The dutch explorer
English explorer Captain James Cook reportedly "discovered" New Zealand's East Coast on October 7, 1769, hundreds of years after it had been settled by Maori. But two visits early this year have convinced Cedric Bell that Chinese ships were visiting New Zealand 2000 years ago.
From that perspective, New Zealand was first spotted on December 13, 1642 by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman and explored by Captain James Cook in 1769.
As captain on three voyages of discovery in the late eighteenth century, James Cook became the first European to define the outline of New Zealand.
Establishing the colony
This was a transitional arrangement, and the British Government issued the Charter for Erecting the Colony of New Zealand on 16 November 1840. The Charter stated that the Colony of New Zealand would be established as a Crown colony separate from New South Wales on 3 May 1841.
There are many accounts of mysterious people who were already in New Zealand when Polynesian voyagers arrived by canoe. It is said that they lived high in the mountains, and could be heard calling to each other. Two of these groups were known as the patupaiarehe and the tūrehu.
Māori were the first inhabitants of Aotearoa New Zealand, guided by Kupe the great navigator. Learn more about the arrival of Māori.
They came from Polynesia by waka (canoe). New Zealand has a shorter human history than any other country. The exact date of settlement is a matter of debate, but current understanding is that the first arrivals came from East Polynesia in the 13th century.
Together they went exploring. The first place that Captain Cook found was what we now called New Zealand. There were people already there called the Maori. Then he carried on sailing and found what we now call Australia.
Abel Tasman's Dutch East India Company expedition had the first known European contact with Māori.
Captain James Cook first came to New Zealand in 1769. After circumnavigating and mapping the coastline he sailed to Australia and landed at Botany Bay in 1770. The Australian Aborigines have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years and are not closely related to the Máori of New Zealand.
The date of first settlement is a matter of debate, but current understanding is that the first arrivals came from East Polynesia between 1250 and 1300 AD. It was not until 1642 that Europeans became aware the country existed.
About 85 million years ago a rift valley formed to separate the New Zealand region from the rest of Gondwana, resulting in the formation of a new ocean floor by means of sea floor spreading.
According to the people of Ngāpuhi (tribe of the Far North), the first explorer to reach New Zealand was the intrepid ancestor, Kupe. Using the stars and ocean currents as his navigational guides, he ventured across the Pacific on his waka hourua (voyaging canoe) from his ancestral Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki.
In a book titled 1421: The Year China Discovered the World Gavin Menzies claims that in the 1420's several fleets of Chinese ships sailed around the world, making contact with many countries before Europeans explored them, including Australia.
For Aotearoa, is it widely assumed, is the original 'indigenous name' for New Zealand. It is certainly the 'modern' name favoured by many Māori and others. But our current common use and understanding of the name was probably not in existence before Western contact. This is not to argue that it should not be used.
Australia was first settled around 50,000 years ago, and New Zealand around 1250–1300 CE. Europeans first thought about the two countries together when Charles de Brosses, a French scholar, described an imaginary southern continent called 'Australasie' (south of Asia) in 1756.
Māori Australians (Māori: ngā tangata Māori i Ahitereiria) are Australians of Māori heritage. The Māori presence in Australia dates back to the 19th century when Māori travelled to Sydney to trade, acquire new technology, and learn new ideas. The Māori population in Australia remained marginal until the 1960s.
While Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and traded with nearby islanders, the first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606. The Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and charted about 300 km of coastline.
Being Māori is so much more than blood quantum. In New Zealand, many believed there are no full-blood Māori left. It's often been used by critics of Māori who seek equal rights and sovereignty. My results, at least, show there is one full-blooded Māori contrary to that belief.
For much of the first half of the 20th century it was believed that a pre-Māori people called Moriori inhabited New Zealand. Today Moriori are regarded as descendants, like Māori, of the original Polynesian settlers who arrived in about the 13th century.
The findings confirm archaeological evidence that the ancestors of today's Maori originally set out from mainland south-east Asia 6,000 years ago, hopped from island to island, starting with Taiwan, and arrived in New Zealand 800 to 1,000 years ago.
The Māori are the Indigenous People of Aotearoa (New Zealand).
The Moriori genocide happened because of a confluence of cultural norms--the invading Maori people chose to migrate to the Chatham Islands and hold the land by their traditional walking the land practice (they settled wherever they wished and slaughtered those who disagreed), and the Moriori people had a pacifist norm ...
Māori on the first map
When James Cook arrived in 1769, Nieuw Zeeland was anglicised to New Zealand, as can be seen in his famous 1770 map. Cook renamed Te Moana-o-Raukawa as Cook Strait, and imposed dozens more English place names.