Gisborne
Te Tairāwhiti
The first place in the country to see the sun, and where Cook made landfall in 1769. Te Kooti's campaigns and the Ringatū faith both began here.
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7 events in Gisborne between 1864 and 1988
Pai Mārire spreads
Te Ua Haumēne’s faith, blending Christian and Māori belief, spread from Taranaki across the North Island and was met with force by the Crown.
TaranakiTe Kooti escapes from Rēkohu
Deported without trial, Te Kooti seized a schooner, sailed 300 prisoners home, and led a four-year pursuit through the Urewera that never caught him.
Gisborne and Te UreweraTe Kotahitanga — the Māori Parliament
Te Kotahitanga o Te Tiriti o Waitangi
A Māori parliament met annually for a decade, seeking the self-government promised by Te Tiriti and passing its own legislation.
Waipatu, Hawke’s BayThe raid on Maungapōhatu
Seventy armed police marched into the Tūhoe prophet Rua Kēnana’s community in the Urewera. Two men were shot dead, including Rua’s son.
MaungapōhatuThe Rātana movement rises
Te Hāhi Rātana
Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana built a faith and then a political machine around one demand: ratify the Treaty of Waitangi.
Rātana PāThe Hawke’s Bay earthquake
A magnitude 7.8 quake levelled Napier and Hastings and killed 256 people — still New Zealand’s deadliest natural disaster.
NapierCyclone Bola
Over 900 millimetres of rain fell on the East Coast in three days, stripping hillsides and cutting the region off. Three people died.
GisborneMeanwhile, nationally
9 events that reached Gisborne along with most of the country. They still shade the map and sit on the timeline above, but they are not Gisborne’s own history.
The Native Land Court is established
The court converted customary communal title into individual freehold — the mechanism by which most remaining Māori land was lost, without a shot fired.
Tohunga Suppression Act
An Act making it an offence to practise as a tohunga, aimed at prophets and healers whose authority the state saw as a threat to assimilation.
The influenza pandemic
About 9,000 people died in two months — roughly half as many as died in four years of war. Māori died at more than seven times the Pākehā rate.
The 28th (Māori) Battalion
Te Hokowhitu-a-Tū
A volunteer battalion organised by tribal area fought through Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy, and took proportionally the heaviest casualties of any New Zealand unit.
Māori War Effort Organisation
More than 300 tribal committees organised recruitment, production and welfare — the most effective Māori self-administration the Crown had allowed since 1840.
The great Māori urban migration
Māori went from about 25 percent urban in 1945 to nearly 80 percent by 1975 — one of the fastest urbanisations recorded anywhere.
Rogernomics — the economy is deregulated
A Labour government floated the dollar, removed farm subsidies and tariffs, and sold state assets — the fastest liberalisation in the developed world.
Te reo Māori becomes an official language
Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori
Te reo Māori gained official status and the right to be spoken in court, fifteen years after the language petition and following a Waitangi Tribunal finding that it was a taonga.
The Sealord fisheries settlement
The Crown funded a Māori half-share in Sealord and allocated quota, settling commercial fisheries claims nationally in one deal.