Page 63 - Ultimate Australia

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Landt. An unknown Dutch cartographer back in Holland later changed this to Nieuw Zeeland
(or Nova Zeelandia in Latin) after the Dutch maritime province of Zeeland.

European Settlement

For over a century New Zealand was largely left alone by explorers. Then, between 1769 and
1777, British Captain James Cook made three voyages to the islands aboard the Endeavour.
Eventually, Cook was successful in navigating and charting the coastlines of New Zealand’s
North and South Islands. While he met with some initial hostility from the islands’ residents,
Cook was able to forge a peaceful relationship with the Maori—but he soon claimed the
islands for the British Crown without their consent.

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the land’s natural resources. Sealers ruthlessly plundered the thriving seal colonies in the
waters around the South Island and practically decimated the entire seal population by 1802.
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camps along the West Coast of the South Island, and conducted business with no regard for
the environment, destroying great forests and burning down sacred bushlands in order to
clear land. Sadly, the muskets they traded with the Maori only served to intensify the violence
between tribes, and soon led to brutal intertribal warfare.

But the incursion with the most far-reaching and damaging consequences resulted
from the introduction of liquor and European diseases, against which the Maori had no
immunity. Thousands died from epidemics of what would be considered minor ailments
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dramatically reduced.

Missionaries, too, traveled to the new land with hopes of spreading the doctrine of
Christianity. On Christmas Day, 1814, Reverend Samuel Marsden, aided by a friendly young
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accept Christianity, perhaps in part because they were impressed with the missionaries’ ability
to cure diseases that Maori healers could not. However, as more and more Maori embraced
Christianity, fewer aspects of the centuries-old Maori society were observed. Traditional Maori
culture began to dissolve.

Land Wars and Gold Rush

On February 6, 1840, representatives of the British Crown and various Maori chiefs signed
the Treaty of Waitangi, a key date in New Zealand’s history. In the English-language version,
the treaty grants the Maori land rights and the right of British citizenship in exchange for
ceding the sovereignty of New Zealand to the British crown. But in the Maori-language
version, the word for sovereignty is weaker, suggesting governship or the right to make the
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understandings of land rights, and the result is a controversy that continues to this day.

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