{"story":["No one counted Māori before the 1850s, so the early numbers are estimates. Te Ara judges James Cook's 1769 guess of 100,000 the most realistic, because it fits plausible growth rates since Māori settlement. After European contact, death rates rose. New diseases such as influenza and measles were the main cause, because Māori had no resistance to them. The Musket Wars of 1810–40 did less damage than disease: Te Ara estimates that perhaps 700 deaths a year were caused directly or indirectly by warfare, out of around 4,000 deaths a year from all causes. For 1840 Te Ara puts the Māori population at 70,000 to 90,000. NZHistory gives perhaps 70,000 Māori against about 2,000 European residents, and Te Ara puts the ratio of Pākehā to Māori at about one to 40.","That ratio changed fast. From the 1850s to the 1870s migration was the main source of population growth. The colony's censuses at this time counted settlers only. The first, in 1851, counted 26,707. Counts left to the provinces after that proved unsatisfactory, and a Census Act passed in 1858 set up three-yearly censuses, the first of them taken in December 1858. It counted 59,413 Europeans, which the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand reckons was about 51% of the total population. The newcomers were heavily male, because early migrants tended to be men of working age: in 1858 there were 765 European women and girls for every 1,000 men and boys. Even so, 37.5% of Europeans had been born in New Zealand. Three years later the December 1861 census counted 97,904.","Māori were counted separately, and less precisely. Their census was taken between September 1857 and September 1858. The 1966 Encyclopaedia gives the total as 56,049, of whom 38,269 lived in Auckland province, and notes that the published tables added the words 'as far as can be ascertained'. Te Ara, which credits the count to the official Francis Dart Fenton, puts it at around 60,000. Fenton was then resident magistrate in the Waikato, and the 1966 Encyclopaedia's entry on him records that early in 1858 he took the first Māori census, which it called 'very incomplete'. Because both counts were rough and only a few thousand apart, the crossover cannot be pinned to a single year. NZHistory dates it to 1858; Te Ara says the two populations had reached parity by 1860.","Many settlers read the figures as proof that Māori were dying out. In 1856 the politician Isaac Featherston said it was the duty of Europeans to 'smooth down ... [the] dying pillow' of the Māori race. The crossover also changed politics. Settlers had elected their own House of Representatives since 1854, and NZHistory notes that with numbers on their side they expected more Māori land to be opened up, especially around Auckland and New Plymouth. Te Ara points out that settler growth depended on taking that land: by 1860, 65% of it had passed out of Māori ownership. Heavy immigration continued until the mid-1870s, and after 1874 Māori were less than a tenth of the population for a century. Their numbers kept falling to a low of about 42,000 in 1896, then recovered through the 20th century."],"sources":[{"title":"Taupori Māori — Māori population change","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/taupori-maori-maori-population-change","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Taupori Māori — Māori population change: Population changes, 1769–1840","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/taupori-maori-maori-population-change/page-1","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Taupori Māori — Māori population change: Decades of despair, 1840–1900","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/taupori-maori-maori-population-change/page-2","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Population change — Key population trends","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/population-change/page-1","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Population change — Migration","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/population-change/page-2","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Fenton, Francis Dart","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1f5/fenton-francis-dart","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Fenton, Francis Dart (1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/fenton-francis-dart","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Population — The census (1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/population/page-2","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Population — Population: factors and trends (1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/population/page-3","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Population — Total population (1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/population/page-4","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Immigration — Early organised immigration (1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/immigration/page-2","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"National groups (1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/national-groups","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Māori King movement origins — The land issue","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/the-maori-king-movement/the-land-issue","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"War in Taranaki 1860–63 — Pressure on Māori land","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/taranaki-wars/pressure-on-maori-land","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"}]}