Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Okuti Garden
B2
9
Onuku Farm Hostel
C3
History
James Cook sighted the peninsula in 1770. Thinking it was an island, he named it after
the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks.
In 1831, Onawe
pa
(fortified village) was attacked by the Ngati Toa chief Te
Rauparaha and in the massacres that followed, the local Ngai Tahu population was dra-
matically reduced. Seven years later, whaling captain Jean Langlois negotiated the pur-
chase of Banks Peninsula from the survivors and returned to France to form a trading
company. With French government backing, 63 settlers headed for the peninsula in 1840,
but only days before they arrived, panicked British officials sent their own warship to
raise the flag at Akaroa, claiming British sovereignty under the Treaty of Waitangi. Had
the settlers arrived two years earlier, the entire South Island could have become a French
colony, and NZ's future might have been quite different.
The French did settle at Akaroa, but in 1849 their land claim was sold to the New Zea-
land Company, and in 1850 a large group of British settlers arrived. The heavily forested
land was cleared and soon farming became the peninsula's main industry.
