Immigration to New Zealand
Migration to New Zealand began only very recently in human history, with Polynesian settlement in New Zealand, previously uninhabited, about 1250 CE to 1280 CE. European migration provided a major influx, especially following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Subsequent immigrants have come chiefly from the British Isles, but also from continental Europe, the Pacific, the Americas and Asia.
Polynesian settlement
Polynesians in the South Pacific were the first to discover the landmass of New Zealand. Eastern Polynesian explorers had settled in New Zealand by approximately the thirteenth century CE with most evidence pointing to an arrival date of about 1280. Their arrival gave rise to the Māori culture and the Māori language, both unique to New Zealand, although very closely related to analogues in other parts of Eastern Polynesia. Evidence from Wairau Bar and the Chatham Islands shows that the Polynesian colonists maintained many parts of their east Polynesian culture such as burial customs for at least 50 years. Especially strong resemblances link Māori to the languages and cultures of the Cook and Society Islands, which are regarded as the most likely places of origin. Moriori settled the Chatham Islands during the 15th century from mainland New Zealand. Contrary to Percy Smith's Great Fleet narrative, the Moriori were not an earlier Melanesian wave of immigrants who pre-dated the Māori people but were descended from the same Polynesian ancestors of the Māori.European settlement
Due to New Zealand's geographic isolation, several centuries passed before the next phase of settlement by the Europeans. It was only with the arrival of these new settlers that the original inhabitants began to distinguish themselves using the adjective māori, meaning "ordinary" or "indigenous." Although the term New Zealand native was common until about 1890, māori gradually shifted in use from being an adjective to a noun. According to the historian Rawiri Taonui, Māori also adopted the term Tangata Whenua, referring to their iwi and hapu, in order to distringuish themselves from non-Māori.The first European explorers to circumnavigate New Zealand were Abel Tasman, James Cook, Jean-François de Surville and Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne. 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 settling. 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 800 non-Māori, which included about 200 runaway convicts and seamen who often married into the Māori community. The seamen often lived in New Zealand for a short time before joining another ship a few months later. In 1839 there were 2,000 non-Māori, with the majority living in the North Island. Regular outbreaks of extreme violence, mainly between Māori hapu, known as the Musket Wars, resulted in the deaths of at least 20,000 Māori between 1819 and 1843. Violence against European shipping, cannibalism and the lack of established law and order made settling in New Zealand a risky prospect. By the late 1830s many Māori were nominally Christian and had freed many of the Māori slaves that had been captured during the Musket Wars. By this time, many Māori, especially in the north, could read and write Māori and, to a lesser extent, English.
Migration from 1840
European migration has resulted in a deep legacy being left on the social and political structures of New Zealand. Early visitors to New Zealand included whalers, sealers, missionaries, mariners, and merchants, attracted to natural resources in abundance.New Zealand was temporarily administered from New South Wales from January 1840 until it became a separate Crown colony on 3 May 1841, with William Hobson serving its first governor. Some of the first permanent settlers were Australians. Some were escaped convicts, and others were ex-convicts that had completed their sentences. Smaller numbers came directly from Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, The United States, and Canada.
In February 1840 representatives of the British Crown signed the Treaty of Waitangi with 240 Māori chiefs throughout New Zealand, motivated by plans for a French colony at Akaroa and land purchases by the New Zealand Company in 1839. British sovereignty was then proclaimed over New Zealand in May 1840. By May 1841, New Zealand had become a Crown colony. Since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, differences between the English and Māori versions of the text have fuelled debate in New Zealand society and politics over whether Māori tribes ceded sovereignty to the Crown. This has complicated Māori-Crown relations. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Māori lost much of their land to government confiscations during the New Zealand Wars and for public works purchases. Following the Second World War, Māori calls for the Government to honour the Treaty led to the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 to consider Treaty breaches and facilitate compensation to Māori for confiscated land and resources.
Following the formalising of sovereignty, organised and structured flow of migrants from Great Britain and Ireland began. Government-chartered ships like the clipper Gananoque and the Glentanner carried immigrants to New Zealand. Typically clipper ships left British ports such as London and travelled south through the central Atlantic to about 43 degrees south to pick up the strong westerly winds that carried the clippers well south of South Africa and Australia. Ships would then head north once in the vicinity of New Zealand. The Glentanner migrant ship of 610 tonnes made two runs to New Zealand and several to Australia carrying 400 tonne of passengers and cargo. Travel time was about 3 to months to New Zealand. Cargo carried on the Glentanner for New Zealand included coal, slate, lead sheet, wine, beer, cart components, salt, soap and passengers' personal goods. On the 1857 passage the ship carried 163 official passengers, most of them government assisted. On the return trip the ship carried a wool cargo worth 45,000 pounds. In the 1860s discovery of gold started a gold rush in Otago. By 1860 more than 100,000 British and Irish settlers lived throughout New Zealand. The Otago Association actively recruited settlers from Scotland, creating a definite Scottish influence in that region, while the Canterbury Association recruited settlers from the south of England, creating a definite English influence over that region.
In the 1860s most migrants settled in the South Island due to gold discoveries and the availability of flat grass covered land for pastoral farming. Following the end of the New Zealand Wars, the New Zealand Government sought to attract more European immigrants to the North Island via the Waikato Immigration Scheme which ran from 1864 and 1865. The central government originally intended to bring about 20,000 immigrants to the Waikato from the British Isles and the Cape Colony in South Africa to consolidate the government position after the wars and develop the Waikato area for European settlement. The immigration scheme settlers were allocated quarter-acre town sections and ten-acre rural sections. They were required to work on and improve the sections for two years after which a Crown Grant would be issued, giving them ownership. In all, 13 ships travelled to New Zealand under the scheme, arriving from London, Glasgow and Cape Town.
In the 1870s, Premier Julius Vogel borrowed millions of pounds from Britain to help fund capital development such as a nationwide rail system, lighthouses, ports and bridges, and encouraged mass migration from Britain. Between 1864 and 1874, the non-Māori population in New Zealand rose from 171,000 to 255,000. By 1881, the non-Māori population had reached over 470,000. Due to exposure to diseases which they lacked natural immunity to and the New Zealand Wars, the Māori population dopped from 56,049 in 1857-1858 to 42,113 in 1896.
Other smaller groups of settlers came from Germany, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe as well as from China and India, but English, Scottish and Irish settlers made up the vast majority, and did so for the next 150 years. Today, the majority of New Zealanders have some sort of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ancestry. This comes with last names as well.
File:Canterbury province plaque Whitehall London.jpg|thumb|Plaque commemorating the first meeting of the Canterbury Association in Charing Cross, London. The association would go on to found Canterbury, New Zealand in 1850.
Between 1881 and the 1920s, the New Zealand Parliament passed legislation that intended to limit Asiatic migration to New Zealand, and prevented Asians from naturalising. In particular, the New Zealand government levied a poll tax on Chinese immigrants up until the 1930s. New Zealand finally abolished the poll tax in 1944, though it was not applied after 1934.
Large numbers of Dalmatians fled from the Austro-Hungarian empire to settle in New Zealand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They settled mainly in West Auckland and often worked to establish vineyards and orchards or worked on gum fields in the Northland Region.
1,100 Jewish refugees from Central Europe came in the 1930s, fleeing antisemitism in Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary.
Many children of Polish descent arrived as orphans via Siberia and Iran during World War II.
Post World War II migration
With the various agencies of the United Nations dealing with humanitarian efforts following World War II, New Zealand accepted about 5,000 refugees and displaced persons from Europe, and more than 1,100 Hungarians between 1956 and 1959. The post-WWII immigration included more people from Greece, Italy, Poland and the former Yugoslavia.New Zealand limited immigration to those who would meet a labour shortage in New Zealand. To encourage those to come, the government introduced free and assisted passages in 1947, a scheme expanded by the National Party administration in 1950. However, when it became clear that not enough skilled migrants would come from the British Isles alone, recruitment began in Northern European countries. New Zealand signed a bilateral agreement for skilled migrants with the Netherlands, and tens of thousands of Dutch immigrants arrived in New Zealand. Others came in the 1950s from Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Austria to meet needs in specialised occupations.
While New Zealand did not have implicitly racist immigration legislation after the abolition of the Head Tax in 1944, the Immigration Act 1919 permitted the Minister of Immigration to arbitrarily reject immigration applications where he or she saw fit. Given the prevailing social attitudes at the time, the practical effect of the legislation was to allow the Minister to pursue an immigration policy which gave preference to persons regarded as being of adequate racial characteristics – namely, those of European ancestry. A Department of External Affairs memorandum in 1953 would state: "Our immigration is based firmly on the principle that we are and intend to remain a country of European development. It is inevitably discriminatory against Asians—indeed against all persons who are not wholly of European race and colour. Whereas we have done much to encourage immigration from Europe, we do everything to discourage it from Asia."
In 1961, the New Zealand Parliament passed the Immigration Amendment Act 1961 which placed non-British and non-Irish immigrants on an equal footing with other non-New Zealand citizens by requiring them to have a permit before entering the country. In practice, British and Irish nationals were issued with a permit on arrival; a privileged not extended to other migrants. In 1974, the New Zealand Government amended immigration policy by requiring British and Irish migrants to obtain a permit before leaving their homeland, placing them on an equal footing with other nationalities. That same year, the New Zealand Government eased the English language requirement for migrants.
By 1967, the policy of excluding people based on nationality had shifted to take account of economic needs. The economic boom of the 1960s caused a demand for unskilled labour, particularly Pacific Island workers. As such, New Zealand encouraged migrants from the South Pacific to fill labour shortages, which were pronounced in the manufacturing sector. The change in immigration policy saw Pasifika in New Zealand grow to 45,413 by 1971, with Auckland being home to the largest Polynesian population in the world.
A record number of immigrants then arrived between 1971 and 1975, with net immigration exceeding 100,000 for the first time. While the overwhelming majority of migrants were from the United Kingdom and Australia, some 26,000 Pacific Islanders settled in New Zealand between 1972 and 1978, compared with 70,000 Britons and 35,000 Australians. By 1978, this trend had reversed. The decline of the New Zealand economy, marked by high inflation and rising unemployment, caused a net loss of population between 1976 and 1980, a trend that was only reversed in the 1980s. Issues of crime and housing added to increasing unease about Polynesian immigration, which was a major theme in the 1975 election campaign.