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.

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.

[7] Regarding the arrival of these Polynesian settlers, there are no human remains, artefacts or structures which are confidently dated to earlier than the Kaharoa Tephra, a layer of volcanic debris deposited by the Mount Tarawera eruption around 1314 CE.

[13] Additionally, mitochondrial DNA variability within the Māori populations suggest that Eastern Polynesians first settled the New Zealand archipelago between 1250 and 1300,[14][15][16] 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 also consistent with a much debated third line of oral evidence,[7] traditional genealogies (whakapapa) which point to around 1350 as a probable arrival date for many of the founding canoes (waka) from which many Māori trace their descent.

Traditional Māori society preserved history orally through narratives, songs, and chants; skilled experts could recite the tribal genealogies (whakapapa) back for hundreds of years.

[35][36][37] A 2014 article in the Journal of Archaeological Science claimed to have found "New Zealand's oldest shipwreck" in Kaipara Harbour, which the authors dated to the late 17th or early 18th century using radiocarbon and dendrochronological techniques, and suggested the wreck was evidence of further Dutch exploration in the period between Tasman and Cook.

[55] By then, there was probably a higher proportion of Māori attending Church in New Zealand than British people in the United Kingdom,[56] and their moral practices and spiritual lives were transformed.

According to the future Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip's amended Commission, dated 25 April 1787 the colony of New South Wales included "all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean within the latitudes of 10°37'S and 43°39'S".

It made it easier for a court to punish "murders or manslaughters committed in places not within His Majesty's dominions",[73] and the Governor of New South Wales was given increased legal authority over New Zealand.

He argued that the Pākehā could not be trusted to pass laws that would protect the interests of the Māori majority – already there had been Treaty violations – and persuaded his political superiors to postpone its introduction for five years.

Wakefield's colonisation programmes were over-elaborate and operated on a much smaller scale than he hoped for, but his ideas influenced law and culture, especially his vision for the colony as the embodiment of post-Enlightenment ideals, the notion of New Zealand as a model society, and the sense of fairness in employer-employee relations.

The effects of disease,[87] as well as war, confiscations, assimilation and intermarriage,[88] land loss leading to poor housing and alcohol abuse, and general disillusionment, caused a fall in the Māori population from around 86,000 in 1769 to around 70,000 in 1840 and around 48,000 by 1874, hitting a low point of 42,000 in 1896.

Most of the early settlers were brought over by a programme operated by the New Zealand Company and were located in the central region on either side of Cook Strait, and at Wellington, Wanganui, New Plymouth and Nelson.

As the gold boom ended, Colonial Treasurer and later (from 1873) Premier Julius Vogel borrowed money from British investors and launched in 1870 an ambitious programme of public works and infrastructure investment, together with a policy of assisted immigration.

[97] From about 1865, the economy lapsed into a long depression as a result of the withdrawal of British troops, peaking of gold production in 1866[98] and Vogel's borrowing and the associated debt burden (especially on land).

In 1870 Julius Vogel introduced his grand go-ahead policy to dispel the slump with increased immigration and overseas borrowing to fund new railways, roads and telegraph lines.

[114] From 1840 there was considerable European settlement, primarily from England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland; and to a lesser extent the United States, India, China, and various parts of continental Europe, including the province of Dalmatia[115] in what is now Croatia, and Bohemia[116] in what is now the Czech Republic.

Although the first Chinese migrants had been invited by the Otago Provincial government they quickly became the target of hostility from white settlers and laws were enacted specifically to discourage them from coming to New Zealand.

[127][128] The Liberal government laid the foundations of the later comprehensive welfare state: introducing old age pensions; maximum hour regulations; pioneering minimum wage laws;[129] and developing a system for settling industrial disputes, which was accepted by both employers and trade unions, to start with.

It was a middle-class movement which accepted the existing economic and social order; the effort to legislate morality assumed that individual redemption was all that was needed to carry the colony forward from a pioneering society to a more mature one.

Women also increasingly registered as unemployed, while Māori received government help through other channels such as the land-development schemes organised by Sir Āpirana Ngata, who served as Minister of Native Affairs from 1928 to 1934.

[159] In foreign policy, the Labour Party in power after 1935 disliked the Versailles Treaty of 1919 as too harsh on Germany, opposed militarism and arms build-ups, distrusted the political conservatism of the National Government in Britain, sympathized with the Soviet Union, and increasingly worried about threats from Japan.

[180] The shift to the cities was also caused by their strong birth rates in the early 20th century, with the existing rural farms in Māori ownership having increasing difficulty in providing enough jobs.

[183] The country's economy suffered in the aftermath of the 1973 global energy crisis and the loss of New Zealand's biggest export market upon Britain's entry to the European Economic Community.

[189] A political scientist reports: Between 1984 and 1993, New Zealand underwent radical economic reform, moving from what had probably been the most protected, regulated and state-dominated system of any capitalist democracy to an extreme position at the open, competitive, free-market end of the spectrum.

[194] In keeping with the mood of the 1980s[195] the government sponsored liberal policies and initiatives in a number of social areas; this included Homosexual Law Reform,[196] the introduction of 'no-fault divorce', reduction in the gender pay gap[195] and the drafting of a Bill of Rights.

[199] The French intelligence service's sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, and the diplomatic ramifications following the incident, did much to promote the anti-nuclear stance as an important symbol of New Zealand's national identity.

[217] In foreign policy, Key announced the withdrawal of New Zealand Defence Force personnel from their deployment in the war in Afghanistan, and signed the Wellington Declaration with the United States.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who referred to the attack as "one of New Zealand's darkest days",[222] led efforts to support the Muslim community[223] and ban semi-automatic centerfire rifles.