History of New Zealand
The human history of New Zealand can be dated back to between 1320 and 1350 CE, when the main settlement period started, after it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture. Like other Pacific cultures, Māori society was centred on kinship links and connection with the land but, unlike them, it was adapted to a cool, temperate environment rather than a warm, tropical one. The first European explorer known to have visited New Zealand was the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, on 13 December 1642. In 1643 he charted the west coast of the North Island, his expedition then sailed back to Batavia without setting foot on New Zealand soil. British explorer James Cook, who reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of his three voyages, was the first European to circumnavigate and map New Zealand. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers. The period from Polynesian settlement to Cook's arrival is New Zealand's prehistoric period, a time before written records began. Acknowledgement of indigenous oral history as recorded history is a matter of academic debate. Depending on definitions, the period from 1642 to 1769 can be called New Zealand's protohistory rather than prehistory: Tasman's recording of Māori was isolated and scant.
On 6 February 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between representatives of the United Kingdom and various Māori chiefs, initially at Waitangi and over the following weeks at other locations across the country. On 21 May 1840, New Zealand entered the British Empire when Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson proclaimed British sovereignty at Kororāreka. Disputes over the differing versions of the Treaty and settler desire to acquire land from Māori led to the New Zealand Wars from 1843. There was extensive British settlement throughout the rest of the 19th century and into the early part of the next century. The effects of European infectious diseases, the New Zealand Wars, and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to Pākehā ownership, and Māori became impoverished.
The colony gained responsible government in the 1850s. From the 1890s the New Zealand Parliament enacted a number of progressive initiatives, including women's suffrage and old age pensions. After becoming a self-governing Dominion with the British Empire in 1907, the country remained an enthusiastic member of the empire, and over 100,000 New Zealanders fought in World War I as part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. After the war, New Zealand signed the Treaty of Versailles, joined the League of Nations, and pursued an independent foreign policy, while its defence was still controlled by Britain. When World War II broke out in 1939, New Zealand contributed to the defence of Britain and the Pacific War; the country contributed some 120,000 troops. From the 1930s the economy was highly regulated and an extensive welfare state was developed. From the 1950s Māori began moving to the cities in large numbers, and Māori culture underwent a renaissance. This led to the development of a Māori protest movement, which in turn led to greater recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi in the late 20th century.
The country's economy suffered in the aftermath of the 1973 global energy crisis, the loss of New Zealand's biggest export market upon Britain's entry to the European Economic Community, and rampant inflation. In 1984, the Fourth Labour Government was elected amid a constitutional and economic crisis. The interventionist policies of the Third National Government were replaced by Rogernomics, a commitment to a free-market economy. Foreign policy after 1984 became more independent, especially in pushing for a nuclear-free zone. Subsequent governments have generally maintained these policies, although tempering the free market ethos somewhat.
Polynesian settlement and development of Māori culture
New Zealand was first settled by eastern Polynesians, who in time developed a distinct Māori culture. Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that humans migrated from Taiwan via southeast Asia to Melanesia and then radiated eastwards into the Pacific in pulses and waves of discovery. They gradually colonised islands from Samoa and Tonga to the eastern Polynesian islands of Hawaii, the Marquesas, Easter Island, the Society Islands and, finally, New Zealand. According to oral tradition, the heroic explorer Kupe was the first discoverer of New Zealand. In an early European synthesised interpretation of these accounts, he discovered New Zealand around 750 CE and a single great fleet of settlers set out from Hawaiki in eastern Polynesia around 1350. However, from the late 20th century, this synthesis has been increasingly relegated to the realm of myth, and an alternative view has emerged from fresh archaeological and scientific evidence.Regarding the arrival date of the settlers, there are no human remains, artefacts or structures confidently dated to earlier than the Kaharoa Tephra, a layer of volcanic debris deposited by the Mount Tarawera eruption around 1314 CE. Samples of rat bone, rat-gnawed shells and seed cases have given dates later than the Tarawera eruption, except for three of a decade or so earlier. Radiocarbon dating and pollen evidence of widespread forest fires shortly before the eruption might also indicate a pre-eruption human presence. The 1999 dating of some kiore bones to as early as 100 CE was later found to be an error; new samples of rat bone mostly gave dates later than the Tarawera eruption with only three samples giving slightly earlier dates. Additionally, mitochondrial DNA variability within the Māori populations suggest that Polynesians first settled the New Zealand archipelago between 1250 and 1300. Therefore, current opinion is that, whether or not some settlers arrived before 1314, the main settlement period was in the subsequent decades, possibly involving a coordinated mass migration. This scenario is consistent with a much debated third line of oral evidence, traditional genealogies that point to around 1350 as a probable arrival date for many of the founding canoes.
It is the broad consensus of prehistorians that the Polynesian settlement of mainland New Zealand was planned and deliberate. Further, there is no evidence of a pre‑Polynesian people in New Zealand. New Zealand has no native land mammals, so birds, fish and sea mammals were important sources of protein for the settlers. They quickly exploited the abundant large game, such as moa – large flightless ratites – which were pushed to extinction by about 1500. They cleared approximately 40% of New Zealand's original forest cover, especially in the North Island, practicing slash-and-burn agriculture. They cultivated food plants that they had brought from eastern Polynesia, including sweet potatoes, taro, gourds, and yams. They also cultivated and harvested the cabbage tree, a plant endemic to New Zealand, and exploited wild foods such as bracken fernroot.
A group of New Zealand Polynesians migrated from mainland New Zealand to the Chatham Islands, to the east of the main archipelago, probably in about the 15th century, where their culture evolved into the distinct Moriori culture.
File:Famille Maori 1998-1361-139.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|alt=Māori whānau from Rotorua in the 1880s|Māori whānau from Rotorua in the 1880s. Many aspects of Western life and culture, including European clothing and architecture, were incorporated into Māori society during the 19th century.
Culture changed on the mainland as moa and other large game became scarce or extinct, evolving into that now known as Māori. There were regional differences due to climate. In areas where it was possible to grow taro and kūmara, horticulture became more important. This was not possible in the south of the South Island, but wild plants such as fernroot were often available and cabbage trees were cultivated. Warfare increased in importance, reflecting increased competition for land and other resources, and fortified pā became more common. There is debate though about the actual frequency of warfare. As elsewhere in the Pacific, cannibalism was part of warfare.
Leadership was based on a system of chieftainship, which was often but not always hereditary, with chiefs needing to demonstrate leadership abilities to avoid being superseded by more dynamic individuals. The most important units of pre-European Māori society were the whānau or extended family, and the hapū or group of whānau. After these came the iwi or tribe, consisting of groups of hapū. Related hapū would often trade goods and co-operate on major projects, but conflict between hapū was also relatively common. Traditional Māori society preserved history orally through narratives, songs, and chants; skilled experts could recite the tribal genealogies back for hundreds of years. Arts included whaikōrero, song composition in multiple genres, dance forms including haka, as well as weaving, highly developed wood carving, and tā moko.
Early contact periods
Early European exploration
The first Europeans known to have reached New Zealand were the crew of Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who arrived in his ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen. Tasman anchored at the northern end of the South Island in Golden Bay in December 1642, and sailed northward to Tonga following an attack by local Māori, Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri. Tasman sketched sections of the two main islands' west coasts. Tasman called them Staten Landt, after the States General of the Netherlands, and that name appeared on his first maps of the country. In 1645 Dutch cartographers changed the name to Nova Zeelandia in Latin, from Nieuw Zeeland, after the Dutch province of Zeeland.Over 100 years elapsed before Europeans returned to New Zealand; in 1769, British naval captain James Cook of HM Bark Endeavour visited New Zealand, and coincidentally, only two months later, Frenchman Jean-François de Surville, in command of his own expedition, reached the country. When Cook left on his first voyage, the sealed orders given to him by the British Admiralty ordered him to proceed "...to the Westward between the Latitude beforementioned and the Latitude of 35° until' you discover it, or fall in with the Eastern side of the Land discover'd by Tasman and now called New Zeland." He would return to New Zealand on both of his subsequent voyages of discovery.
Various claims have been made that New Zealand was reached by other non-Polynesian voyagers before Tasman, but these are not widely accepted. Peter Trickett, for example, argues in Beyond Capricorn that the Portuguese explorer Cristóvão de Mendonça reached New Zealand in the 1520s, and the Tamil bell discovered by missionary William Colenso has given rise to a number of theories, but historians generally believe the bell "is not in itself proof of early Tamil contact with New Zealand". A 2014 article claimed to have found a Dutch shipwreck that post-dated Tasman's arrival. The claim was dismissed due to flawed methodology.
From the 1790s, the waters around New Zealand were visited by British, French and American whaling, sealing and trading ships. Their crews traded European goods, including guns and metal tools, for Māori food, water, wood, flax and sex. Māori were reputed to be enthusiastic and canny traders, even though the levels of technology, institutions and property rights differed greatly from the standards in European societies. Although there were some conflicts, such as the killing of French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne in 1772 and the destruction of the Boyd in 1809, most contact between Māori and Europeans was peaceful.