timeline

By avabryant1805
  • 1000 BCE

    First inhabitants

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

    Movement to the south Island/Te Waipounamu

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

  • Cook sights

    Captain James Cook in his ship the Endeavour first sighted the Canterbury peninsula.

  • Tracks developed

    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).

  • Kaiapoi established

    Ngāi Tūāhuriri sub-tribe of Ngāi Tahu was in control of the coast from the Hurunui River in the north to Lake Ellesmere in the south.

  • Europeans land

    Sailors from Governor Bligh's sealing ship landed that Europeans first set foot on Banks Peninsula. In

  • Maori population declines

    Māori population fell. The reasons included fighting between different groups of Ngāi Tahu, raids by the Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha.

  • Farming settlements established in Akaroa

    James Herriot of Sydney made the first attempt at settling on the plains. 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.

  • Deans family establish farming at Riccarton Bush/ Pūtaringāmotu

    James Herriot of Sydney made the first attempt at settling on the plains. He arrived with two small groups of farmers in April 1840. Their first crop was successful.

  • Te Tiriti o Waitangi signed

    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.

  • Canterbury Settlement underway

    John Robert Godley and Edward Gibbon Wakefield met to plan the Canterbury settlement. Wakefield believed that colonisation of countries like New Zealand could be organised so that towns could be planned before settlers arrived.

  • 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. Sixteen Ngāi Tahu chiefs signed ‘Kemp’s Deed’, selling the larger part of their land for £2,000, but keeping some land for settlements and reserves, and those places where they gathered food .

  • Immigrants from England arrive

    The first of the ships, the Charlotte Jane, arrived in Lyttelton on the morning of December 16, 1850, and was met by Godley Sir George and Lady Grey. The first ashore of the travellers, known as the Pilgrims, was James Edward Fitzgerald, who leapfrogged over Dr Alfred Barker, sitting on the prow of the rowing boat.