Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When was New Zealand colonized?
The history of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land. The first European explorer to sight New Zealand was Dutch navigator Abel Tasman on 13 December 1642. The Dutch were also the first non-natives to explore and chart New Zealand's coastline. Captain James Cook, who reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of his three voyages, was the first European explorer to circumnavigate and map New Zealand. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and various Māori chiefs, bringing New Zealand into the British Empire and giving Māori the same rights as British subjects. There was extensive British settlement throughout the rest of the century and into the early part of the next century. War and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to Pākehā (European) ownership, and most Māori subsequently became impoverished.
The first major step towards nationhood on the international stage came in 1919 when New Zealand was given a seat in the newly founded League of Nations. In 1926 the Balfour Declaration declared Britain's Dominions as "equal in status", followed by the creation of the legal basis of independence, established by the Statute of Westminster 1931 which came about mainly at the behest of nationalist elements in South Africa and the Irish Free State. However, Australia, New Zealand, and Newfoundland were hostile towards this development, and the statute was not adopted in New Zealand until 1947. Irrespective of any legal developments, some New Zealanders still perceived themselves as a distinctive outlying branch of the United Kingdom until at least the 1970s. This attitude began to change when the United Kingdom joined the European Community in 1973 and abrogated its preferential trade agreements with New Zealand, and gradual nationality and societial changes further eroded the relationship.
The history of Air New Zealand, the national carrier of New Zealand, began when the amalgamated East Coast Airways and Cook Strait Airways began operations in January 1936 as Union Airways of N.Z. Ltd, the country's first major airline. Union Airways was the sole New Zealand aviation partner in Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL), which made its inaugural flight in 1940. The New Zealand Government bought full ownership of TEAL in 1961 and the airline was renamed "Air New Zealand" in 1965. New Zealand's domestic airline, National Airways Corporation (NAC), was merged with Air New Zealand in 1978. Air New Zealand was privatised in 1989 but in the early 2000s (decade) it got in financial trouble and in 2001 the New Zealand Government took up 80% ownership in return for injecting NZ$885M. In November 2013, the National Government sold down its share in Air New Zealand from 73% to 53% as part of its controversial asset sales programme.
In 1890, there was an informal meeting of members from the Australasian colonies, this was followed by the first National Australasian convention a year later. The New Zealand representatives stated it would be unlikely to join a federation with Australia at its foundation, but it would be interested in doing so at a later date. New Zealand's position was taken into account when the Constitution of Australia was written up. New Zealand did not join because of fears of racist laws towards the Māori from the treatment of the Australian Aboriginal people. Australia, in an attempt to sway New Zealand to join, gave Māori the right to vote in 1902, while Australian Aboriginal people did not gain the right to vote until 1967. In 1908 and 1912, Australia and New Zealand sent Australasians teams to the Olympic Games. New Zealand and Australian soldiers fought together in 1915 under the name ANZAC.
New Zealand's first contribution came in 1949, when C-47 Dakotas of RNZAF No. 41 Squadron were attached to the Royal Air Force's Far East Air Force. New Zealand became more directly involved in the conflict in 1955; from May, RNZAF de Havilland Vampires and Venoms began to fly strike missions. In November 1955 133 soldiers of what was to become the Special Air Service of New Zealand arrived from Singapore, for training in country with the British SAS, beginning operations by April 1956. The Royal New Zealand Air Force continued to carry out strike missions with Venoms of No. 14 Squadron and later No. 75 Squadron English Electric Canberras, as well as supply-dropping operations in support of anti-guerrilla forces, using the Bristol Freighter.
Air New Zealand originated in 1940 as Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL), a company operating trans-Tasman flights between New Zealand and Australia. TEAL became wholly owned by the New Zealand government in 1965, whereupon it was renamed Air New Zealand. The airline served international routes until 1978, when the government merged it and the domestic New Zealand National Airways Corporation (NAC) into a single airline under the Air New Zealand name. Air New Zealand was privatised in 1989, but returned to majority government ownership in 2001 after near bankruptcy due to a failed tie up with Australian carrier Ansett Australia. In the 2017 financial year to June, Air New Zealand carried 15.95 million passengers.
The "New Zealand Sugar Company" was formed in June 1883 by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, the Victorian Sugar Company, and a number of prominent Auckland businessmen, including Sir Frederick Whitaker, Allan Kerr Taylor, LD Nathan (of Lion Nathan), and AG Horton and JL Wilson (of Wilson & Horton). However, a collapse in the world sugar market in the 1880s led the New Zealand Sugar Company to be re-amalgamated into its parent company Colonial Sugar in 1888. In 1959, the present New Zealand Sugar Company was formed to allow local autonomy. Wilmar International currently own 75% of the New Zealand Sugar Company, and Mackay Sugar own 25%.
British colonisation of Australia began with the arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay, New South Wales, in 1788. Settlements were subsequently established in Tasmania (1803), Victoria (1803), Queensland (1824), the Northern Territory (1824), Western Australia (1826), and South Australia (1836). Australia was the exception to British imperial colonization practices, in that no treaty was drawn up setting out terms of agreement between the settlers and native proprietors, as was the case in North America, and New Zealand. Many of the men on the First Fleet had had military experience among Indian tribes in North America, and tended to attribute to the aborigines alien and misleading systems or concepts like chieftainship and tribe with which they had become acquainted in the northern hemisphere.
Islam in New Zealand began with the arrival of Muslim Chinese gold prospectors in the 1870s. The first Islamic organisation in New Zealand, the New Zealand Muslim Association, was established in Auckland in 1950. 1960 saw the arrival of the first imam, Maulana Said Musa Patel, from Gujarat, India. Large-scale Muslim immigration began in the 1970s with the arrival of Fiji Indians, followed in the 1990s by refugees from various war-torn countries. In April 1979 the three regional Muslim organisations of Canterbury, Wellington and Auckland, joined together to create the only national Islamic body – the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand. Early in the 1990s many migrants were admitted under New Zealand's refugee quota, from war zones in Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq. Since the 11 September attacks there was a spike in conversions to Islam among Maori prisoners in jail.
In 1980, Southern Rhodesia, Britain's last African colony, became the independent nation of Zimbabwe. The New Hebrides achieved independence (as Vanuatu) in 1980, with Belize following suit in 1981. The passage of the British Nationality Act 1981, which reclassified the remaining Crown colonies as "British Dependent Territories" (renamed British Overseas Territories in 2002) meant that, aside from a scattering of islands and outposts, the process of decolonisation that had begun after the Second World War was largely complete. In 1982, Britain's resolve in defending its remaining overseas territories was tested when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, acting on a long-standing claim that dated back to the Spanish Empire. Britain's ultimately successful military response to retake the islands during the ensuing Falklands War was viewed by many to have contributed to reversing the downward trend in Britain's status as a world power. The same year, the Canadian government severed its last legal link with Britain by patriating the Canadian constitution from Britain. The 1982 Canada Act passed by the British parliament ended the need for British involvement in changes to the Canadian constitution. Similarly, the Australia Act 1986 (effective 3 March 1986) severed the constitutional link between Britain and the Australian states, while New Zealand's Constitution Act 1986 (effective 1 January 1987) reformed the constitution of New Zealand to sever its constitutional link with Britain. In 1984, Brunei, Britain's last remaining Asian protectorate, gained its independence.
The birds of New Zealand evolved into an avifauna that included a large number of endemic species. As an island archipelago New Zealand accumulated bird diversity and when Captain James Cook arrived in the 1770s he noted that the bird song was deafening. The mix includes species with unusual biology such as the kakapo which is the world's only flightless, nocturnal, lek breeding parrot, but also many species that are similar to neighboring land areas. Some of the more well known and distinctive bird species in New Zealand are the kiwi, kea, takahe, kakapo, mohua, tui and the bellbird. The tuatara is a notable reptile endemic to New Zealand.
The first Muslims in New Zealand were an Indian family who settled in Cashmere, Christchurch, in the 1850s. The 1874 government census reported 15 Chinese gold diggers working in the Dunstan gold fields of Otago in the 1870s. In the early 1900s three important Gujarati Muslim families came from India. The first Islamic organisation in New Zealand, the New Zealand Muslim Association (NZMA), was established in Auckland in 1950. In 1951 the refugee boat SS Goya brought over 60 Muslim men from eastern Europe, including Mazhar Krasniqi who would later serve twice as president of the New Zealand Muslim Association. These Gujarati and European immigrants worked together in the 1950s to buy a house and convert it into an Islamic centre in 1959. The following year saw the arrival of the first imam, Maulana Said Musa Patel, from Gujarat, India. Students from South Asia and Southeast Asia helped establish the other prayer rooms and Islamic centres elsewhere from the 1960s onwards, although New Zealand had a relatively tiny Muslim population until many years later.
New Zealand had more species of flightless birds (including the kiwi, several species of penguins, the takahe, the weka, the moa, and several other extinct species) than any other such location. One reason is that until the arrival of humans roughly a thousand years ago, there were no large land predators in New Zealand; the main predators of flightless birds were larger birds.
In 1838 the New Zealand Company was formed in England with the purpose of facilitating and encouraging migration from overcrowded cities to New Zealand, selling land to settlers who would work as farmers and labourers. A separate enterprise, the Plymouth Company, was established in Plymouth in February 1840, where it was run under the guidance of agent Thomas Woolcombe. (Many streets in New Plymouth bear the names of the company’s directors, including Woolcombe, the Earl of Devon, Thomas Gill, Sir Anthony Buller, Lord Eliot, George Leach, Sir Charles Lemon, Edward St Aubyn, E.W.W. Pendarvis, Lord Courtenay and Hussey Vivian.) The company merged with the New Zealand Company in April 1841 after suffering financial losses through the collapse of its bank.
With the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the "First Fleet", under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, on 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day, Australia Day. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the western part of Western Australia (the Swan River Colony) in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. The Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia. South Australia was founded as a "free province"—it was never a penal colony. Victoria and Western Australia were also founded "free", but later accepted transported convicts. A campaign by the settlers of New South Wales led to the end of convict transportation to that colony; the last convict ship arrived in 1848.
The Colony of Tasmania (more commonly referred to simply as "Tasmania") was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The possibility of the colony was established when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the "Australian Constitutions Act" in 1850, granting the right of legislative power to each of the six Australian colonies. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which they passed in 1854, and it was given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria in 1855. Later in that year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856, the newly elected bicameral parliament of Tasmania sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Tasmania was often referred to as one of the "most British" colonies of the Empire.
In 1766 during his first voyage to the Pacific, Royal Navy captain James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. Seventeen years later, following the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the "First Fleet", under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, and the British Crown Colony of New South Wales was formally promulgated on 7 February 1788. Further Crown Colonies were established in Van Diemen's Land (now known as Tasmania) in 1803; Swan River Colony (now known as Western Australia) in 1828; South Australia in 1836; Victoria in 1851; and Queensland in 1859. The six colonies federated in 1901 and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed as a Dominion of the British Empire.
On 21 December 2010, the New Zealand government approved an alliance between Air New Zealand and Australian airline Virgin Blue (now named Virgin Australia), which allowed both airlines to expand operations between Australia and New Zealand with codeshares for trans-Tasman and connecting domestic flights; and reciprocal access to frequent flyer programmes and airport lounges. Air New Zealand subsequently purchased a 26% shareholding in Virgin Australia Holdings (Virgin Australia's parent company) to cement the relationship. By October 2016 Air New Zealand sold its remaining stake in Virgin Australia to investors and the Nasham Group. On 4 April 2018, Air New Zealand ended its partnership with Virgin Australia effective 28 October 2018.
There is considerable archaeological discussion as to the route taken by the first colonisers. People appear to have arrived by sea during a period of glaciation, when New Guinea and Tasmania were joined to the continent. The journey still required sea travel however, making them amongst the world's earlier mariners. Scott Cane wrote in 2013 that the first wave may have been prompted by the eruption of Mount Toba. If they arrived around 70,000 years ago, they could have crossed the water from Timor, when the sea level was low; but if they came later, around 50,000 years ago, a more likely route would be through the Moluccas to New Guinea. Given that the likely landfall regions have been under around 50 metres of water for the last 15,000 years, it is unlikely that the timing will ever be established with certainty.
One of his first tasks was to enquire into the circumstances surrounding the Wairau Affray, in which there had been violent conflict between settlers and the Maori. He found the actions of the colonists to have been illegal and declined to take any action against Te Rauparaha. He did not have the troops to meet him on anything like equal terms. But the New Zealand Company and the settlers felt betrayed and angry. He appointed a Government Superintendent for the area, to establish a ruling presence. Fitzroy also insisted that the New Zealand Company pay the Māori a realistic price for the land they claimed to have purchased. These moves made him very unpopular.
In 2015, total trade between both nations amounted to $127 million USD. New Zealand's main exports to Poland include: fish fillets, wool, iron and steel structures and their parts. Poland's main exports to New Zealand include: trucks and vans, harvesting machinery, telephones and cell phones. In April 2005, a double taxation agreement was signed between both nations.
When war broke out in 1939, New Zealanders saw their proper role as defending their proud place in the British Empire. It contributed some 120,000 troops. They mostly fought in North Africa, Greece/Crete, and Italy, relying on the Royal Navy and later the United States to protect New Zealand from the Japanese forces. Japan had no interest in New Zealand in the first place; it had already over-reached when it invaded New Guinea in 1942. (There were a few highly publicised but ineffective Japanese scouting incursions.) The 3rd New Zealand Division fought in the Solomons in 1943–44, but New Zealand's limited manpower meant 2 Divisions could not be maintained, and it was disbanded and its men returned to civilian life or used to reinforce the 2nd Division in Italy. The armed forces peaked at 157,000 in September 1942; 135,000 served abroad, and 10,100 died.
New Zealand, with a population of 1.7 million, including 99,000 Māori, was highly mobilised during the war. The Labour party was in power and promoted unionisation and the welfare state. Agriculture expanded, sending record supplies of meat, butter and wool to Britain. When American forces arrived, they were fed as well.
New Zealand was represented on the victory march by a contingent of 300 members and former members of the armed forces. The contingent consisted of 150 representatives of the army, 100 of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and 50 of the Royal New Zealand Navy. Women were also included in all three sections, and there was representation of the Maori Battalion. The contingent was commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Puttick, the General Officer Commanding of the New Zealand Forces During the war. The Contingent included the Victoria Cross holders, Colone Leslie Andrew VC,DSO Sergeant Alfred Clive Hulme VC and Charles Upham, VC & Bar. The contingent sailed from New Zealand on April 20 on the New Zealand hospital ship Maunganui.
The dating of the settlement of Eastern Polynesia, including Hawai'i, Easter Island, and New Zealand, is not agreed upon in every instance. Most recently, a 2010 study using meta-analysis of the most reliable radiocarbon dates available suggested that the colonization of Eastern Polynesia (including Hawaii and New Zealand) proceeded in two short episodes: in the Society Islands from 1025 to 1120 AD and further afield from 1190 to 1290 AD, with Easter Island being settled around 1200. Other archeological models developed in recent decades, which are challenged by that recent set of radiocarbon dating interpretations, have pointed to dates of between 300 and 500 AD, or alternatively 800 AD (as supported by Jared Diamond) for the settlement of Easter Island, and similarly, a date of 500 AD has been suggested for Hawaii. Linguistically, there is a very distinct "East Polynesian" subgroup with many shared innovations not seen in other Polynesian languages. The Marquesas dialects are perhaps the source of the oldest Hawaiian speech which is overlaid by Tahitian variety speech, as Hawaiian oral histories would suggest. The earliest varieties of New Zealand Maori speech may have had multiple sources from around central Eastern Polynesia as Maori oral histories would suggest.
New Zealand was already deeply religious with many Christian sects by the time Mormon missionaries arrived. Formal LDS Church missionary proselytizing began on 20 October 1854 by William Cooke and Thomas Holden, under the direction of mission president Augustus Farnham. All three men left for the island from the United States on the "William Denney". However, due to lack of materials and interested individuals, the initial work was slow up until the 1870s when missionaries had more resources. These first proselyting efforts began as part of the Australasian Missionary efforts. In 1855, the first branch of the LDS Church was organized at Karori, with the next organized in Kaiapoi in 1867. The first stakes of New Zealand were created in Auckland on 18 May 1958, and then in Hamilton and Hawkes Bay in 1960. On 4 August 1897 the Australasian Mission was divided to give New Zealand its own respective mission. The mission was again divided in May 1958 to include a New Zealand South portion. As of May 2017, New Zealand now has three missions based in Auckland, Wellington, and Hamilton, respectively. The LDS Church continues to hold a notable and respected presence in New Zealand, the first account being when Colonial Minister of Native affairs praised Mormonism for bringing good citizens to his nation back in 1912.