Crown colony

The Musket Wars

Musket-armed war parties reshaped the map of Māori New Zealand. Perhaps 20,000 died and whole districts changed hands before the fighting burned out around 1840.

Kororāreka, the south’s biggest whaling port

Whaling crews, traders, grog shops and no British law earned the town its reputation as the hell-hole of the Pacific.

New Zealand Company settlers land at Port Nicholson

The Aurora arrived at Petone weeks before the Treaty was signed. Flooding soon pushed the settlement across the harbour to Thorndon.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi is signed

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Around 540 rangatira signed Te Tiriti at Waitangi and at more than 50 meetings around the country. The English and te reo Māori texts do not say the same thing, and never have.

French settlers arrive at Akaroa

About 60 French and German settlers landed at Akaroa on Banks Peninsula in August 1840, a week after a British warship had raised the flag and held courts there. The French colony they came to found became a small French village in a British colony.

Auckland founded as the capital

Hobson moved the seat of government to the Waitematā, on land offered by Ngāti Whātua, who wanted the Crown close as protection and as a trading partner.

New Zealand becomes a separate colony

New Zealand was detached from New South Wales and given its own Governor, Legislative Council and courts.

Nelson settlement established

The New Zealand Company’s second settlement was founded on a site with far less flat land than it had sold to its buyers.

The Wairau affray

An armed Nelson party tried to arrest Te Rauparaha over disputed Wairau land. Twenty-two settlers and at least four Ngāti Toa died.

The Northern War

Ngā Pakanga i te Tai Tokerau

Hōne Heke and his supporters felled the British flagstaff at Kororāreka four times, the last during the attack in which he and Kawiti sacked the town. Ngāpuhi fought on both sides. The war ended at Ruapekapeka, an engineered pā built to absorb artillery.

Hutt Valley and Whanganui campaigns

Fighting over disputed New Zealand Company purchases spread through the Hutt Valley in 1846 and up to Whanganui in 1847. Governor Grey had Te Rauparaha seized in a dawn raid and held without charge.

Otago settlement founded

Free Church of Scotland settlers arrived at Port Chalmers to build a Presbyterian community, on land the New Zealand Company had bought from Ngāi Tahu in 1844 for £2,400.

The first four ships reach Lyttelton

The Canterbury Association landed its first Anglican settlers at Lyttelton, the port for a planned Christchurch on the plains beyond the Port Hills.

New Zealand Constitution Act

Representative government arrived, divided into six provinces — and the property franchise excluded almost all Māori, who held land communally.

The first Parliament meets

Thirty-seven members gathered in Auckland, where their hastily built hall was not yet ready, and within days demanded control of the executive.

The Wairarapa earthquake

At an estimated magnitude 8.2, the most powerful earthquake recorded in New Zealand lifted the southern end of the Remutaka Range by more than 6 metres and raised Wellington’s shoreline out of the sea.

Responsible government begins

Henry Sewell formed the first ministry answerable to Parliament rather than to the Governor — though Māori affairs stayed in the Governor’s hands.

Settlers outnumber Māori

Around 1858 settlers came to outnumber Māori for the first time. The census counted about 59,000 Europeans; rougher counts put Māori at 56,000 to 60,000, about three-fifths of their number when Cook arrived.

Pōtatau Te Wherowhero becomes the first Māori King

Te Kīngitanga

Iwi across the central North Island raised a king to hold land, halt sales and deal with the Crown as an equal. The Kīngitanga continues today.

The Waitara purchase is disputed

Governor Gore Browne accepted a junior chief’s offer to sell land at Waitara against the opposition of the senior rangatira living on it, Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke.