Settlement & migration
9 events between 1830–1858, shown on the map in this colour.
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.
Kororāreka (Russell)The New Zealand Company’s Tory reaches Port Nicholson
Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s company sent a ship to acquire as much land as it could before the Crown stopped private purchases.
Port NicholsonNew 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.
PetoneFrench 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.
AkaroaAuckland 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.
AucklandNelson 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.
NelsonOtago 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.
DunedinThe 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.
LytteltonSettlers 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.