Early settlers (New Zealand)

Where they came from

These New Zealand websites have the best information on where early settlers came from and their journeys to Aotearoa New Zealand.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara is an excellent starting point for all questions about Aotearoa New Zealand. If we scroll down to the bottom of the page we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.

• Go to the Topics menu and choose History. There are lots of stories to explore:

  • First people in Māori tradition tells stories of Polynesian settlement in Aotearoa.

  • Read European discovery of New Zealand about how James Cook and other explorers came to New Zealand.

  • History of Immigration has details about the early years of immigration and the growth of settlements.

  • Read The Voyage out to learn about what journeys to New Zealand were like and the personal accounts of travellers.

• Or from Topics, choose Immigrant groups for a list of peoples who have made their way to Aotearoa New Zealand. This includes early settlers such as the French, Dutch, Irish, Dalmatians and Chinese.

• Or use keywords like '1840' or 'British settlement' to explore Europeans to 1840 and British Sovereignty and settlement.

• These stories talk about early European settlers and how settlements began.

Tips: We like sites that are from government or other reputable organisations, because we can trust the information. You can sometimes tell these sites by their web address – they might have .govt or .edu in their address – or by looking at their About us or Contact pages.

NZ History

NZ History is a great website for information about New Zealand Aotearoa. If we go all the way down the page we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.

• Select Culture and Society

• then go to Pre-1840 contact to find information about Missionaries, Sealers and whalers, and Encounters

• or Decade studies has a link to A history of New Zealand 1769-1914

• or scroll down to Immigration and choose British and Irish immigration, 1840-1914.

Tips: Remember to explore 'Further information' found on each of these pages as they link to other websites that have related information.

Hōpara Kaupapa | Topic Explorer

Topic Explorer is an online tool from the National Library of New Zealand. It contains a wide range of quality resources for students in a range of formats. These resources have been selected from reliable national and international sources.

• Choose the year level Years 7 - 8.

• Go to Māori and Pākehā relationships 1790–1840.

Tips: We like these links because they have all been chosen by librarians, so the sites will be trustworthy. It is a good idea to find the About us link on each site, to see what the site's missions and values are.

Early settler life

There was a lot of work to do in early colonial New Zealand. Land had to be cleared to build communities and for farming. The following websites have information about daily life in 19th century New Zealand.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara also has information about the daily life of early settlers in New Zealand.

• Go to the Sitemap.

• Find the section Daily life, sport and recreation to find Home and daily life. Explore the stories to find out about different parts of early settler life in New Zealand.

• Or find the section Settled Landscape and look at Country Life for information about living in the country in colonial New Zealand eg Rural language, Rural clothing and Farm families.

• Or go to Stories A-Z and find Religion and Society to find out about religious traditions brough over by European settlers.

Tips: Many web pages have links to further information or to other recommended sites. Following these links is a great way to find out more. This searching method is called “pearl growing” because you are picking up pieces of sand to make a beautiful pearl!

DigitalNZ

DigitalNZ is a search site that focuses on New Zealand history and brings together results from lots of different New Zealand libraries, museums, universities and government sites all at once. It is a good source of primary sources.

• Type search words 'early settlers' into the search box.

• The results are grouped into images, audio, videos, and stories.

• The tab More will lead to newspapers, articles and research papers.

Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. Usually it’s better to leave out small words like ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘of’ and just choose the main ones, eg early settlers. We can always change our keywords or add more if we need to.

Papers Past

You can read newspaper articles from the early days of European settlement on Papers Past, a website for digitised New Zealand newspapers.

• Go to the tab called Newspapers.

• Explore newspapers By Region and choose a region eg Auckland.

• A list of the newspapers will appear alphabetically showing dates of publication from First year to Last year eg Albertland Gazette started in 1862.

Tips: Papers Past has other useful sections. Explore Magazines and journals, Letters and Diaries, and Parliamentary Papers for different types of primary sources.

Economy

Whaling, farming, logging and gold mining were some of the first occupations that contributed to the economy and the setting up of communities.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Different sections on Te Ara will lead you to different aspects of what helped the economy in colonial New Zealand.

• Go to Topics and choose Economy for a list of different stories.

• Then look at Te Māori i te ohanga - Māori and the economy, Government and industrial development and Regional economies.

• Or look at Farming in the economy about early farming and the pastoral era.

• You can also find stories on Gold and gold mining, sealing, whaling.

• You can also search using keywords. For example 'trade 1840' or 'industry 1840' will have stories about different industries such as the timber industry before 1840 and from 1840 to 1920.

Tips: Te Ara has lots of information on this topic. We recommend you explore other sections to expand your understanding of this topic.

Te Papa Tongarewa: Museum of New Zealand

Te Papa has lots of collections that help illustrate early settler life. One long running exhibition is their Passports collection.

• Under Related content select a topic to read about the object.

• Whale harpoon gives an overview of whaling in New Zealand.

• New Zealand gold nuggets looks at the gold rush in New Zealand.

Tips: We like sites like this because they’re reliable. You can tell because of their web address - they have either .govt or .ac, meaning they are from government organisations. They're also New Zealand sites, so relevant for us.

Politics and Government

The websites below are the best places to look for how early settlers went about setting up a government in New Zealand.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara has information about the history and role government in New Zealand.

• Go to Topics.

• Choose Government institutions to look at Colonial and provincial government which explains how New Zealand became a crown colony.

• Or choose History and find Treaty of Waitangi and He Whakaputanga – Declaration of Independence to understand why they are an important part of Aotearoa New Zealand.

NZ History

NZ History is another reliable source of New Zealand politics, including history.

• From the homepage check out their section Politics and Government.

• Under Political milestones find the link to Political and Constitutional timeline.

• Look at Māori leadership to read about The Māori King movement 1860-1894.

Interaction with Māori

Have a look through these links for information about interactions between Māori, the tangata whenua, and European settlers.

NZ History

NZ History has a section on Culture and Society that explores Māori and early settler interactions.

• Pre-1840 contact has a link to Encounters that has lots of details about first meetings between people, and

• the link to A frontier of chaos? is about Māori values and practices that guided their responses to early Europeans.

• Under Decade studies look at A history of New Zealand 1769-1914 to read about the Musket Wars, the New Zealand Wars, and the Treaty of Waitangi.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara also has information on the early interactions between Māori and early settlers.

• Go to Topics and choose Māori and Pākehā encounters.

• There are lots of stories here including Māori–Pākehā relations and Māori and maps of colonisation

• Or you can go to Sitemap.

• The Settled Landscape section has a link to Claiming the Land - which is about how the settlers took over land owned by Māori.

Books

Here are some books to look for in your public library or school library:

• Roads and railways, 1860-1900 by Kevin Boon.

• Development of farming, 1860-1900 by Kevin Boon.

• The forests, 1860-1900 by Kevin Boon.

• Face to face: two cultures meet in Aotearoa by Terri Kessell.

• The tauiwi: the later immigrants by Ruth Naumann.

Ask your local librarian for more suggestions, especially for books that tell you about the early history of your local area.

SCIS no: 1875659