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The first people to live in the place now known as Christchurch were moa hunters, who probably arrived there as early as AD 1000. The hunters cleared large areas of mataī and tōtara forest by fire and by about 1450 the moa had been killed off.
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On 16 February 1770 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.
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By 1800 the Ngāi Tūāhuriri sub-tribe of Ngāi Tahu were in control of the coast from the Hurunui River in the north to Lake Ellesmere in the south.
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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.
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The main track between Kaiapoi and another settlement at Rāpaki followed a path between the swamps and the two rivers, Ōtākaro (Avon) and Ōpāwaho (Heathcote).