Northland
Te Tai Tokerau
Where Māori and Europeans first lived and traded alongside each other at scale, and where both He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti were signed. The Bay of Islands was the busiest port in the country before Auckland existed.
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14 events in Northland between 1809 and 1920
The burning of the Boyd
Around 66 crew and passengers were killed and the ship burned at Whangaroa, after the flogging of a rangatira’s son aboard. European shipping avoided the north for years.
Whangaroa HarbourSamuel Marsden’s first Christian service
Marsden preached at Oihi Bay on Christmas Day 1814 under the protection of Ruatara, beginning the first permanent mission station in New Zealand.
Oihi Bay, RangihouaHongi Hika travels to England
The Ngāpuhi leader met King George IV in London, then converted the gifts he received into muskets on the return journey through Sydney.
Bay of IslandsKororāreka, the busiest port in the Pacific
Whaling crews, traders, grog shops and no law at all earned the town its reputation as the hell-hole of the Pacific.
Kororāreka (Russell)Northern chiefs petition King William IV
Thirteen rangatira asked the King to be a friend and guardian of these islands, worried by lawless traders and by rumours of French designs.
KerikeriJames Busby arrives as British Resident
Britain’s first official in New Zealand arrived with a grand title, no troops, no budget and no legal authority — remembered as a man-of-war without guns.
WaitangiThe flag of the United Tribes is chosen
Twenty-five northern rangatira selected a national flag so that New Zealand-built ships could be registered and trade legally.
WaitangiHe Whakaputanga — Declaration of Independence
He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni
Rangatira of the Confederation of United Tribes declared New Zealand an independent state, with all sovereign power residing in the assembled chiefs.
WaitangiBishop Pompallier founds the Catholic mission
Jean Baptiste Pompallier landed at Hokianga, breaking the Protestant monopoly on missionary work and adding a French presence that unsettled the British.
Tōtara Point, HokiangaWilliam Hobson is sent to negotiate a treaty
The Colonial Office instructed Hobson to obtain the free and intelligent consent of Māori to British sovereignty — the brief that produced Te Tiriti six months later.
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.
WaitangiThe Northern War
Te riri Pākehā ki te Tai Tokerau
Hōne Heke felled the flagstaff at Kororāreka four times and sacked the town. The war ended at Ruapekapeka, an engineered pā built to absorb artillery.
Kororāreka and RuapekapekaTe 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 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 PāMeanwhile, nationally
11 events that reached Northland along with most of the country. They still shade the map and sit on the timeline above, but they are not Northland’s own history.
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.
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.
The Māori land march
Te Rōpū o te Matakite
Whina Cooper, aged 79, led a month-long hīkoi from Te Hāpua in the far north to Parliament under the slogan ‘not one more acre’.
Te HāpuaRogernomics — 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.