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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1769 | - 6 Oct 1769: James Cook arrives in NZ
The English navigator Captain James Cook sighted New Zealand on 6 October 1769, and landed at Poverty Bay (now Gisborne) two days later. He drew detailed and accurate maps of the country, and wrote about the Maori people. Thanks to Cook’s detailed charts, and his gentlemen passengers’ scientific and artistic documentation, accurate knowledge of New Zealand was available in Europe for the first time from the 1770s.
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| 2 | 1778 | - 26 Jan 1778: First Convicts arrive in Australia
On 26 January 1788 the first Governor of NSW, Captain Arthur Phillip, and the First Fleet arrived in Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish a penal colony at Sydney Cove. The fleet was made up of 11 ships carrying 750-780 convicts plus 550 crew, soldiers and family members from Britain to Australia.
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| 3 | 1804 | - 1804: Hobart founded
In 1804 Lieutenant John Bowen, with the British Royal Navy, chose Risdon Cove on the eastern shore of the River Derwent in the south-east of Tasmania for the first settlement of Europeans. In 1804 Lieutenant-governor David Collins moved the settlement across the river and Hobart was founded.
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| 4 | 1825 | - 1825: Tasmania separated from NSW
In 1825 Van Diemen’s Land, which had been part of the colony of New South Wales, became a British colony in its own right. In 1856 Van Diemen’s Land’s name was changed to Tasmania.
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| 5 | 1840 | - 22 Jan 1840: 1st Wellington Settlers
The New Zealand Company’s first settler ship, the Aurora, arrived at Petone to found the settlement that would become Wellington Settlement. Named after the first Duke of Wellington, the victor of the Battle of Waterloo, the new town was part of the New Zealand Company’s systematic model of colonisation developed by Edwin Gibbon Wakefield. Central to his scheme were packages of land comprising a town acre (0.4 ha) and an accompanying 100 country acres (40 ha). There were 1100 one-acre town sections in the plan for Port Nicholson. By the end of 1840, 1200 settlers had arrived in Wellington.
- 6 Feb 1840: Treaty of Waitangi
The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and Maori chiefs (rangatira) from the North Island of New Zealand. It has become a document of central importance to the history, to the political constitution of the state, and to the national mythos of New Zealand, and has played a major role in framing the political relations between New Zealand's government and the Maori population, especially from the late-20th century.
- 16 Nov 1840: NZ becmes a colony
New Zealand officially became a separate colony of the United Kingdom, severing its link to New South Wales. North, South and Stewart islands were to be known respectively as the provinces of New Ulster, New Munster and New Leinster. William Hobson had been appointed Britain’s consul to New Zealand in 1839. He was instructed to obtain sovereignty over all or part of New Zealand with the consent of "a sufficient number" of chiefs. New Zealand would then come under the authority of George Gipps, the governor of New South Wales; Hobson would become Gipps’ lieutenant-governor.
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| 6 | 1842 | - 1 Feb 1842: 1st Settlers arrive Nelson
The Fifeshire arrived in Nelson Settlement on 1 Feb 1842 with immigrants for the New Zealand Company’s first settlement in the South Island. Several thousand settlers arrived in Nelson within a few months.
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| 7 | 1845 | - 1845—1872: New Zealand Wars
The New Zealand Wars were a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand from 1845 to 1872 between the Colonial government and allied Maori on one side and Maori and Maori-allied settlers on the other. At the peak of hostilities in the 1860s, 18,000 British troops, supported by artillery, cavalry and local militia, battled about 4,000 Maori warriors. Over the course of the Taranaki and Waikato campaigns, the lives of about 1,800 Maori and 800 Europeans were lost, and total Maori losses over the course of all the wars may have exceeded 2,100.
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Chris Korte's New Zealand Genealogy Project
1740 -
