NZ History

  • 1250

    Polynesian Discovery of New Zealand

    Polynesians discover NZ and move in. The exact date is unknown
  • Abel Tasman Discovers NZ

    A brief encounter/mapping of NZ. Tasman's crew did not land onshore.
  • Captain Cook Arrives

    Captain James Cook arrives. He properly mapped NZ and made 3 subsequent trips
  • Period: to

    Sealers and Whalers

    Sealers and Whalers set up outposts in NZ.
  • Te Pahi goes to Sydney

    Te Pahi goes to Sydney, staying with the British
  • Period: to

    Musket wars

    The conflict between the Maori and the Pakeha.
  • Marsden gives first Sermon

    A Christian mission was established, British would try to set up a Christian society in New Zealand
  • Napoleonic Wars End

    The Napoleonic series of wars are over.
  • Ngati Toa capture Kapiti island

  • Declaration of independence of New Zealand

    The document with four articles said that mana and sovereign power in New Zealand lived fully with Māori
  • Tory arrives in wellington harbour

    The New Zealand Company's ship, led by William Wakefield
  • The Treaty of Waitangi was signed

  • Wairau Affair

    22 settlers were killed in the Wairau Valley in June 1843, Governor Robert FitzRoy decided that Ngāti Toa had been provoked by the unreasonable actions of the Europeans.
  • Period: to

    Northern War

    The Northern War was the first serious challenge to the Crown in the years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Led to the New Zealand Wars
  • Battle at Horokiwi

    A fight broke out between 400 imperial, colonial and kūpapa (Māori fighting alongside the government) forces and several hundred Ngāti Toa led by Te Rangihaeata.
  • Indian Mutiny

    The Indians didn't like the British ruling over them, and fear of Westernization. Huge impact on the British empire
  • Pakeha population surpasses Maori

  • Period: to

    The Taranaki War

    In 1859 the minor Te Ātiawa chief Te Teira Manuka offered to sell land at Waitara in north Taranaki to the Crown, Who accepted. However, a more senior chief, denied that Teira had the right to sell the Waitara land, and war broke out there in March 1860
  • Period: to

    The invasion of waikato

    After fighting broke out again in Taranaki in early 1863, Governor George Grey turned his attention to the region he saw as the root of his problems with Māori: Waikato, the heartland of the anti-landselling King Movement. Grey vowed to ‘dig around’ the Kīngitanga until it fell.