Immigration To New Zealand - European Settlement

European Settlement

Due to New Zealand's geographic isolation, several centuries passed before the next phase of settlement, the arrival of Europeans. Only then did the original inhabitants need to distinguish themselves from the new arrivals, using the adjective "Māori" which means "ordinary" or "indigenous" which later became a noun although the term New Zealand native was common until about 1890. Most Maori thought of their tribe (iwi) as a nation. In neolithic times there was no pan Maori organization.

Cook claimed New Zealand for Britain on his arrival in 1769. The establishment of British colonies in Australia from 1788 and the boom in whaling and sealing in the Southern Ocean brought many Europeans to the vicinity of New Zealand, with some deciding to settle. Whalers and sealers were often itinerant and the first real settlers were missionaries and traders in the Bay of Islands area from 1809. By 1830 there was a population of about 2,000 non Maori which included about 200 runaway convicts and seamen who often married into the Maori community. Regular outbreaks of extreme violence amongst Maori, known as the Musket Wars, as well as violence against European shipping and the lack of established law and order made settling in New Zealand a risky prospect. By the late 1830s many Maori were nominally Christian and had freed many of the Maori slaves that had been captured during the Musket Wars. By this time, many Maori, especially in the north, could read and write Maori and to a lesser extent English.