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Moa hunters were the first people who lived in Christchurch and arrived around 1000AD. By 1450, they were killed.
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Around 1500 to 1700, North Island Maori arrived to Christchurch while the other moa hunters were killed pr taken to other tribes.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Sailors from the sealing ship of Governor Bligh landed that Europeans first set foot on the Peninsula.
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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.
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Major Thomas Bunbury arived on the HMS Herald to collect te signatures of the Ngāi Tahu chiefs for the Treaty of Waitangi.
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James Herriot first attempted at settling on the plains of Sydney. He arrived with two small groups.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
