History of Canterbury region

The earliest settlers of Canterbury appear to have been the people called the Moa-hunters, arriving in about the 14th century[citation needed] near the time of the traditional discovery of the South Island by Rākaihautū.

In 1627, the Ngāi Tahu had their chief settlement on the shores of Wellington harbour at Hataitai, but began to move over the northern parts of the South Island, which was then the territory of the Ngāti Mamoe.

Under Tu Rakautahi, the Māori of North Canterbury developed a system of food gathering and barter necessitated by the fact that they could not survive upon the produce of their local cultivations.

Abundant food was obtainable in their territory, but much had to be sought much further afield and brought to the centre – at one season from Te Waihora, at others from the Torlesse range, from the lakes of the interior, from Banks Peninsula, or from the open plains.

These people were in constant communication with their still numerous kinsmen in the north at Kaikōura (which had an even larger population than Kaiapoi) and also with the large body of the Ngāi Tahu who had gone further south to settle in Otakou.

"[5] The Kai Huānga feud began when Murihake, a woman at Waikakahi on the eastern shores of Te Waihora, happened to put on a dog-skin cloak left in the village by Tama-i-hara-nui, who was then absent at Kaikōura.

The fighting then ended for a time, mainly because the fear of reprisals drove the people of Taumutu to abandon their village, and together with some of their allies, to seek sanctuary in Otago under the protection of Taiaroa.

By 1827 Te Rauparaha, who in 1822 had led his Ngāti Toa in their remarkable emigration from Kawhia to Waikanae and Kapiti, was beginning to attack the tribes of the northern part of the South Island, his warriors being armed with muskets as well as with Māori weapons.

Fortune favoured the Ngāti Toa, for the people of Kaikōura were expecting the arrival of a party of Ngāi Tahu from the south, and mistaking the invaders canoes for those of their friends, went out unarmed to welcome them.

Te Rauparaha then offered Captain John Stewart of the brig Elizabeth, just arrived from London via Sydney, a cargo of 50 tons of flax as payment for the transportation of the war party to Akaroa.

None escaped to give warning, and as it was customary for parties visiting European vessels to remain a considerable time on board, the people of the village did not suspect foul play.

Embarking a force of more than 600 men at Kapiti, he took his fleet of war canoes to the mouth of the Waipara River, and then marched quickly down the coast to Kaiapoi, hoping to take the pā by surprise.

However, although the pā was only thinly manned, most of the warriors having gone to Whakaraupō to escort Taiaroa on the first stage of his return to Otago, warning was given of some skirmishes by gunshots, and the gates were closed as the invaders arrived.

But the wind changed suddenly, the palisades caught fire – the 100-year-old timbers burning rapidly – and in the smoke and confusion Te Rauaparaha's men were inside the pā before the defence could be reorganized.

Within a few days, during which skirmishing parties tracked down and killed many of those who had escaped from Kaiapoi, Te Rauparaha moved on to attack the last remaining Ngāi Tahu stronghold, at Onawe peninsula, in Akaroa Harbour.

Sometime after the final events at Onawe, however, a party of 270 Ngāi Tahu warriors, under the leadership of Tūhawaiki and Karetai, travelled by canoe from Otago up the Awatere River, their purpose being to ambush Te Rauparaha, who was known to visit the Grassmere lagoon at that time of the year to catch waterfowl.

[9] The second was Captain George Rhodes who gained such a favourable impression of the pastoral possibilities of Banks peninsula, that he returned in November 1839 to establish a cattle station at Akaroa.

At the end of the 1838 whaling season Langlois left New Zealand waters, and on arriving in France some time after June 1839, set to work to market the property which he had bought from the Māori.

[13] On 13 October, Langlois also approached Admiral Duperré and Marshall Soult (President of the Council), stating that he had promises of support from Le Havre and that he would be able to make an offer acceptable to the Government.

The proposals were then examined by a commission of the Ministry of Marine, comprising Captains Petit-Thouars, J-B Cécille, and Roy, all of whom had special experience of the Pacific and of the supervision of French whaling interests.

A draft agreement was worked out by the commissioners and the company's representatives which was approved on 11 December by the King, and by Marshall Soult, Admiral Duperré, and the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce.

This letter also made it clear that an extension of the proposed colony to include a penal settlement at the Chatham Islands was envisaged: "The King is still preoccupied with the idea and with the necessity of a place of deportation.

The same month HMS Herald arrived at Akaroa, bringing Major Thomas Bunbury, who was carrying a copy of the Treaty of Waitangi for signature by the southern chiefs.

Three weeks later at Cloudy Bay, Bunbury made a declaration of British sovereignty over the whole of the South Island, based upon the cession by the chiefs as signatories to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Although Lavaud mentions that the ‘menagerie’ placed on board the Aube at Brest included not only the cattle, but geese, turkey cocks and hens, pigeons and even rabbits, it is not clear whether any of these survived.

In his report to Colonel William Wakefield, chief agent of the New Zealand Company, Captain Daniel stated that a road to the plains could be made through a gap on the hills on the western sides of the harbour between the peninsula and the snowy mountains.

A year later another examination of the Port Cooper and Banks Peninsula district, to assess its suitability for his own farming venture, was made by William Deans, a pioneering Wellington settler who had arrived by the Aurora in 1840.

When he returned on 3 September the Wellington newspapers published a full report of his notes on the nine whaling stations he had visited, but confined reports on his remarks about the Port Cooper country to the statement: ‘We hear he brings highly favourable information of that locality.’ Yet it was the impression he gained of the Port Cooper district during this cruise, in which he had seen a great deal of the South Island, that confirmed Deans in the decision to settle there – a decision that led to the first effective occupation of the Canterbury Plains.

They put in at Port Levy, where European whalers were living among the Māori, and left the women and children there, while Deans went on to Akaroa to notify the resident magistrate of his proposed occupation of part of the plains.

Even though the French were far outnumbered by the British, Akaroa still had a pleasantly foreign air when the first of the Canterbury Association's settlers visited it in 1851, finding in its long-settled look and in its natural beauty of its surroundings a delightful contrast to the bleak hills of Lyttelton and the swamp wastes of Christchurch.