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1450
Moa is killed off
The hunters cleared large areas of mataī and tōtara forest by fire and by about 1450 the moa had been killed off. -
Period: 1450 to
Early Canterbury History
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1500
Ngati Māmoe and later Ngāi Tahu came down from the north Island
The remaining moa hunters were killed or taken into the tribes. -
The first contact with europeans
Captain James Cook in his ship the Endeavour first sighted the Canterbury peninsula. He thought it was an island, and named it Banks Island after the ship’s botanist, Joseph Banks. -
Maori population decline
During the 1820s and 1830s the local Māori population fell. The reasons included fighting between different groups of Ngāi Tahu, raids by the Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha from 1830 to 1832, and the impact of European diseases, especially measles and influenza, from which hundreds of Māori died. -
first farming
Captain William Rhodes first visited in 1836. He came back in 1839 and landed a herd of 50 cattle near Akaroa. -
Whaling was introduced
More whaling and sealing ships visited the peninsula and harbour, and in 1837 Captain George Hempelman set up a whaling station on-shore at Peraki on Banks Peninsula. -
More Farming
The first attempt at settling on the plains was made by James Herriot of Sydney. He arrived with two small groups of farmers in April 1840. Their first crop was successful, but a plague of rats made them decide to leave. -
The Name of Christchurch
Early in 1848 the Canterbury Association was formed, and it was decided to name the capital city Christchurch after the college John Godley had gone to at Oxford University. -
The first population of Christchurch
The ships stayed in the port at Lyttelton for several weeks while goods were unloaded. The passengers from the ships stayed in the Immigration Barracks, in tents, or V-huts (basic huts built quickly and simply) -
Sewerage system
A system of drains was needed but the iron pipes had to come from overseas and were expensive. Christchurch had to wait until the 1880s for an underground sewerage system, but it was the first city in New Zealand to have one.