European settlers in New Zealand

European settlers in New Zealand, also known locally as Pākehā settlers, began arriving in the country in the early 19th century as settlers of various types, initially settling around the Bay of Islands mostly. Large-scale organised settlement and migration from the island of Great Britain to other regions in New Zealand began in the 1840s, such as to Wellington, Canterbury and Otago regions.

Early settlements

There was at first minimal immigration to New Zealand directly after 1769 when Captain James Cook first visited the islands. Between 1805 and 1835 the European population grew very slowly. Most Europeans were itinerant sailors. The Bay of Islands and the Hokianga in Northland had the most Europeans with about 200 in the 1830s. Before 1835, most settlers were runaway sailors, escaped convicts, sealers, whalers and missionaries with their families.

An early custom of European settlers was to use the native poroporo berry to make jam. As more settlers arrived, feral pigs released during the earliest visits to the islands, which became known as Captain Cooker types, became scarcer as they were over-hunted. Despite often being poor and burdened with debt, Pākehā settlers working and farming new land benefited from the infrastructure of the British Empire, with secure titles, Crown-granted lands and protection by Land Transfer Acts.

New Zealand Company

The New Zealand Company was founded as a commercial operation designed for investors. It believed the solution to mass starvation was to export surplus population. Edward Gibbon Wakefield was involved with the company.

Wellington

Wellington was the first official settlement set up by the New Zealand Company. The first settlers arrived at Petone from England in 1840.

Whanganui

Wanganui was the second Wakefield settlement to be established although it was set up with some reluctance. Late 1840 Wellington settlers found that there was insufficient land available in their original settlement to satisfy their land claims and Colonel Wakefield was forced to offer them the option of land in the Wanganui settlement. Bringing with them England's Victorian era cultural practices, their settlement resulted in the social and occupational composition of Wanganui being much the same as Wellington.

New Plymouth

Originally the development of the settlement was organised by the Plymouth Company which merged with the New Zealand Company in 1840.{(citation needed|date=May 2025}}

Otago

The New Zealand Company planned a settlement for Scottish Presbyterian immigrants. Fred Tuckett was employed to find the settlement and do the surveying. He settled on Otago in the South Island.{citation needed|date=May 2025}}

Canterbury Association

The Canterbury Association was formed after a meeting between Edward Gibbon Wakefield and John Robert Godley.

Auckland

Auckland was initially an unplanned settlement, established solely by settlers themselves through migration and immigration to the area. By 1853 there were approximately 8,000 people living in the Auckland area. About 17,000 acres (69 km²) in crops. Auckland was the closest in New Zealand to an agricultural settlement.

20th century

European settlers were still arriving well into the 20th century, with Department of Health statistics showing that post-1900, tuberculosis was still the main cause of unnatural death among them. The 1906–1908 Native Land Commission, headed by Robert Stout and Āpirana Ngata, encouraged the sale of unoccupied or seemingly underdeveloped Māori lands to European settlers. Historian David Vernon Williams suggests, by the early 20th century, "colonial state power had overwhelmed tribal rangatiratanga in an insistent and persistent exercise of forceful measures to individualise land holdings and to promote colonisation by Pākehā settlers".

Reasons for emigrating

Campaign posters often described New Zealand as an island paradise, complete with white sandy beaches and coconut trees. Another factor in attracting people to New Zealand was families who had already settled writing to their relatives back in their homeland. Another factor in attracting people to New Zealand was undoubtedly the prospect of owning land.

European customs

Early European settlers brought a range of customs with them to what would become New Zealand. According to Christchurch newspaper The Press, European emigrants to New Zealand transported over many of their cultural and political norms; "Pākehā settlers brought with them a profound belief in self-reliance, property rights, and the autonomy of local communities". Property rights came with a new and foreign understanding, alien to the native customs; both an ideological and distinctively European concept.

Pākehā guilt

In the 2004 essay "'Cultural vandalism' and Pākehā politics of guilt and responsibility", the concept of white guilt, or Pākehā guilt, is explored as a legacy of colonial settlement. In 2002, then in opposition, future Prime Minister Bill English was said to reject the "cringing guilt" from the legacy of Pākehā settlers, after the government Race Relations Commissioner compared the cultural impact of European settlement in the islands with the Taliban destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan.

Elizabeth Rata has argued that while the Waitangi Tribunal had served as a chance to acknowledge wrongs and resolve Pākehā guilt, the opportunity was missed; "Without the mirror image of unexpiated guilt, a necessary process in the recognition and validation of a shared reality, Pākehā guilt moved, not onto the next stage of externalised shame, but into an internal and enclosed narcissism". In 2007, anthropologist Michael Jackson wrote that the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa was an expression of residual "liberal Pākehā guilt" in its "extolling Māori spiritual superiority and pandering to the stereoptype of crass Western materialism, Pākehā seek to compensate Māori for their political powerlessness without actually changing the status quo".

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