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In 1000 AD, the first Moa hunters arrived in Canterbury. By 1450, most Moa had been killed off.
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Between the years 1500-1700, the first North Island Maori tribes (Ngati Mamoe and Ngai Tahu) arrived in Canterbury. The remaining Moa hunters were either killed or taken into tribes.
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On this date in 1642, Dutchman Abel Tasman discovered the North Island for the very first time.
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On this day, Captain James Cook sighted the Canterbury Peninsula but did not set foot on it. He thought it was an island, therefore naming it Banks Island. Between 1969-1977 he mapped the entirety of Aotearoa in a series of 3 voyages.
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It is believed that around this date, the first eauropeans walked on Banks Island/Peninsuala.
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Between the 1820s-1830s, the population of Maori in Canterbury fell. This is because of fighting between fighting between groups of Ngai Tahu, raids by the Ngati Toa chief, and European diseases.
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Captain William Rhodes first visited in 1836. Three years later he landed a heard of 50 cattle near Akaroa
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On this day in 1840, many Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi. This treaty allowed the british to take partial control in NZ.
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In August 1840, the british flag was raised in Akaroa just before the arrival of 63 french colonists.
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In 1843, William and John Deans built the first European house in the Cnaterbury Plains with a little help.
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In this year, John Goodley and Edward Wakefield met to plan the Canterbury settlement