Maori History Timeline

Abel Tasman's voyage in 1642 brought the first European contact with New Zealand, including a brief offshore skirmish with Māori.

Image source: Abel Tasman

Captain James Cook's party made the first sustained outside contact with Māori during Cook's first voyage, while he mapped the islands.

Image source: First voyage of James Cook

Māori contact with Cook continued during his second and third voyages in 1773 and 1777, including encounters in the Marlborough Sounds.

Image source: Second voyage of James Cook

Between 1800 and 1820, 65 sealing voyages and 106 whaling voyages visited New Zealand, mainly from Britain and Australia, intensifying Māori contact with Europeans.

Image source: History of New Zealand

Between 1805 and 1840, muskets and the recently introduced potato changed intertribal warfare, creating pressure to obtain firearms and enabling longer campaigns.

Image source: Musket Wars

During the Boyd Massacre, Māori took hostage and killed 66 crew members and passengers of the sailing ship Boyd, apparently in revenge for the captain's whipping of a chief's son.

When Whiria, also known as Pōmare II, led a war party against Tītore in 1838, 131 Europeans were among his warriors.

In 1839, reports of lawlessness and uncontrolled land speculation by British subjects led the British government to decide to colonise New Zealand.

By 1839, estimates placed the number of Europeans living among Māori as high as 2,000, with about two-thirds living in the North Island, particularly Northland.

On 6 May 1839, the British government expanded the New South Wales colony to include New Zealand and dispatched William Hobson to negotiate sovereignty and establish a colony.

Most other chiefs around New Zealand signed the Treaty of Waitangi during 1840, although some chiefs refused to sign.

On 6 February 1840, William Hobson signed the Treaty of Waitangi with many North Island chiefs. The treaty granted Māori the status of British subjects and enabled New Zealand to become part of the British Empire.

In May 1840, Hobson established British sovereignty over New Zealand through two declarations.

Image source: Colony of New Zealand

Minor conflicts after the main wars included the incident at Parihaka in 1881 and the Dog Tax War from 1897 to 1898.

Image source: New Zealand Wars

The Māori population is estimated to have fallen from about 100,000 in 1800 to between 50,000 and 80,000 by the end of the wars in 1843.

Introduced diseases spread with extraordinary virulence during the early 19th century, affecting Māori populations throughout the North Island and into the South Island.

Between 1840 and 1890, Māori sold 95 percent of their land, amounting to 63 million of 66 million acres.

The Native Land Acts of 1862 and 1865 established the Native Land Court, converting communal Māori land ownership into individual household titles to facilitate assimilation and European purchases.

Image source: Māori Land Court

In 1867, Parliament created four Māori seats and granted Māori men universal suffrage, 12 years before their European New Zealand counterparts received the same voting rights.

Image source: Māori electorates

The Māori population was recorded as 37,520 in the 1871 census and 42,113 in 1896, while the European population exceeded 700,000 by 1896.

In 1884, King Tāwhiao withdrew money from the Kīngitanga bank, Te Peeke o Aotearoa, and travelled to London to ask Queen Victoria to honour the Treaty of Waitangi.

Image source: Tāwhiao

From the late 19th century, Māori politicians including James Carroll, Āpirana Ngata, Te Rangi Hīroa, and Māui Pōmare formed an influential reform group known as the Young Māori Party.

The Māori Land Conference at Waihi in 1910 discussed the potential sale of a further 600,000 acres of Māori land.

Māori were badly affected by the 1918 influenza epidemic when the Māori Battalion returned from the Western Front.

The Māori population reached 82,326 in 1936, although Professor Ian Pool attributed much of the sudden rise in the 1930s to the introduction of a family benefit requiring birth registration.

Since 1976, people of Māori descent have been able to choose enrollment on either the general or Māori roll for general elections, while voting in only one type of electorate.

In the 2013 census, approximately 600,000 people in New Zealand identified as Māori, representing roughly 15 percent of the national population.

Thomas Kendall first wrote down the Māori language in 1815 in A korao no New Zealand.

In 1820, Professor Samuel Lee, assisted by Thomas Kendall and the chiefs Hongi Hika and Waikato, compiled A Grammar and Vocabulary of the New Zealand Language.

Between February 1835 and January 1840, William Colenso printed 74,000 Māori-language booklets from his press at Paihia.

In 1843, the government distributed free Māori-language gazettes known as Ko Te Karere O Nui Tireni.

Image source: Māori language

In 1975, the Crown established the Waitangi Tribunal to investigate alleged breaches of Treaty guarantees and make recommendations, although its rulings are not binding.

Image source: Waitangi Tribunal

During the 1990s and 2000s, the government negotiated redress for Crown breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, providing more than NZ$900 million in settlements by 2006.

Image source: Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlements

The foreshore and seabed controversy in 2004 expressed competing Māori and non-Māori views about rights, ownership, and the relationship between Māori interests and the Crown.

On 25 June 2008, the largest settlement described in the source was signed with seven Māori iwi and transferred nine large tracts of forested land to Māori control.