New Zealand Company settlers land at Port Nicholson
- When
- 22 January 1840
- Where
- Petone · Pito-one
- Reach
- Several regions
The Aurora arrived at Petone weeks before the Treaty was signed. Flooding soon pushed the settlement across the harbour to Thorndon.
The first organised Wakefield settlement was laid out on land whose purchase Te Āti Awa and Ngāti Toa disputed almost immediately. The Hutt River flooded the original Britannia site within months, and the town moved to the harbour’s western shore. Wellington spent its first quarter-century as a Company town resentful of Auckland, and campaigned relentlessly for the capital until it got it in 1865.
Regions affected
Sources
Written for this project from these references rather than copied from them. Follow a link to check the account against the original.
Related
The New Zealand Company’s Tory arrives
Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s company sent a ship to buy land before Britain could annex the country, forcing the Crown’s hand.
Port NicholsonSettlers 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.
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.
AkaroaAuckland 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.
Auckland