To combat negative notions about New Zealand, the company used books, pamphlets and broadsheets to promote the country as ‘a Britain of the South’, a fertile land with a benign climate, free of starvation, class war and teeming cities. Agents spread the good news around the rural areas of southern England and Scotland.
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When did the British move to New Zealand?
Whalers, missionaries, and traders followed, and in 1840 Britain formally annexed the islands and established New Zealand’s first permanent European settlement at Wellington.
Why did settlers come to New Zealand?
Māori settlement
The first settlers probably arrived from Polynesia between 1200 and 1300 AD. They discovered New Zealand as they explored the Pacific, navigating by the ocean currents, winds and stars.
How did the British treat the Māori?
The British preferred a peaceful arrangement to taking control of New Zealand by force, and the queen’s government offered the Maori chiefs its support and all privileges as the queen’s subjects. This was the Treaty of Waitangi, signed by 46 Maori chiefs on February 6, 1840.
Who was in NZ before the Māori?
Before that time and until the 1920s, however, a small group of prominent anthropologists proposed that the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands represented a pre-Māori group of people from Melanesia, who once lived across all of New Zealand and were replaced by the Māori .
What did the British want from New Zealand?
Britain was motivated by the desire to forestall the New Zealand Company and other European powers (France established a very small settlement at Akaroa in the South Island later in 1840), to facilitate settlement by British subjects and, possibly, to end the lawlessness of European (predominantly British and American)
Who originally settled New Zealand?
Māori were the first to arrive in New Zealand, journeying in canoes from Hawaiki about 1,000 years ago. A Dutchman, Abel Tasman, was the first European to sight the country but it was the British who made New Zealand part of their empire.
Why did the British want the Treaty of Waitangi?
Reasons why chiefs signed the treaty included wanting controls on sales of Māori land to Europeans, and on European settlers. They also wanted to trade with Europeans, and believed the new relationship with Britain would stop fighting between tribes.
What did the British want from the Māori?
The chiefs would give up ‘sovereignty’; Britain would take over the purchasing of land; Māori would have the protection and all rights and privileges of British subjects, and would be guaranteed possession of their lands, forests, fisheries and other properties for as long as they wanted to keep them.
What was New Zealand originally called?
Hendrik Brouwer proved that the South American land was a small island in 1643, and Dutch cartographers subsequently renamed Tasman’s discovery Nova Zeelandia from Latin, after the Dutch province of Zeeland. This name was later anglicised to New Zealand.
Why did the British take Maori land?
In 1838, a group from Britain called the New Zealand Company began buying land from iwi to sell to settlers whom they brought to New Zealand. They did this to make money.The British settlers thought that they owned the land after they bought it from Māori.
Did the Māori practice cannibalism?
Maori cannibalism was widespread throughout New Zealand until the mid 1800s but has largely been ignored in history books, says the author of a new book released this week.He said the widespread practice of cannibalism was not a food issue but people were eaten often as part of a post-battle rage.
Did Vikings go to New Zealand?
When they reached New Zealand, some left their whaling and trading ships to search for gold. In the 1920s and 1930s Norwegian whalers, as fearless as their Viking ancestors, chased the giants of the southern ocean.
Are Moriori still alive?
Currently there are around 700 people who identify as Moriori, most of whom no longer live on the Chatham Islands. During the late 19th century some prominent anthropologists mistakenly proposed that Moriori were pre-Māori settlers of mainland New Zealand, and possibly Melanesian in origin.
Does England own New Zealand?
Following the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the islands of New Zealand became a British colony.The Statute of Westminster in 1931, an act of the British Parliament, gave legal form to this declaration. It gave New Zealand and other Dominions the authority to make their own laws. New Zealand ratified the Statute in 1947.
What were the British intentions found in the English version of the treaty?
The preamble to the English version states that the British intentions were to: protect Māori interests from the encroaching British settlement. provide for British settlement. establish a government to maintain peace and order.
Where did the Maori come from?
Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, they settled here over 700 years ago. They came from Polynesia by waka (canoe). New Zealand has a shorter human history than any other country.
Why did the French come to New Zealand?
This week in NZ history: 17 August 1840 sees the arrival of the French ship Comte de Paris, in Akaroa on the South Island. Carrying the first French migrants, its mission was to found a settlement based on a dubious 1838 land purchase.
What diseases did the British bring to New Zealand?
Smallpox and plague were quickly contained on the rare occasions they were identified. However significant diseases were brought, including venereal infections, measles, influenza, typhoid fever (enteric fever), dysentery and tuberculosis.
Why did New Zealand need a Treaty?
The purpose of the Treaty was to enable the British settlers and the Māori people to live together in New Zealand under a common set of laws or agreements. The Treaty aimed to protect the rights of Māori to keep their land, forests, fisheries and treasures while handing over sovereignty to the English.
What was the main purpose of the Treaty of Waitangi?
The Treaty promised to protect Māori culture and to enable Māori to continue to live in New Zealand as Māori. At the same time, the Treaty gave the Crown the right to govern New Zealand and to represent the interests of all New Zealanders.
