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Waitaha

By millylepine
  • Period: May 5, 1000 to May 5, 1000

    first habitants-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.
  • Period: May 5, 1500 to

    movement to the south island

    North Island Māori (Ngati Māmoe and later Ngāi Tahu) arrived in Canterbury between 1500 and 1700.
  • Period: to

    Cook sights the Canterbury Peninsula

    On 16 February 1770 Captain James Cook in his ship the Endeavour first sighted the Canterbury peninsula. He thought it was an island, and named it Banks Island after the ship’s botanist, Joseph Banks
  • Period: to

    Kaiapoi established as a central region for trade

    Their largest settlement was a fortified pā at Kaiapoi. This was also a major trading centre for pounamu or greenstone.
  • Period: to

    Pathways 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).
  • Period: to

    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.
  • Period: to

    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
  • Period: to

    Farming settlements established in Akaroa

    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.
  • Period: to

    Deans family establish farming at Riccarton Bush/ Pūtaringāmotu

    In 1843 William and John Deans arrived and established a farm at Pūtaringamotu. The 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
  • Period: to

    Canterbury Settlement underway

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

    Ngāi Tahu chiefs signed ‘Kemp’s Deed’

    Governor Grey sent the land commissioner Henry Kemp to the South Island in 1848 to buy land for the new settlement.
  • Period: to

    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.
  • Period: to

    Immigrants from England arrive on the Charlotte Jane

    The first of the ships, the Charlotte Jane, arrived in Lyttelton on the morning of December 16, 1850