White New Zealanders have long thought of their country as a model of humanitarian colonization. Most Maori take a different view, however, informed by generations of their ancestors witnessing the theft of land and erosion of rights that were guaranteed by a treaty with the white man. Schoolroom histories have long been faithful to the European view, even to the point of influencing Maori mythology, but in the last couple of decades revisionist historians have largely discredited what many New Zealanders know as fact. Much that is presented as tradition, on deeper investigation turns out to be late nineteenth-century scholarship, often the product of historians who bent what they heard to fit their theories and, in the worst cases, even destroyed evidence. What follows is inextricably interwoven with Maori legend and can be understood more fully with reference to the section on
Maoritanga
.
Pre-European history
Humans
from southeast Asia first started exploring the South Pacific around five thousand years ago, gradually evolving a distinct culture as they filtered down through the islands of the Indonesian archipelago. A thousand years of progressive...
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European contact and the Maori response
Ever since Europeans had ventured across the oceans and "discovered" other continents, many were convinced of the existence of a
terra australia incognita
, an unknown southern land thought necessary to counterbalance the northern...
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The push for colonization
Despite Cook's "discoverer's" claim in 1769, imperial cartographers had never marked New Zealand as a British possession and it was with some reluctance - informed by the perception of an over-extended empire only marginally under control - that...
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Settlement and the early pioneers
Even before the Treaty was signed, there were moves to found a settlement in Port Nicholson, the site of Wellington, on behalf of the
New Zealand Company
. This was the brainchild of
Edward Gibbon Wakefield
, who desperately wanted...
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Maori discontent and the New Zealand wars
The first five years after the signing of the Treaty were a disaster, first under governor Hobson then under the ineffectual FitzRoy. Relations between Maori and
pakeha
began to deteriorate immediately, as the capital was moved from Kororareka...
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Consolidation and social reform
The 1870s were dominated by the policies of
Julius Vogel
, an able Treasurer who started a programme of borrowing on a massive scale to fund public works. Within a decade what had previously been a land of scattered towns in separately governed...
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Coming of age: 1916-1945
Though New Zealand had started off as an unwanted sibling of Mother England, it had soon transformed itself into a devoted daughter who could be relied upon in times of crisis. New Zealand had supported Britain in South Africa at the end of the nineteenth...
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More years of prosperity
The Reform Party and the remnants of the Liberals eventually combined to form the
National Party
which, in 1949 wrested power from Labour. With McCarthyite rhetoric, National branded the more militant unionists as Communists and succeeded in...
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Dithering in the face of adversity 1972-1984
In a landslide victory, the third
Labour government
took control in 1972. Again it was to only last a single three-year term, largely due to the difficulties of having to deal with international events beyond its control. Most fundamental was...
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Modern New Zealand: A maturing nation
Muldoon's big-spending economic policies were widely perceived to be unsuccessful, and when he called a snap election in 1984, Labour were returned to power under
David Lange
. Just as National had eschewed traditional right-wing economics in...
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Chronology of New Zealand history
c. 1000AD Arrival of first
Polynesians
.
c.1350 Mythical arrival of the "Great Fleet" from Hawaiki.
1642 Dutchman
Abel Tasman
sails past the West Coast but doesn't land.
1769 Englishman
...
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