Christchurch Timeline.

By Emerson.
  • 1000

    First inhabitants- 1000AD or CE

    The first people to live in the place now known as Christchurch were moa hunters, who probably arrived there as early as AD 1000
  • 1500

    Tracks developed in Ōtautahi between Kaiapoi and Rāpaki

    The main track between Kaiapoi and another settlement at Rāpaki followed a path between the swamps and the two rivers, Ōtākaro (Avon) and Ōpāwaho (Heathcote). One of the two remaining patches of forest or bush was at Pūtaringamotu (later Riccarton), and was an important place for food gathering (birds, eels, fish and freshwater crayfish). 1500-1700
  • 1500

    Iwi migrate to the South Island/ Te Waipounamu

    North Island Māori (Ngati Māmoe and later Ngāi Tahu) arrived in Canterbury between 1500 and 1700. All moa hunters that were left, were killed or taken into the tribes.

  • Cook sights the Canterbury Peninsula

    On the 16th of February 1770 Captain James Cook in his ship sighted the Canterbury peninsula. He thought it was an island, and named it Banks Island after the ship’s botanist, Joseph Banks.

  • Kaiapoi established by Ngāi Tahu as a central trading kainga

    By 1800 the Ngāi Tūāhuriri sub-tribe of Ngāi Tahu were in control of the coast from the Hurunui River in the north to Lake Ellesmere in the south. Their largest settlement was a fortified pā at Kaiapoi. This was also a major trading centre for pounamu or greenstone.

  • Europeans land on Banks Peninsula

    It was probably not until 1815 when sailors from the sealing ship Governor Bligh landed that Europeans first set foot on Banks Peninsula.

  • Māori population declines

    During the 1820s and 1830s the local Māori population fell. The reasons included fighting between different groups of Ngāi Tahu, raids by the Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha from 1830 to 1832, and the impact of European diseases, especially measles and influenza, from which hundreds of Māori died.

  • Farming settlements established in Akaroa

    Captain William Rhodes first visited in 1836. He came back in 1839 and landed a herd of 50 cattle near Akaroa.
    The first attempt at settling on the plains was made by James Herriot of Sydney. He arrived with two small groups of farmers in April 1840. Their first crop was successful, but a plague of rats made them decide to leave.

  • Te Tiriti o Waitangi signed

    In May 1840 Major Thomas Bunbury arrived on the HMS Herald to collect the signatures of the Ngāi Tahu chiefs for the Treaty of Waitangi. The Treaty had been signed by many North Island chiefs in the Bay of Islands earlier in the year on 6 February. During Bunbury’s visit only two of the Ngāi Tahu chiefs signed it.

  • Deans family establish farming at Riccarton Bush/ Pūtaringāmotu

    In 1843 the Deans brothers arrived and established a farm at Pūtaringamotu. Manson and Gebbie families also came with them, to work on the farm. Together they built the first European house on the Canterbury Plains. They named the area Riccarton after the parish they came from in Scotland.

  • Canterbury Settlement underway

    In November 1847 John Robert Godley and Edward Gibbon Wakefield met to plan the Canterbury settlement.

  • Ngāi Tahu chiefs signed ‘Kemp’s Deed’

    Governor Grey sent the land commissioner Henry Kemp to the South Island in 1848 to buy land. Sixteen Ngāi Tahu chiefs signed ‘Kemp’s Deed’, selling the larger part of their land for £2,000, but keeping some land. This was signed at Akaroa on 12 June 1848.

  • Immigrants from England arrive on the ship Charlotte Jane

    The first of the ships, the Charlotte Jane, arrived at Lyttelton the morning of December 16, 1850, and was met by Godley, Sir George and Lady Grey.