...
was sacked.
As the Pākehā population grew, pressure grew on Māori to sell more land. Land was used communally but under the mana of chiefs. In Māori culture, there was no such idea as selling land until the arrival of Europeans. The means of acquiring land was to defeat another hapu or iwi in battle and seize their land. Te Rauparaha seized the land of many iwi in the lower North Island and upper South Island during the musket wars. Land was usually not given up without discussion and consultation. When an iwi was divided over the question of selling this could lead to great difficulties as at Waitara.
Pākehā had little understanding of Māori views on land and accused Māori of holding onto land they did not use efficiently. Competition for land was one important cause of the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s and 1870s, in which the
Taranaki
Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont.
The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...
and
Waikato regions were invaded by colonial troops and Māori of these regions had some of their land taken from them. The wars and confiscation left bitterness that remains to this day. After the conclusion of the wars some iwi, especially in the Waikato, such as Ngati Haua sold land freely.
Some iwi sided with the government and, later, fought with the government. 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
Māori electorates in the House of Representatives, in 1867.
After the wars, some Māori began a strategy of
passive resistance
Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, const ...
, most famously the ploughing campaigns at
Parihaka on 26 May 1879 in Taranaki. Most, such as NgaPuhi and Arawa continued co-operating with Pākehā. For example, tourism ventures were established by
Te Arawa around
Rotorua
Rotorua () is a city in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. The city lies on the southern shores of Lake Rotorua, from which it takes its name. It is the seat of the Rotorua Lakes District, a territorial authority encompass ...
. Resisting and co-operating iwi both found that Pākehā desire for land remained. In the last decades of the century, most iwi lost substantial amounts of land through the activities of the
Native Land Court. Due to its Eurocentric rules, the high fees, its location remote from the lands in question, and unfair practices by some Pākehā land agents, its main effect was to allow Māori to sell their land without restraint from other tribal members.
The effects of disease, as well as war, confiscations, assimilation and intermarriage, land loss leading to poor housing and alcohol abuse, and general disillusionment, caused a fall in the Māori 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.
Self-government, 1850s
![First Government House, Auckland](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/First_Government_House%2C_Auckland.jpg)
In response to increased petitioning for self-governance from the growing number of British settlers, the British Parliament passed the
New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, setting up a central government with an elected
General Assembly (Parliament) and six provincial governments. The General Assembly did not meet until 24 May 1854, 16 months after the Constitution Act had come into force.
Provinces were reorganised in 1846 and in 1853, when they acquired their own legislatures, and then abolished with effect in 1877. The settlers soon won the right to
responsible government
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive bran ...
(with an executive supported by a majority in the elected assembly). But the governor, and through him the Colonial Office in London, retained control of
native
Native may refer to:
People
* Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth
* Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory
** Native Americans (disambiguation)
In arts and entert ...
policy until the mid-1860s.
Farming and mining
The Māori tribes at first sold the land to the settlers, but the government voided the sales in 1840. Now only the government was allowed to purchase land from Māori, who received cash. The government bought practically all the useful land, then resold it to the
New Zealand Company, which promoted immigration, or leased it for sheep runs. The Company resold the best tracts to British settlers; its profits were used to pay the travel of the immigrants from Britain.
Because of the vast distances involved, the first settlers were self-sufficient farmers. By the 1840s, however, large scale sheep stations were exporting large quantities of wool to the textile mills of England. Most of the early settlers were brought over by a programme operated by the New Zealand Company and were located in the central region on either side of Cook Strait, and at Wellington, Wanganui, New Plymouth and Nelson. These settlements had access to some of the richest plains in the country and after refrigerated ships appeared in 1882, they developed into closely settled regions of small-scale farming. Outside these compact settlements were the sheep runs. Pioneer pastoralists, often men with experience as squatters in Australia, leased lands from the government at the annual rate of £5 plus £1 for each 1,000 sheep above the first 5,000. The leases were renewed automatically, which gave the wealthy pastoralists a strong landed interest and made them a powerful political force. In all between 1856 and 1876, 8.1 million acres were sold for £7.6 million, and 2.2 million acres were given free to soldiers, sailors and settlers. With an economy based on agriculture, the landscape was transformed from forest to farmland.
Gold discoveries in Otago (1861) and Westland (1865), caused a worldwide gold rush that more than doubled the population in a short period, from 71,000 in 1859 to 164,000 in 1863. The value of trade increased fivefold from £2 million to £10 million. As the gold boom ended,
Colonial Treasurer and later (from 1873) Premier
Julius Vogel borrowed money from British investors and launched in 1870 an ambitious programme of public works and infrastructure investment, together with a policy of assisted immigration. Successive governments expanded the program with offices across Britain that enticed settlers and gave them and their families one-way tickets.
From about 1865, the economy lapsed into a long depression as a result of the withdrawal of British troops, peaking of gold production in 1866 and Vogel's borrowing and the associated debt burden (especially on land). Despite a brief boom in wheat, prices for farm products sagged. The market for land seized up. Hard times led to urban unemployment and
sweated labour
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...
(exploitative labour conditions) in industry. The country lost people through emigration, mostly to Australia.
Vogel era
In 1870 Julius Vogel introduced his ''
grand go-ahead policy'' to dispel the slump with increased immigration and overseas borrowing to fund new railways, roads and telegraph lines. Local banks – notably the
Bank of New Zealand
Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) is one of New Zealand's Big Four (banking), big four banks and has been operating in the country since the first office was opened in Auckland in October 1861 followed shortly after by the first branch in Dunedin in D ...
and the
Colonial Bank of New Zealand — were "reckless" and permitted "a frenzy of private borrowing". The public debt had increased from £7.8 million in 1870 to £18.6 million in 1876. But of railway had been built with under construction. of road had been opened, and electric telegraph lines increased from in 1866 to in 1876. A record number of immigrants arrived in 1874 (32,000 of the 44,000 were government assisted) and the population rose from 248,000 in 1870 to 399,000 in 1876.
Women
![Tribute to the Suffragettes, close up](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Tribute_to_the_Suffragettes%2C_close_up.jpg)
Although norms of masculinity were dominant, strong minded women originated a
feminist movement
The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality b ...
starting in the 1860s, well before women gained the right to vote in 1893. Middle-class women employed the media (especially newspapers) to communicate with each other and define their priorities. Prominent feminist writers included
Mary Taylor,
Mary Colclough (pseud. Polly Plum), and
Ellen Elizabeth Ellis. The first signs of a politicised collective female identity came in crusades to pass the Contagious Diseases Prevention Act.
Feminists by the 1880s were using the rhetoric of "white slavery" to reveal men's sexual and social oppression of women. By demanding that men take responsibility for the right of women to walk the streets in safety, New Zealand feminists deployed the rhetoric of white slavery to argue for women's sexual and social freedom. Middle-class women successfully mobilised to stop prostitution, especially during the First World War.
Māori women developed their own form of feminism, derived from
Māori nationalism
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
rather than European sources.
In 1893
Elizabeth Yates was elected mayor of Onehunga, making her the first woman in the British Empire to hold the office. She was an able administrator: she cut the debt, reorganised the fire brigade, and improved the roads and sanitation. Many men were hostile however, and she was defeated for re-election. Hutching argues that after 1890 women were increasingly well organised through the
National Council of Women, the
Women's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...
, the
Women's International League
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...
, and others. By 1910 they were campaigning for peace, and against compulsory military training, and conscription. They demanded arbitration and the peaceful resolution of international disputes. The women argued that women-hood (thanks to motherhood) was the repository of superior moral values and concerns and from their domestic experience they knew best how to resolve conflicts.
Schools
Prior to 1877 schools were operated by the provincial government, churches, or by private subscription. Education was not a requirement and many children did not attend any school, especially farm children whose labour was important to the family economy. The quality of education provided varied substantially depending on the school. The
Education Act of 1877 created New Zealand's first free national system of primary education, establishing standards that educators should meet, and making education compulsory for children aged 5 to 15.
Immigration
![Scottish poster advertising emigration to New Zealand](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Scottish_poster_advertising_emigration_to_New_Zealand.jpg)
From 1840 there was considerable European settlement, primarily from England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland; and to a lesser extent the United States, India, China, and various parts of
continental Europe
Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
, including the province of
Dalmatia
Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see #Name, names in other languages) is one of the four historical region, historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of ...
in what is now
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
, and
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
in what is now the Czech Republic. Already a majority of the population by 1859, the number of Pākehā settlers increased rapidly to reach over one million by 1916.
In the 1870s and 1880s, several thousand Chinese men, mostly from
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
, migrated to New Zealand to work on the South Island goldfields. Although the first Chinese migrants had been invited by the
Otago
Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...
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.
Gold Rush and South Island growth
In 1861 gold was discovered at
Gabriel's Gully
Gabriel's Gully is a locality in Otago, New Zealand, three kilometres from Lawrence township and close to the Tuapeka River. It was the site of New Zealand's first major gold rush.
The discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully by Gabriel Read on 25 ...
in
Central Otago
Central Otago is located in the inland part of the Otago region in the South Island of New Zealand. The motto for the area is "A World of Difference".
The area is dominated by mountain ranges and the upper reaches of the Clutha River and tributa ...
, sparking a
gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
.
Dunedin
Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...
became the wealthiest city in the country and many in the South Island resented financing the North Island's wars. In 1865 Parliament defeated a proposal to make the South Island independent by 17 to 31.
The South Island was home to most of the Pākehā population until around 1911 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.
Scottish immigrants dominated the South Island and evolved ways to bridge the old homeland and the new. Many local Caledonian societies were formed. They organised sports teams to entice the young and preserved an idealised Scottish national myth (based on
Robert Burns) for the elderly. They gave Scots a path to assimilation and cultural integration as
Scottish New Zealander
Scottish New Zealanders are New Zealanders of Scottish ancestry or who originate from Scotland. The number of New Zealanders who are descended from Scots is unknown, as the New Zealand census asks for ethnicity, not ancestry, and most have now a ...
s. The settlement of Scots in the Deep South is reflected in the lasting predominance of
Presbyterianism
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
in the South Island.
1890–1914
Politics
![RichardSeddon1905](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/RichardSeddon1905.jpg)
The pre-war era saw the advent of
party politics
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
, with the establishment of the
Liberal Government Liberal government may refer to:
Australia
In Australian politics, a Liberal government may refer to the following governments administered by the Liberal Party of Australia:
* Menzies Government (1949–66), several Australian ministries under S ...
. The landed gentry and aristocracy ruled Britain at this time. New Zealand never had an aristocracy but it did have wealthy landowners who largely controlled politics before 1891. The Liberal Party set out to change that by a policy it called "populism".
Richard Seddon had proclaimed the goal as early as 1884: "It is the rich and the poor; it is the wealthy and the landowners against the middle and labouring classes. That, Sir, shows the real political position of New Zealand." The Liberal strategy was to create a large class of small land-owning farmers who supported Liberal ideals.
To obtain land for farmers the Liberal government from 1891 to 1911 purchased 3.1 million acres of Māori land. The government also purchased 1.3 million acres from large estate holders for subdivision and closer settlement by small farmers. The Advances to Settlers Act of 1894 provided low-interest mortgages, while the Agriculture Department disseminated information on the best farming methods.
The 1909 Native Land Act allowed the Māori to sell land to private buyers. Māori still owned five million acres by 1920; they leased three million acres and used one million acres for themselves. The Liberals proclaimed success in forging an egalitarian, anti-monopoly land policy. The policy built up support for the Liberal party in rural North Island electorates. By 1903 the Liberals were so dominant that there was no longer an organised opposition in Parliament.
The Liberal government laid the foundations of the later comprehensive
welfare state
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitabl ...
: introducing
old age pensions;
maximum hour regulations; pioneering
minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...
laws; and developing
a system for settling industrial disputes, which was accepted by both employers and trade unions, to start with. In 1893 it
extended voting rights to women, making New Zealand the first country in the world to enact
universal female suffrage.
New Zealand gained international attention for its reforms, especially how the state regulated labour relations. The impact was especially strong on the
reform movement in the United States.
Coleman argues that the Liberals in 1891 lacked a clear-cut ideology to guide them. Instead they approached the nation's problems pragmatically, keeping in mind the constraints imposed by democratic public opinion. To deal with the issue of land distribution, they worked out innovative solutions to access, tenure, and a graduated tax on unimproved values.
Economic developments
In the 1870s Julius Vogel's ''grand go-ahead policy'' of borrowing overseas had increased the public debt from £7.8 million in 1870 to £18.6 million in 1876, but had constructed many miles of railways, roads and telegraph lines and attracted many new migrants.
In the 1880s, New Zealand's economy grew from one based on wool and local trade to the export of wool, cheese, butter and frozen beef and mutton to Britain. The change was enabled by the invention of refrigerated steamships in 1882 and a result of the large market demands overseas. In order to increase production, alongside a more intensive use of factor inputs a transformation of production techniques was necessary. The required capital came mainly from outside of New Zealand. Refrigerated shipping remained the basis of
New Zealand's economy
The economy of New Zealand is a highly developed free-market economy. It is the 51st-largest national economy in the world when measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and the 63rd-largest in the world when measured by purchasing ...
until the 1970s. New Zealand's highly productive agriculture gave it probably the world's highest standard of living, with fewer at the rich and poor ends of the scale.
During this era () the banking system was weak and there was little foreign investment, so businessmen had to build up their own capital. Historians have debated whether the "long depression" of the late 19th century stifled investment, but the New Zealanders found a way around adverse conditions. Hunter has studied the experiences of 133 entrepreneurs who started commercial enterprises between 1880 and 1910. The successful strategy was to deploy capital economising techniques, and reinvesting profits rather than borrowing. The result was slow but stable growth that avoided bubbles and led to long-lived family owned firms.
Dominion and Realm
![Australian ogre 1900](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Australian_ogre_1900.jpg)
New Zealand initially expressed interest in joining the proposed
Federation
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...
of the Australian colonies, attending the 1891 National Australia Convention in Sydney. Interest in the proposed Australian Federation faded and New Zealand decided against joining the
Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. New Zealand instead changed from being a colony to a separate "Dominion" in 1907, equal in status to Australia and Canada. Dominion status was a public mark of the self-governance that had evolved over half a century through responsible government. Just under one million people lived in New Zealand in 1907 and cities such as Auckland and Wellington were growing rapidly.
Temperance and prohibition
In New Zealand,
prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
was a moralistic reform movement begun in the mid-1880s by the Protestant evangelical and Nonconformist churches and the
Women's Christian Temperance Union New Zealand
Women's Christian Temperance Union of New Zealand (WCTU NZ) is a non-partisan, non-denominational, and non-profit organization that is the oldest continuously active national organisation of women in New Zealand. The national organization began ...
and after 1890 by the
Prohibition League
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic be ...
.
[Greg Ryan, "Drink and the historians: sober reflections on alcohol in New Zealand 1840–1914", ''New Zealand Journal of History'' (April 2010) Vol.44, No.1] It never achieved its goal of national prohibition. It was a middle-class movement which accepted the existing economic and social order; the effort to legislate morality assumed that individual redemption was all that was needed to carry the colony forward from a pioneering society to a more mature one. However, both the Church of England and the largely Irish Catholic Church rejected prohibition as an intrusion of government into the church's domain, while the growing labour movement saw capitalism rather than alcohol as the enemy. Reformers hoped that the women's vote, in which New Zealand was a pioneer, would swing the balance, but the women were not as well organised as in other countries. Prohibition had a majority in a national referendum in 1911, but needed a 60% majority to pass. The movement kept trying in the 1920s, losing three more referenda by close votes; it managed to keep in place a 6 pm closing hour for pubs and Sunday closing (leading to the so-called
six o'clock swill). The Depression and war years effectively ended the movement.
First World War
The country remained an enthusiastic member of the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
. 4 August is the date the outbreak of World War I is marked in New Zealand.
During the war, more than 120,000 New Zealanders enlisted to the
New Zealand Expeditionary Force
The New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) was the title of the military forces sent from New Zealand to fight alongside other British Empire and Dominion troops during World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). Ultimately, the NZE ...
, and around 100,000 served overseas; 18,000 died, 499 were taken prisoner, and about 41,000 men were listed as wounded.
Conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...
had been in force since 1909, and while it was opposed in peacetime there was less opposition during the war. The labour movement was pacifistic, opposed the war, and alleged that the rich were benefiting at the expense of the workers. It formed the
New Zealand Labour Party
The New Zealand Labour Party ( mi, Rōpū Reipa o Aotearoa), or simply Labour (), is a centre-left political party in New Zealand. The party's platform programme describes its founding principle as democratic socialism, while observers descr ...
in 1916. Māori tribes that had been close to the government sent their young men to volunteer. Unlike in Britain, relatively few women became involved. Women did serve as nurses; 640 joined the services and 500 went overseas.
New Zealand forces captured
Western Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands ( Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands ( Manono and Apolima); a ...
from Germany in the early stages of the war,
and New Zealand administered the country until Samoan Independence in 1962. However Samoans greatly resented the imperialism, and blamed inflation and the catastrophic 1918 flu epidemic on New Zealand rule.
More than 2700 men died in the
Gallipoli Campaign.
The heroism of the soldiers in the failed campaign made their sacrifices iconic in New Zealand memory, and is often credited with securing the psychological independence of the nation.
Imperial loyalties
![ImperialConference](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/ImperialConference.jpg)
After the war New Zealand signed the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
(1919), joined the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
and pursued an independent foreign policy, while its defence was still controlled by Britain. New Zealand depended on Britain's Royal Navy for its military security during the 1920s and 1930s. Officials in Wellington trusted Conservative Party governments in London, but not Labour. When the British Labour Party took power in 1924 and 1929, the New Zealand government felt threatened by Labour's foreign policy because of its reliance upon the League of Nations. The League was distrusted and Wellington did not expect to see the coming of a peaceful world order under League auspices. What had been the Empire's most loyal dominion became a dissenter as it opposed efforts by the first and second British Labour governments to trust the League's framework of arbitration and collective security agreements.
The governments of the Reform and United parties between 1912 and 1935 followed a "realistic" foreign policy. They made national security a high priority, were sceptical of international institutions, and showed no interest on the questions of self-determination, democracy, and human rights. However the opposition Labour Party was more idealistic and proposed a liberal internationalist outlook on international affairs.
[D.J. McCraw, "The Zenith of Realism in New Zealand’s Foreign Policy", ''Australian Journal of Politics & History'' (2002) 48#3 pp 353–368.]
Labour movement
The Labour Party emerged as a force in 1919 with a socialist platform. It won about 25% of the vote.
However its appeals to working class solidarity were not effective because a large fraction of the working class voted for conservative candidates of the Liberal and Reform parties. (They merged in 1936 to form the
New Zealand National Party
The New Zealand National Party ( mi, Rōpū Nāhinara o Aotearoa), shortened to National () or the Nats, is a centre-right political party in New Zealand. It is one of two major parties that dominate contemporary New Zealand politics, alongside ...
.) As a consequence the Labour party was able to jettison its support for socialism in 1927 (a policy made official in 1951), as it expanded its reach into middle class constituencies. The result was a jump in strength to 35% in 1931, 47% in 1935, and peaking at 56% in 1938. From 1935 the
First Labour Government
The first MacDonald ministry of the United Kingdom lasted from January to November 1924. The Labour Party, under Ramsay MacDonald, had failed to win the general election of December 1923, with 191 seats, although the combined Opposition tall ...
showed a limited degree of idealism in foreign policy, for example opposing the appeasement of Germany and Japan.
Great Depression
Like many other countries, New Zealand suffered in the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
of the 1930s, which affected the country via its international trade, with steep decreases in farm exports subsequently affecting the money supply and in turn consumption, investment and imports. The country was most affected around 1930–1932, when average farm incomes for a short time dipped below zero, and the
unemployment rate peaked. Though actual unemployment numbers were not officially counted, the country was affected especially strongly in the North Island.
[
Malcolm McKinnon, ed., ''New Zealand Historical Atlas'' (David Bateman, 1997), Plate 79.
]
Unlike in later years, there were no public benefit (
"dole") payments – the unemployed were given "relief work", much of which was however not very productive, partly because the size of the problem was unprecedented. Women also increasingly registered as unemployed, while Māori received government help through other channels such as the land-development schemes organised by Sir
Āpirana Ngata
Sir Āpirana Turupa Ngata (3 July 1874 – 14 July 1950) was a prominent New Zealand statesman. He has often been described as the foremost Māori politician to have served in Parliament in the mid-20th century, and is also known for his work ...
, who served as
Minister of Native Affairs
Minister may refer to:
* Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric
** Minister (Catholic Church)
* Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department)
** Minister without portfolio, a member of government w ...
from 1928 to 1934. In 1933, 8.5% of the unemployed were organised in work camps, while the rest received work close to their homes. Typical occupations in relief work included road work (undertaken by 45% of all part-time and 19% of all full-time relief workers in 1934, with park improvement works (17%) and farm work (31%) being the other two most common types of work for part-time and full-time relief workers respectively).
Building the welfare state
![Michael Joseph Savage Portrait (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Michael_Joseph_Savage_Portrait_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Attempts by the
United–Reform Coalition
The United–Reform Coalition, also known as the National Political Federation from 1935, was a coalition between two of the three major parties of New Zealand, the United and Reform parties, from 1931 to 1936. The Coalition formed the Governmen ...
to deal with the situation with spending cuts and relief work were ineffective and unpopular. In 1935, the
First Labour Government
The first MacDonald ministry of the United Kingdom lasted from January to November 1924. The Labour Party, under Ramsay MacDonald, had failed to win the general election of December 1923, with 191 seats, although the combined Opposition tall ...
was elected, and the post-depression decade showed that average Labour support in New Zealand had roughly doubled comparable to pre-depression times. By 1935 economic conditions had improved somewhat, and the new government had more positive financial conditions.
Prime Minister
Michael Joseph Savage proclaimed that: "Social Justice must be the guiding principle and economic organization must adapt itself to social needs."
![Labour Cabinet, 1935](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Labour_Cabinet%2C_1935.jpg)
The new government quickly set about implementing a number of significant reforms, including a reorganisation of the social welfare system and the creation of the
state housing scheme. Labour also gained Māori votes by working closely with the
Rātana movement. Savage was idolised by the working classes, and his portrait hung on the walls of many houses around the country. The newly created
welfare state
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitabl ...
promised government support to individuals "from the cradle to the grave", according to the Labour slogan. It included free health care and education, and state assistance for the elderly, infirm, and unemployed. The opposition attacked the Labour Party's more left-wing policies, and accused it of undermining free enterprise and hard work. The Reform Party and the United Party merged to become the
National Party, and would be Labour's main rival in future years. However the welfare state system was retained and expanded by successive National and Labour governments until the 1980s.
1930s foreign policy
In foreign policy, the Labour Party in power after 1935 disliked the Versailles Treaty of 1919 as too harsh on Germany, opposed militarism and arms build-ups, distrusted the political conservatism of the
National Government A national government is the government of a nation.
National government or
National Government may also refer to:
* Central government in a unitary state, or a country that does not give significant power to regional divisions
* Federal governme ...
in Britain, sympathized with the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, and increasingly worried about threats from Japan. It denounced Italy's role in Ethiopia and sympathized with the republican forces in the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
. Those policies favoured the left but it also was pro-German. It consistently advocated negotiations with
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, signed a trade agreement with it, welcomed the Munich agreement of 1938 regarding the division of Czechoslovakia, discouraged public criticism of the Nazi regime, and pursued a slow rearmament programme. When
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
broke out in September 1939, it recommended to London a negotiated peace with Berlin; however after the fall of France in the spring of 1940, it did support the British war effort militarily and economically.
Second World War
![Dominion and Empire Forces in the United Kingdom, 1939-1945 H1830](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Dominion_and_Empire_Forces_in_the_United_Kingdom%2C_1939-1945_H1830.jpg)
When war broke out in 1939, New Zealanders saw their proper role as defending their proud place in the British Empire. It contributed some 120,000 troops. They mostly fought in North Africa, Greece/Crete, and Italy, relying on the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
and later the United States to protect New Zealand from the Japanese forces. Japan had no interest in New Zealand in the first place; it had already over-reached when it invaded New Guinea in 1942. (There were a few highly publicised but ineffective Japanese scouting incursions.) The
3rd New Zealand Division
The 3rd New Zealand Division was a division of the New Zealand Military Forces. Formed in 1942, it saw action against the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean Areas during the Second World War. The division saw action in the Solomon Islands campaign durin ...
fought in the Solomons in 1943–44, but New Zealand's limited manpower meant 2 Divisions could not be maintained, and it was disbanded and its men returned to civilian life or used to reinforce the 2nd Division in Italy. The armed forces peaked at 157,000 in September 1942; 135,000 served abroad, and 10,100 died.
![New Zealand - Her Natural and Industrial Resources Art](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/New_Zealand_-_Her_Natural_and_Industrial_Resources_Art.IWMPST16816.jpg)
New Zealand, with a population of 1.7 million, including 99,000 Māori, was highly mobilised during the war. The Labour party was in power and promoted unionisation and the welfare state. Agriculture expanded, sending record supplies of meat, butter and wool to Britain. When American forces arrived, they were fed as well.
The nation spent £574 million on the war, of which 43% came from taxes, 41% from loans and 16% from American
Lend Lease
Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...
. It was an era of prosperity as the national income soared from £158 million in 1937 to £292 million in 1944. Rationing and price controls kept inflation to only 14% during 1939–45.
Over £50 million was spent on defence works and military accommodation and hospitals, including of roads.
Montgomerie shows that the war dramatically increased the roles of women, especially married women, in the labour force. Most of them took traditional female jobs. Some replaced men but the changes here were temporary and reversed in 1945. After the war, women left traditional male occupations and many women gave up paid employment to return home. There was no radical change in gender roles but the war intensified occupational trends under way since the 1920s.
Post-war era
Labour to National
Labour remained in power after the Second World War and in 1945, Labour Prime Minister
Peter Fraser
Peter Fraser (; 28 August 1884 – 12 December 1950) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 24th prime minister of New Zealand from 27 March 1940 until 13 December 1949. Considered a major figure in the history of the New Zealand Lab ...
played an important role in the establishment of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, of which New Zealand was
a founding member. However, domestically Labour had lost the reforming zeal of the 1930s and its electoral support ebbed after the war. After Labour lost power in 1949, the conservative National Party began an almost continuous thirty-year stint in government, interrupted by single-term Labour governments in 1957 to 60 and 1972 to 75. National Prime Minister
Sidney Holland
Sir Sidney George Holland (18 October 1893 – 5 August 1961) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 25th prime minister of New Zealand from 13 December 1949 to 20 September 1957. He was instrumental in the creation and consolidation o ...
called
a snap election as a result of the
1951 waterfront dispute
The 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute was the largest and most widespread industrial dispute in New Zealand history. During the time, up to twenty thousand workers went on strike in support of waterfront workers protesting against financial ha ...
, an incident that reinforced National's dominance and severely weakened the union movement.
Cooperation with the United States set a direction of policy which resulted in the
ANZUS
The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS or ANZUS Treaty) is a 1951 non-binding collective security agreement between Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States, to co-operate on military ...
Treaty between New Zealand, America and Australia in 1951, as well as participation in the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
.
The British connection
Fedorowich and Bridge argue that the demands of the Second World War produced long-term consequences for New Zealand's relationship with the government in London. The key component was the office of the
high commissioner. By 1950 it was the main line of communications between the British and New Zealand governments.
1950s New Zealand culture was deeply British and conservative, with the concept of "fairness" holding a central role. New immigrants, still mainly British, flooded in while New Zealand remained prosperous by exporting farm products to Britain. In 1953 New Zealanders took pride that a countryman,
Edmund Hillary, gave
Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...
a
coronation gift by reaching the summit of Mount Everest.
From the 1890s, the economy had been based almost entirely on the export of frozen meat and dairy products to Britain, and in 1961, the share of New Zealand exports going to the United Kingdom was still at slightly over 51%, with approximately 15% going to other European countries.
[McKinnon, ed. ''New Zealand Historical Atlas'' – Plate 100]
The 1960s was a decade of rising prosperity for most New Zealanders, but from 1965 there were also protests – in support of women's rights and the nascent ecological movement, and against the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. New Zealand's involvement in the Vietnam War signalled a major breakaway from British influence even though it was brought about primarily because of New Zealand's obligations under the
ANZUS Treaty and growing concerns about Communist influences in the Asia-Pacific region. As a result, the United States pressured the governments of Australia and New Zealand to contribute to the war in Vietnam, eventually resulting in both nations sending forces, with New Zealand's first troops arriving in 1965. The Vietnam War was the first conflict that New Zealand entered that did not involve Britain or any other Commonwealth nations other than Australia. Although the war was largely unpopular in New Zealand, the conflict brought closer ties between New Zealand and the United States militarily, at least until 1986 when New Zealand was suspended from ANZUS due to its
anti-nuclear policy.
Irrespective of political developments, many New Zealanders still perceived themselves as a distinctive outlying branch of the United Kingdom until at least the 1970s. In 1973 Britain joined the European Community and abrogated its preferential trade agreements with New Zealand, forcing New Zealand to not only find new markets but also re-examine its national identity and place in the world.
Māori urbanisation
Māori always had a high birth rate; that was neutralised by a high death rate until modern public health measures became effective in the 20th century when tuberculosis deaths and infant mortality declined sharply. Life expectancy grew from 49 years in 1926 to 60 years in 1961 and the total numbers grew rapidly. Many Māori served in the Second World War and learned how to cope in the modern urban world; others moved from their rural homes to the cities to take up jobs vacated by Pākehā servicemen.
[McKinnon, ed. ''New Zealand Historical Atlas'' Plate 91] The shift to the cities was also caused by their strong birth rates in the early 20th century, with the existing rural farms in Māori ownership having increasing difficulty in providing enough jobs.
Māori culture had meanwhile undergone a renaissance thanks in part to politician
Āpirana Ngata
Sir Āpirana Turupa Ngata (3 July 1874 – 14 July 1950) was a prominent New Zealand statesman. He has often been described as the foremost Māori politician to have served in Parliament in the mid-20th century, and is also known for his work ...
. By the 1980s 80% of the Māori population was urban, in contrast to only 20% before the Second World War. The migration led to better pay, higher standards of living and longer schooling, but also exposed problems of racism and discrimination. By the late 1960s a
Māori protest movement had emerged to combat racism, promote Māori culture and seek fulfilment of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Urbanisation proceeded rapidly across the land. In the late 1940s, town planners noted that the country was "possibly the third most urbanised country in the world",
[Urban Development](_blank)
from a paper read to the New Zealand Branch, Town Planning Institute, 4 May 1949. Via New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
The New Zealand Electronic Text Collection (NZETC; mi, Te Pūhikotuhi o Aotearoa) is a freely accessible online archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts and heritage materials that are held by the Victoria University of Wellington Library ...
. Accessed 13 February 2008. with two-thirds of the population living in cities or towns. There was also increasing concern that this trend was badly managed, with it being noted that there was an "ill-defined urban pattern that appears to have few of the truly desirable urban qualities and yet manifests no compensating rural characteristics".
The Muldoon years, 1975–1984
![New Zealand Cabinet, 1981](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/New_Zealand_Cabinet%2C_1981.jpg)
The country's economy suffered in the aftermath of the 1973 global energy crisis, the loss of New Zealand's biggest export market upon Britain's entry to the
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...
, and rampant inflation.
Robert Muldoon
Sir Robert David Muldoon (; 25 September 19215 August 1992) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 31st Prime Minister of New Zealand, from 1975 to 1984, while leader of the National Party.
Serving as a corporal and sergeant in th ...
, Prime Minister from 1975 to 1984, and his
Third National Government responded to the crises of the 1970s by attempting to preserve the New Zealand of the 1950s. He attempted to maintain New Zealand's "cradle to the grave" welfare state, which dated to 1935. His government sought to give retirees 80% of the current wage, which would require large-scale borrowing; critics said it would bankrupt the treasury. Muldoon's response to the crisis also involved imposing a total freeze on wages, prices, interest rates and dividends across the national economy.
[Barry Gustafson, ''His Way: A Biography of Robert Muldoon'' (2000) ch 21]
Muldoon's conservatism and antagonistic style exacerbated an atmosphere of conflict in New Zealand, most violently expressed during the
1981 Springbok Tour
The 1981 South African rugby tour (known in New Zealand as the Springbok Tour, and in Republic of South Africa, South Africa as the Rebel Tour) polarised opinions and inspired widespread protests across New Zealand. The controversy also extende ...
. In the 1984 elections Labour promised to calm down the increasing tensions, while making no specific promises; it scored a landslide victory.
However, Muldoon's government was not entirely backward looking. Some innovations did take place, for example the
Closer Economic Relations
The Australia–New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, commonly known as Closer Economic Relations (CER), is a free trade agreement between the governments of New Zealand and Australia. It came into force on 1 January 1983, but ...
(CER) free-trade programme with Australia to liberalise trade, starting in 1982. The aim of total free trade between the two countries was achieved in 1990, five years ahead of schedule.
The radical 1980s reforms
In 1984, the
Fourth Labour Government
The Fourth Labour Government of New Zealand governed New Zealand from 26 July 1984 to 2 November 1990. It was the first Labour government to win a second consecutive term since the First Labour Government of 1935 to 1949. The policy agenda o ...
, led by
David Lange
David Russell Lange ( ; 4 August 1942 – 13 August 2005) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 32nd prime minister of New Zealand from 1984 to 1989.
Lange was born and brought up in Otahuhu, the son of a medical doctor. He became ...
, was elected amid a
constitutional and economic crisis. The crisis led the incoming government to review New Zealand's constitutional structures, which resulted in the
Constitution Act 1986. In power from 1984 to 1990, the Labour government launched a major programme of restructuring the economy, radically reducing the role of government. A political scientist reports:
Between 1984 and 1993, New Zealand underwent radical economic reform, moving from what had probably been the most protected, regulated and state-dominated system of any capitalist democracy to an extreme position at the open, competitive, free-market end of the spectrum.
![Roger Douglas, 1965](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Roger_Douglas%2C_1965.jpg)
The economic reforms were led by
Roger Douglas
Sir Roger Owen Douglas (born 5 December 1937) is a retired New Zealand politician who served as a minister in two Labour governments. He became arguably best known for his prominent role in New Zealand's radical economic restructuring in the 198 ...
, finance minister from 1984 to 1988. Dubbed
Rogernomics
In February 1985, journalists at the ''New Zealand Listener'' coined the term Rogernomics, a portmanteau of "Roger" and "economics" (by analogy with "Reaganomics"), to describe the neoliberal economic policies followed by Roger Douglas. Douglas ...
, it was a rapid programme of deregulation and public-asset sales. Subsidies to farmers and consumers were phased out. High finance was partly deregulated. Restrictions on foreign exchange were relaxed and the dollar was allowed to float and seek its natural level on the world market. The tax on high incomes was cut in half from 65% to 33%. The shares exchange entered a bubble,
which then burst, with the total value of shares falling from $50 billion in 1987 to $15 billion in 1991; at one point the crash was "the worst in world". Economic growth fell from 2% a year to 1%. Douglas's reforms resembled the contemporaneous policies of
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
in Britain and
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
in the United States.
Strong criticism of Rogernomics came from
the left, especially from Labour's traditional trade union support-base; Lange broke with Douglas's policies in 1987; both men were forced out and Labour was in confusion.
In keeping with the mood of the 1980s
the government sponsored liberal policies and initiatives in a number of social areas; this included
Homosexual Law Reform, the introduction of '
no-fault divorce
In a no-fault divorce the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party. Laws providing for no-fault divorce allow a family court to grant a divorce in response to a petition by either party of the marriage w ...
', reduction in the
gender pay gap
The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. There are two distinct numbers regarding the pay gap: non-adjusted ...
and the drafting of a
Bill of Rights. Immigration policy was liberalised, allowing an influx of immigrants from Asia; previously most immigrants to New Zealand had been European and especially British.
The
Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Act 1985 enabled the
Waitangi Tribunal
The Waitangi Tribunal (Māori: ''Te Rōpū Whakamana i te Tiriti o Waitangi'') is a New Zealand permanent commission of inquiry established under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. It is charged with investigating and making recommendations on cla ...
to investigate
claims of breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi going back to 1840, and to settle grievances.
The Fourth Labour Government revolutionised New Zealand's foreign policy, making the country a
nuclear-free zone and effectively withdrawing from the ANZUS alliance. The
French intelligence service's
sinking of the ''Rainbow Warrior'', and the diplomatic ramifications following the incident, did much to promote the anti-nuclear stance as an important symbol of New Zealand's
national identity.
Continuing reform under National
Voters unhappy with the rapid speed and far-reaching extent of reforms elected a
National government A national government is the government of a nation.
National government or
National Government may also refer to:
* Central government in a unitary state, or a country that does not give significant power to regional divisions
* Federal governme ...
in 1990, led by
Jim Bolger. However the new government continued the economic reforms of the previous Labour government, in what was known as
Ruthanasia. Unhappy with what seemed to be a pattern of governments failing to reflect the mood of the electorate, New Zealanders in 1992 and 1993 voted to
change the electoral system to
mixed-member proportional
Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...
(MMP), a form of
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
. New Zealand's
first MMP election was held in 1996. Following the election National was returned to power in coalition with the
New Zealand First
New Zealand First ( mi, Aotearoa Tuatahi), commonly abbreviated to NZ First, is a nationalist and populist political party in New Zealand. The party formed in July 1993 following the resignation on 19 March 1993 of its leader and founder, Winst ...
party.
With the end of the Cold War in 1991, the nation's foreign policy turned increasingly to issues of its nuclear-free status and other military issues, its adjustment to neoliberalism in international trade relations, and its involvement in humanitarian, environmental and other matters of international diplomacy.
21st century
In the 21st century, international
tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...
was a major contributor to the
New Zealand economy
The economy of New Zealand is a highly developed free-market economy. It is the 51st-largest national economy in the world when measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and the 63rd-largest in the world when measured by purchasing p ...
, until it was brought almost to a halt by the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
in 2020, and the service sector more generally has grown. Meanwhile, the traditional
agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
exports of meat, dairy and wool have been supplemented by other products such as fruit, wine and timber as the economy has diversified.
2000s and 2010s
![Helen Clark and John Key-3, UNDP](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Helen_Clark_and_John_Key-3%2C_UNDP.jpg)
The
Fifth Labour Government
The Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand was the government of New Zealand from 10 December 1999 to 19 November 2008. Labour Party leader Helen Clark negotiated a coalition with Jim Anderton, leader of the Alliance Party. While undertaking ...
led by
Helen Clark
Helen Elizabeth Clark (born 26 February 1950) is a New Zealand politician who served as the 37th prime minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, and was the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. She was ...
was formed following the
December 1999 election. In power for nine years, it maintained most of the previous governments' economic reforms – restricting government intervention in the economy much more so than previous governments – while putting more emphasis on social policy and outcomes. For example, employment law was modified to give more protection to workers, and the
student loan system was changed to eliminate interest payments for New Zealand resident students and graduates.
New Zealand retains strong but informal links to Britain, with many young New Zealanders travelling to Britain for their "OE" (
overseas experience
Overseas Experience (OE) is a New Zealand term for an extended overseas working period or holiday. Sometimes referred to as "The big OE" in reference to the extended duration of the travel - typically at least one year, and often extended far longe ...
) due to favourable working visa arrangements with Britain. Despite New Zealand's immigration liberalisation in the 1980s, Britons are still the largest group of migrants to New Zealand, due in part to recent immigration law changes that privilege fluent speakers of English. One constitutional link to Britain remains – New Zealand's head of state, the
Queen in Right of New Zealand, is a British resident. However, British imperial honours were discontinued in 1996, the
governor-general
Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...
has taken a more active role in representing New Zealand overseas, and appeals from the
Court of Appeal
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...
to the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is the highest court of appeal for the Crown Dependencies, the British Overseas Territories, some Commonwealth countries and a few institutions in the United Kingdom. Established on 14 Augus ...
were replaced by a local
Supreme Court of New Zealand
The Supreme Court of New Zealand ( mi, Te Kōti Mana Nui, lit=Court of Great Mana) is the highest court and the court of last resort of New Zealand. It formally came into being on 1 January 2004 and sat for the first time on 1 July 2004. It re ...
in 2003. There is public debate about whether New Zealand should
become a republic, with public sentiment divided on the issue.
Foreign policy has been essentially independent since the mid-1980s. Under Prime Minister Clark, foreign policy reflected the priorities of liberal internationalism. She stressed the promotion of democracy and human rights, the strengthening of the role of the United Nations, the advancement of anti-militarism and disarmament, and the encouragement of free trade. She sent troops to the
War in Afghanistan, but did not contribute combat troops to the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
, although some medical and engineering units were sent.
John Key led the National Party to victory in the
November 2008. Key became Prime Minister of the
Fifth National Government
Neville Chamberlain formed the Chamberlain war ministry in 1939 after declaring war on Germany. Chamberlain led the country for the first eight months of the Second World War, until the Norway Debate in Parliament led Chamberlain to resign a ...
, which entered government at the beginning of the
late-2000s recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...
. In February 2011, a
major earthquake in Christchurch, the nation's third-largest urban area, significantly impacted the national economy and the government formed the
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA; Māori: ''Te Mana Haumanu ki Waitaha'') was the public service department of New Zealand charged with coordinating the rebuild of Christchurch and the surrounding areas following the 22 Februar ...
in response. In foreign policy, Key announced the withdrawal of
New Zealand Defence Force
The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF; mi, Te Ope Kātua o Aotearoa, "Line of Defence of New Zealand") are the armed forces of New Zealand. The NZDF is responsible for the protection of the national security of New Zealand and her realm, prom ...
personnel
from their deployment in the war in Afghanistan, and signed the
Wellington Declaration
The "Wellington Declaration" (otherwise known as the Declaration of Wellington) was a manifesto by King Charles I near the start of the English Civil War.
On 18 September 1642, before the first major pitched battle of Civil War, King Charles I ra ...
with the United States.
A
Labour-led coalition Government led by
Left-leaning Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern was formed in October 2017. Among other issues, it hoped to tackle a burgeoning
housing shortage crisis in New Zealand.
On 15 March 2019, a lone terrorist shooter
attacked two mosques during
Friday Prayer
In Islam, Friday prayer or Congregational prayer ( ar, صَلَاة ٱلْجُمُعَة, ') is a prayer ('' ṣalāt'') that Muslims hold every Friday, after noon instead of the Zuhr prayer. Muslims ordinarily pray five times each day according ...
, killing 51 people and injuring 40 more,
and
live streamed
Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but ...
the attack. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who referred to the attack as "one of New Zealand's darkest days", led efforts to support the Muslim community and
ban semi-automatic rifles.
2020s
The COVID-19 pandemic, which reached New Zealand in early 2020, has
seriously affected the country. In March 2020, borders and entry ports of New Zealand were closed to all non-residents. A national
lockdown was imposed by the government, beginning on 25 March 2020, with all restrictions (except border controls) lifted on 9 June. The government's elimination approach has been praised internationally. The government has a planned response to the projected
severe economic impact from the pandemic.
The
2020 general election
The following elections were scheduled to occur in 2020. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems maintains a comprehensive list of upcoming elections on its E-Guide Platform. The National Democratic Institute also maintains a calend ...
resulted in a victory for the Labour Party—the first outright majority for a single party since the introduction of MMP.
During the 2020 election there were two referendums, to legalise recreational cannabis and to legalise voluntary euthanasia. The
cannabis referendum was rejected and the
euthanasia referendum was supported.
See also
*
Bibliography of New Zealand history
*
Europeans in Oceania
*
History of Oceania
The History of Oceania includes the history of Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and other Pacific island nations.
Prehistory
The prehistory of Oceania is divided into the prehistory of each of its major areas: Poly ...
*
Military history of New Zealand
The military history of New Zealand is an aspect of the history of New Zealand that spans several hundred years. When first settled by Māori people, Māori almost a millennium ago, there was much land and resources, but war began to break out a ...
*
Māori history
*
Natural history of New Zealand
The natural history of New Zealand began when the landmass Zealandia broke away from the supercontinent Gondwana in the Cretaceous period. Before this time, Zealandia shared its past with Australia and Antarctica. Since this separation, the New Z ...
*
Timeline of New Zealand history
This is a timeline of the history of New Zealand that includes only events deemed to be of principal importance – for less important events click the year heading or refer to List of years in New Zealand.
Prehistory (to 1000 CE)
* 85 mya ...
*
Timeline of nursing history in Australia and New Zealand
*
Timeline of the New Zealand environment
This is a timeline of environmental history of New Zealand. It includes notable events affecting the natural environment of New Zealand as a result of human activity.
Pre 1700s
14th century-
*Arrival of Māori who brought with them the kiore r ...
References
Bibliography
*
Further reading
*
*
*
* Hunter, Ian, and Marie Wilson. "Origins and opportunity: 150 years of New Zealand entrepreneurship." ''Journal of Management & Organization'' 13.4 (2007): 295–311
online*
Michael King (2003) ''The Penguin History of New Zealand''. Immensely popular, this well-written and comprehensive single-volume history is probably the best place to start for those new to New Zealand history.
* Loveridge, Steven. "Another Great War? New Zealand interpretations of the First World War towards and into the Second World War" ''First World War Studies'' (2016), pp. 303–25.
*
*
* Parsons, Gwen. "The New Zealand Home Front during World War One and World War Two". ''History Compass'' 11.6 (2013): 419–428.
*
* Smith, Philippa Mein. ''A Concise History of New Zealand'' (Cambridge Concise Histories) (2nd ed. 2012) 368pp; a survey by a leading scholar
excerpt and text search*
Keith Sinclair
Sir Keith Sinclair (5 December 1922 – 20 June 1993) was a New Zealand poet and historian.
Academic career
Sinclair was the oldest child of Ernest Duncan Sinclair and Florence Pyrenes Kennedy. Born and raised in Auckland, Sinclair was a stu ...
, ed., (1996) ''The Oxford Illustrated History of New Zealand''. Shorter than most recent general histories and with many good illustrations.
* First published in 1959, this is a classic of New Zealand history. The latest, 5th edition of 2000, brings the content up to the 1990s with extra content by History Professor Raewyn Dalziel.
*
Ranginui Walker
Ranginui Joseph Isaac Walker (1 March 1932 – 29 February 2016) was an influential New Zealand academic, author, and activist of Māori and Lebanese descent. "I think he was ''the'' Māori commentator for a very long period," his biographer, ...
(2004), ''Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End''. The only general history written from a Māori perspective; fair, informative and interesting.
External links
New Zealand in History– an overview of pre-historic, colonial and modern periods.
– entry on New Zealand from the 1911 edition
New Zealand Official Yearbookannual 1893–2008
Waitangi Treaty Grounds websiteNZHistory.net.nz– New Zealand history website from th
Ministry for Culture and Heritage including an ever-growing number of multimedia features on a wide range of topics.
Early New Zealand Books Collection– 260 searchable books 1805–1870
New Zealand Journal of History– 1967– except latest issues
Map of Early 19th Century Missions in New Zealand
{{DEFAULTSORT:History of New Zealand