Canterbury Timeline

By 222yuz
  • 1000

    First Inhabitants

    First Inhabitants
    Moa hunters were the first people who lived in Christchurch and arrived around 1000AD. By 1450, they were killed.
  • 1500

    Iwi migrate to the South Island

    Around 1500 to 1700, North Island Maori arrived to Christchurch while the other moa hunters were killed pr taken to other tribes.

  • Cook sights the Canterbury Peninsula

    In February 16, 1776, Captain James Cook in his ship the Endeavor first sighted the Canterbury peninsula. He then thought it was an island and named it after the ship's botanist, Joseph Banks.

  • Kaiapoi established by Ngāi Tahu as a central trading kainga

    Ngāi Tahu sub-tribe, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, were in control of the Hurunui River to Lake Ellesmere. Their largest settlement was a fortified pā located at Kaiapo and it is also a major trading centre or greenstone.

  • Tracks developed in Ōtautahi between Kaiapoi and Rāpaki

    The track between Kaiapo and another settlement at Rāpaki followed a path between Ōtākaro and Ōpāwaho. One or two patches of bush remained at Pūtaringamotu (Riccarton), and was an important place of gathering food.

  • Europeans land on Banks Peninsula

    Sailors from the sealing ship of Governor Bligh landed that Europeans first set foot on the Peninsula.

  • Māori population declines

    Around 1820's and 1830's, the local Maori population fell. Fighting between different groups of Ngāi Tahu, raids by Te Rauparaha, Ngati Toa's chief, from 1830 to 1832. The impact of European diseases, especially measles and influenza, from which a hundred Maori died.

  • Te Tiriti o Waitangi signed

    Major Thomas Bunbury arived on the HMS Herald to collect te signatures of the Ngāi Tahu chiefs for the Treaty of Waitangi.

  • Farming settlements established in Akaroa

    James Herriot first attempted at settling on the plains of Sydney. He arrived with two small groups.

  • Deans family establish farming at Riccarton Bush/ Pūtaringāmotu

    William and John Deans arrived and established a farm at Pūtaringamotu. The Manson and Gebbie families also came with them to wok on the farm.

  • Canterbury Settlement underway

    John Robert Godley and Edward Gibbon Wakefield met to plan the Canterbury settlement. Wakefield believed that colonisation of coutries could be organised in such a way that towns would be like community back in England.

  • Ngāi Tahu chiefs signed ‘Kemp’s Deed’

    Sixteen of the Ngāi Tahu chiefs signed the Kemp's deed, selling a bigger part of their land for £2,000 but keeping someland of settlements and reserves and places where they gather food.

  • Immigrants from England arrive on the ship Charlotte Jane

    The Charlotte Jane arrived in Lyttelton in the morning and was met by Goldey, Sir George, and Lady Grey. James Edward Fitzgerald was the first ashore of the travellers, known as the Pilrims.