Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
at the top of the South Island. Two Dutch ships sailed from Indonesia, to search for southern
land and anything valuable it might contain. The commander, Abel Tasman, was instructed
to pretend to any natives he might meet 'that you are by no means eager for precious metals,
so as to leave them ignorant of the value of the same'.
When Tasman's ships anchored in the bay, local Maori came out in their canoes to make
the traditional challenge: friends or foes? Misunderstanding this, the Dutch challenged back,
by blowing trumpets. When a boat was lowered to take a party between the two ships, it was
attacked. Four crewmen were killed. Tasman sailed away and did not come back; nor did
any other European for 127 years. But the Dutch did leave a name: 'Nieuw Zeeland' or
'New Sealand'.
Contact between Maori and Europeans was renewed in 1769, when English and French
explorers arrived, under James Cook and Jean de Surville. Relations were more sympathet-
ic, and exploration continued, motivated by science, profit and great power rivalry. Cook
made two more visits between 1773 and 1777, and there were further French expeditions.
Similarities in language between Maori and Tahitian indicate close contact in historical
times. Maori is about as similar to Tahitian as Spanish is to French, despite the 4294km
separating these island groups.
Unofficial visits, by whaling ships in the north and sealing gangs in the south, began in
the 1790s. The first mission station was founded in 1814, in the Bay of Islands, and was fol-
lowed by dozens of others: Anglican, Methodist and Catholic. Trade in flax and timber gen-
erated small European-Maori settlements by the 1820s. Surprisingly, the most numerous
category of European visitor was probably American. New England whaling ships favoured
the Bay of Islands for rest and recreation; 271 called there between 1833 and 1839 alone. To
whalers, 'rest and recreation' meant sex and drink. Their favourite haunt, the little town of
Kororareka (now Russell) was known to the missionaries as 'the hellhole of the Pacific'.
New England visitors today might well have distant relatives among the local Maori.
One or two dozen bloody clashes dot the history of Maori-European contact before 1840
but, given the number of visits, interracial conflict was modest. Europeans needed Maori
protection, food and labour, and Maori came to need European articles, especially muskets.
Whaling stations and mission stations were linked to local Maori groups by intermarriage,
which helped keep the peace. Most warfare was between Maori and Maori: the terrible in-
tertribal 'Musket Wars' of 1818-36. Because Northland had the majority of early contact
