Captain Cook, Gisborne, with Young Nick's Head in background
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Captain Cook, Gisborne, with Young Nick's Head in background |
A Brief Historical Context
"Once upon a time in a land far far away, ...."
800
The Polynesian Maori navigator Kupe in year 800, sailed from Hawaiki
(probably Ra'iatea, near Tahiti, landed at Taipa near Manganui and
his wife named the new land Aotearoa, "Land of the Long White Cloud")
1300-1350
The Maori "great migration" followed in a series of canoes.
Some modern tribes are able to trace their genealogy back to individual
canoes in those migrations.
1642
Abel Tasman: Dutch explorer from Batavia (Jakarta, Indonesia), made the
first European landfall at Okarito (an extensive wetlands area), christened
it "Niuew Zeeland" and departed from Farewell Spit.
1769
James Cook: first sighting - Young Nicks Head, Oct 5, 1769; first Landing -
Gisborne Oct 9, 1769
Note that this coincides with the timing of Cook's charting voyages in the
North Pacific and this is one reason why so many of the English geographical
place names in New Zealand are the same as their counterparts along the
British Columbia coast (e.g. Solander Is., Egmont, Banks Island, Queen
Charlotte Sound).
French explorer de Surville was charting New Zealand at the same time as Cook,
but the two were unaware of each other's presence.
early 1800's
First European settlers were transient sealers and whalers - a rowdy gang.
1814
First missionary, Samual Marsden settles at Kororareke / Russell
There followed real and bogus land purchases, land grabs, and finally in 1850,
the New Zealand Wars. Interesting that they were known by Europeans as
"Maori Wars" and by Maori as "White Man's Anger". Then about the same time as
the North American ones, a series of gold rushes sped European settlement into remote areas.
" ... and the rest was history."