Nineteenth-century settlers were attracted to settle in New Zealand for many reasons. It’s resource pool that had remained untouched. It’s ability to provide a new start far from the reaches of Europe’s problems. Over the course of the Nineteenth-century there were many different types of settlers, the rich and the poor, the opportunists and the families they all came to New Zealand with the hopes of starting up a great New Country.
The first settlers to arrive in New Zealand were mostly whalers and sealers in the late 1790s. Settlers searching for flax and timber and wood came later towards the beginning of the 1800’s.[1] The majority of the timber that was produced in the early years of New Zealand settlement was being exported to Sydney. By 1839 a third of all males were involved in the timber trade, with the whalers and sealers moving on soon after coming to New Zealand as this was a seasonal trade. It was a common trend for the whalers to move on again until the mid-1820s when shore based whaling began. There were around 770 men employed in these whaling stations in 1843 with numbers in each reaching up to 80.[2]
Many of these settlers were men who came from whaling ships which they had either deserted or been discharged from there were also some convicts who had been given their tickets of leave or had been put there on purpose, these men arrived at the beginning of the nineteenth century. [3]It was because of this that early New Zealand became very popular with escaped or released convicts as well as ship deserters; it was not known how many of these men were in New Zealand however as they were constantly moving around trying to evade the law. Many sealing gangs, a prominent trade in early nineteenth century New Zealand were made up of these and ex-convicts.[4] Many of these convicts hailed from Australia; however they had been convicted and originally sent from parts or England and Ireland.[5]
One settler, Joel Polack, noticed that a lot of settlers from Western Australia were unsatisfied with the dry, arid landscape of Western Australia for New Zealand.[6] Many of these ‘unsatisfied’ arrivals came to set up in the newer colonies of Wellington or Nelson. This led to an attempt in the early nineteenth century to attract settlers directly from the United Kingdom, this led to the formation of the New Zealand company in London in 1825, the aim of this company was to attract British settlers to the Thames and Hokianga regions of New Zealand, however when the first batch of settlers arrived in 1826, they met fierce Maori opposition and the project was abandoned.[7]
In 1940, when New Zealand became part of the British Empire, these sealers, whalers and the slow but steady stream of arrivals, turned into waves of immigrants. By 1845, a steady stream of government officials, merchants and other independent arrivals had been joined by land purchasers and the re-vamped New Zealand Company and its affiliates. Many had decided to emigrate from Europe, mainly the United Kingdom because of uncertain economic times, with the “benefits of industrialisation to the mass of the people” still unknown. [8] While the farmers were the most sought after as their numbers were heavily outweighed by all other forms of industry, repeated attempts to lure them to New Zealand had only drew small numbers and while some did emigrate they were still heavily outnumbered.[9] In 1842, a number of around 350 immigrants hailing from the Paisley region of Scotland immigrated to New Zealand, upon arrival they made up a large section of the new settlement of ‘Auckland’ population.
The discovery of Copper in 1844 attracted immigrants from Southern Australia, who had emigrated there from the Cornish regions of England to mine the Copper for a fresh start from the overcrowded mining towns in these regions. [10] The copper was first discovered on Kawau Island, an island off the coast of Auckland. This copper mine also drew many miners straight from the United Kingdom directly, with its population swelling to around 300. It was these miners who opened and ran the Auckland copper mines until they ran into problems with the mines flooding and shipping. [11] Once the mines closed many of the Cornish miner’s moved onto the Manukau, Franklin and Raglan districts to open farms.[12]
Colonization of New Zealand was achieved by obtaining land from the local Maori or through the British crown then selling it onto the investors and speculators. This was largely done by the re-vamped ‘New Zealand Company’ in their “Systematic colonization” effort. [13] However, the company never stated that to buy land in New Zealand you had to have an intention on actually settling there, with many areas of land being sold to speculators who had no intention on settling.[14] However, due to reports of local Maori hostility and legal issues with the land the company later suspended its activities.[15] The Treaty of Waitangi rendered the New Zealand Company’s actions useless as it stated that Maori could no longer sell land to anyone aside from the British Crown.[16] Shortly after all its land sales were frozen and its previous sales were put under investigation. This freezing of land led to a shortage of land for the arrivals that were arriving by the boat load. However, these restrictions were slowly relaxed once an agreement that the Company bought land from the crown as a lower price and all transactions were given under the supervision of the crown. [17] The money that the government made from these sales was directed back into drawing migrants out to New Zealand.
The early settlement of Wellington was in the area of what it now the Hutt Valley, but due to constant flooding and a harbour area that was very shallow forcing ships to berth around 1500 meters out to sea the settlement was moved into what is now Thorndon.[18] However the settlers encountered problems with the local Maori in the Te Aro region, the land that they were surveying was owned and inhabited by the local tribes. It had been bought off them for use by the settlers at the price of items such as guns, iron pots, shark teeth and pencils.[19] Although it was soon discovered that this land had been sold by a young Chief who only owned a small proportion of the land as he wanted to assert dominance over the other local tribes, the remaining tribes had not been consulted or paid for their land and put up a fight when the settlers began to work the land in preparation for building and farming. [20] The Maori eventually received land, that was originally theirs, back but only equal to around one tenth of the size it had been and was integrated with the European settlers.
In order for the British crown to keep control over New Zealand it created the Treaty of Waitangi, which superseded the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand that was signed in 1835.[21] However, this document wasn’t received well by the crown and work began on drafting up a new document to counter it. On February 5th copies of the treaty in both Maori and English were put forward for debate. With debate over it lasting many hours, some tribes came out in support and some were strongly against it. The treaty established a British rule over New Zealand and its native people the Maori. However the Maori translation read it differently and they believed that they had given right to sovereignty in return for protection. It was eventually signed by the Maori and English on the 6th of February. The treaty also allowed Maori to sell their land directly to the Crown, allowing for more settlers to arrive in New Zealand. It was also hastily drafted and signed to avoid the French, who were attempting to settle as well, from doing the same.
New settlers left Europe, in search of a new life with better resources and a more plentiful land. They saw New Zealand as having these traits, as it was so far away from any other land mass it had been one of the last countries settled and thus it had remained untouched by civilization, and its resources had remained with only the local Maori utilizing them. At first the Maori were welcoming, however, the confusion over the Treaty of Waitangi and the subsequent disagreement as to what it meant caused the New Zealand Wars. A Group of Maori who was opposed to the sale of land to Settlers or the Crown began taking actions against those settlers and the Maori who gave up their land. This led to the crown protecting their citizens as the Maori had been declared citizens by the Treaty of Waitangi. This unease and tension went against the picturesque New Zealand that the settlers and the crown had been trying to achieve as a punishment land was seized from Maori. [22]
The departing expectations of the European settlers in the Nineteenth Century were that a new life could be started away from all the hassles of Europe. There was plenty of land to start their own farms and make some money from them. It was also seen by the early settlers as having a vast resource pool, for instance, the miners saw that there was plenty to be mined as the Maori were incapable of doing so. The whalers and sealers saw the opportunity to have a base in the south pacific for the whaling season before moving on to the next area. These expectations were realised, however the later settlers not so much, the Treaty of Waitangi left many without land that had been promised to them by the New Zealand Company. The local Maori became hostile and thought that they had been cheated out of their land however once an agreement was reached between all parties New Zealand thrived into the country it is now.
[1]A.Earle, A narrative of nine months’ residence in New Zealand in 1827. London, 1832
[2] Statistics of New Munster, New Zealand, from 1841 to 1848. Wellington, 1849.
[3] Jack Lee, ‘I have Named It the Bay Of Islands, Auckland. Hodder and Stoughton. 1983.
[4] Thomas Dunbabin, ‘Whalers, sealers, and buccaneers,’ Journal and proceedings of the Royal Australian Historical society XI, Part 1, 1925, pp.1-32;
[5] James Jupp, general editor, The Australian people: an encyclopaedia of the nation, its people and their origins. North Ryde, 1988, pp.326-334,
[6] J.S.Polack, Manners and customs of the New Zealanders with notes corroborative of their habits, usages, etc., and remarks to intending emigrants. Two volumes, London, 1840, Volume 1, p.2.
[7] Jock Phillips and Terry Hearn, Settlers: New Zealand immigrants from England, Ireland & Scotland, 1800-1945, Auckland, 2008. http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/files/documents/peopling1.pdf.
[8] Eric Richards, Britannia’s Children: Emigration from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland since 1600, London, 2004.
[9] Rollo Arnold, The Farthest promised land, Wellington, 1981.
[10] G.F.Angas, Savage life and scenes in Australia and New Zealand: being an artist’s impressions of countries and peoples at the Antipodes. London, 1847, Volume 1, pp.285-286.
[13] James Belich, Making peoples; a history of the New Zealanders from Polynesian settlement to the end of the nineteenth century. Auckland, 1996,
[15] Patricia Barnes, Fatal Success: A History of The New Zealand Company, Heinemann Reed. Auckland. 1989.
[16] NZ History, Treaty of Waitangi: ‘The Treaty in Brief,’ 16th June, 2011 Accessed on 26th September 2011.
[17] Patricia Barnes. Ibid.
[18] Edward Jerningham Whakefield. Adventure in New Zealand: ‘From 1839 to 1844: With some account of the Beginning of the British Colonization of these Islands’. Volume, 1. John Murray, London. 1849
[19] Patricia Barnes. Ibid.
[20] Angela Caughey, The Interpreter: Biography of Richard Dicky Barett. Auckland. David Bateman. 1998.
[21] Caroline Fitzgerald. Te Wiremu- Henry Williams: Early years in the North. Huia Press. 2011.
[22] James Belich. The New Zealand Wars. 1988. Penguin.
