Crown colony

The Musket Wars

Musket-armed war parties reshaped the map of Māori New Zealand. Perhaps 20,000 died and whole districts changed hands before the fighting burned out around 1840.

Kororāreka, the busiest port in the Pacific

Whaling crews, traders, grog shops and no law at all earned the town its reputation as the hell-hole of the Pacific.

New Zealand Company settlers land at Port Nicholson

The Aurora arrived at Petone weeks before the Treaty was signed. Flooding soon pushed the settlement across the harbour to Thorndon.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi is signed

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Around 540 rangatira signed Te Tiriti at Waitangi and at more than 50 meetings around the country. The English and te reo Māori texts do not say the same thing, and never have.

French settlers arrive at Akaroa

Sixty-three French and German settlers landed on Banks Peninsula, days after a British warship had raised the flag to forestall exactly that.

Auckland founded as the capital

Hobson moved the seat of government to the Waitematā, on land offered by Ngāti Whātua, who wanted the Crown close as protection and as a trading partner.

New Zealand becomes a separate colony

New Zealand was detached from New South Wales and given its own Governor, Legislative Council and courts.

Nelson settlement established

The New Zealand Company’s second settlement was founded on a site with far less flat land than it had sold to its buyers.

The Wairau affray

An armed Nelson party tried to arrest Te Rauparaha over disputed Wairau land. Twenty-two settlers and at least four Ngāti Toa died.

The Northern War

Te riri Pākehā ki te Tai Tokerau

Hōne Heke felled the flagstaff at Kororāreka four times and sacked the town. The war ended at Ruapekapeka, an engineered pā built to absorb artillery.

Hutt Valley and Whanganui campaigns

Fighting over disputed Company purchases spread through the Hutt and up to Whanganui. Governor Grey seized Te Rauparaha from his bed without charge.

Otago settlement founded

Free Church of Scotland settlers arrived at Port Chalmers to build a Presbyterian community, on land bought from Ngāi Tahu for a fraction of its value.

The first four ships reach Lyttelton

The Canterbury Association landed Anglican settlers at Lyttelton, who walked over the Port Hills to found Christchurch on the plains.

New Zealand Constitution Act

Representative government arrived, divided into six provinces — and the property franchise excluded almost all Māori, who held land communally.

The first Parliament meets

Thirty-seven members assembled in a temporary building in Auckland and immediately began demanding control of the executive.

The Wairarapa earthquake

At an estimated magnitude 8.2, the largest earthquake in recorded New Zealand history lifted parts of Wellington by more than a metre.

Responsible government begins

Henry Sewell formed the first ministry answerable to Parliament rather than to the Governor — though Māori affairs stayed in the Governor’s hands.

Settlers outnumber Māori

For the first time the European population passed the Māori population — about 59,000 settlers to 56,000 Māori, on a Māori population that had roughly halved since 1800.

Pōtatau Te Wherowhero becomes the first Māori King

Te Kīngitanga

Iwi across the central North Island raised a king to hold land, halt sales and deal with the Crown as an equal. The Kīngitanga continues today.

The Waitara purchase is disputed

Governor Gore Browne accepted a junior chief’s offer to sell land at Waitara over the veto of the senior rangatira, Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke.