Ngāi Tahu

Early Ngāi Tahu 

Land Acquisition by Settlers & Ngāi Tahu Response to Colonisation

Early European activity brought some opportunity for Ngāi Tahu, and many hapū were involved in both local and trans-Tasman trade with settlers. Some Māori owned trading vessels and early relationships with Europeans were, although tense, mostly favourable. However disease and the introduction of guns into traditional inter-tribal warfare soured the outlook towards settlers. Further, when colonists arrived in greater numbers, land acquisition was amped up through increasingly coercive techniques. Ngāi Tahu were sidelined from traditional mahinga kai areas and living on mostly marginal land parcels. For a summary, begin with these books and article:

• The Ngāi Tahu Deeds: a window on New Zealand history 
• The Long Dispute: Māori Land Rights and European Colonisation in Southern New Zealand
• Te Maiharoa and the Promised Land
• The colonising environment: An aetiology of the trauma of settler colonisation and land alienation on Ngāi Tahu whānau. (2017).
• A long time coming: The story of Ngāi Tahu's treaty settlement negotiations with the Crown. (2020).

See the Ngāi Tahu Deeds and legislation affecting Ngāi Tahu on Kareao.

​Ngāi Tahu responded in protest, the first formal communication being a letter from Matiaha Tiramōrehu to Governor Eyre in 1849. The protest spanned more than a century, culminating in a Waitangi Tribunal Settlement Offer of recompense in 1996 and the Deed of Settlement in 1997. Ngāi Tahu have an excellent summary of the process of the Claim on their page Te Whakataunga: Celebrating Te Kerēme - the Ngāi Tahu Claim. ​The Macmillan Brown Library holds the Crown papers, much of the Ngāi Tahu evidence, the reports and the deed of settlement. For more information, ask at the desk. 

For a visual representation of the land acquistion in Christchurch and Canterbury, scroll to Christchurch on the New Zealand Herald's site Whenua. You can also get an excellent summary of the issues by watching Tā Tipene O'Regan discussing the significance of the land and of its loss to Ngāi Tahu.

European Colonisation

Systematic colonisation of Canterbury began with the arrival of the Canterbury Association immigrant ships to Lyttelton in 1850. Edward Gibbon Wakefield founded the Canterbury Association with John Robert Godley in London in 1848 as an offshoot of the New Zealand Company, in order to establish a Church of England settlement on what was then labelled by the Company as the Port Cooper Plains. Surveying began later that year under Captain Joseph Thomas, after H. Tacy Kemp negotiated, on behalf of the Crown,  'purchase' of twenty million acres of land from Ngāi Tahu. 

The plans, activities and attitudes of the Association can be found in the Canterbury Papers, published between 1850 and 1852. Parts 1-10 are online here and you can see the contents of all parts in our catalogue record for the paper copies. They also feature letters and excerpts from a variety of sources documenting life in the young colony. More on the history of the Canterbury Association and early Christchurch can be found through the following subject headings in the Library catalogue: Canterbury Association, Canterbury (N.Z.) – Colonization, Christchurch (N.Z.) -- History -- 19th century.

For a contextual nation-wide overview of Pākehā settlement, see this book: Pākehā Settlement in a Māori World: New Zealand Archaeology 1769-1860

For a view of Christchurch society through an analysis of the Barbadoes Street Cemetery, see the thesis "Mourn not my friends and parents dear": A social and cultural history of Christchurch's Barbadoes Street Cemetery.

Canterbury Provincial Council

Governorship of Canterbury passed to the Provincial Council in 1853 after the establishment of provincial councils under the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852. Voting rights were limited, as at the national level, to land-owning men over the age of 21, effectively excluding not only women but also working men and most Māori. The Council lasted until the Abolition of Provinces Act 1875.

Material containing the activities of the Provincial Council are published in three sources; the New Zealand Gazette (Canterbury Province), the Ordinances of the Province of Canterbury, and the Journal of Proceedings.

See here for all Canterbury Provincial Council material held at the University of Canterbury Library, including official publications, provincial rolls and individual papers.

Early European Descriptions of Christchurch

We have several sources written in the 1800s that describe Christchurch and the Canterbury colony. 

Lyttelton Times 1851-1889 on PapersPast. This newspaper is a rich source of information and includes: Journal of the Week with such things as the progress of roads, land sales, the NW wind;  Police Reports; advertisements which include public notices including those from the Canterbury Association.

The Journal of Edward Ward 1850-1851: Being His Account of the Voyage to New Zealand  in the Charlotte Jane and the First Six Months of the Canterbury Settlement. (1951). This is a typescript of a journal held in Canterbury Museum.

Travels and adventures of an officer’s wife in India, China and New Zealand. (1864). This is also available online. It contains a detailed description of Christchurch.

Canterbury Association. Part of the Canterbury Settlement. London : T.W. Saunders, [1851?] This is a very early map of Christchurch showing the centre called Lyttelton.

In the 50 years between 1936 and 1986, the Māori population changed from 83% rural to 83% urban, one of the fastest rates of urbanisation in the world. As a result, many Pākehā came into close contact with Māori for the first time.

This was especially true in Christchurch, which had a relatively small local Māori population. Māori urbanisation increased post-World War II, and was given a boost with the start of the government's Māori Affairs Department Trade Training Scheme which encouraged young, rural Māori to take up training and apprenticeships in cities around Aotearoa.  The scheme saw Māori men and women in their late teens and early twenties, move from small towns and rural parts of the North Island, to cities like Christchurch, where hostels were set up by the government and churches to provide accommodation and support.  Some apprentices eventually found work in the city, married locals and settled here, increasing the Māori population of Ōtautahi. Some online resources:

• Ngāti Ōtautahi Māori Association - an organisation set up by Māori in Christchurch during World War II to support iwi living in the city
• A radio interview about the history of the Māori Trade Training Scheme in Christchurch 
• The Māori Today - a 1960 government film promoting urbanisation as a means of Māori development
• A  similar 1964 radio programme about Māori urbanisation in Christchurch
• To Live in the City - a 1967 television documentary follows Māori teenagers moving to the city
• Rehua Marae in St Albans became home for Trade Trainees who lived in a hostel there and eventually built the wharenui on site themselves. Read more about Rehua's history. 
• By the 1970s, urbanisation meant there was a growing need for another urban marae in Ōtautahi. Construction began in 1981 of Ngā Hau e Whā National Marae in eastern Christchurch - a project involving Ngāi Tūāhuriri and Māori from around Aotearoa who had made the city their home. Read more about the history of Ngā Hau e Whā marae.

Some published resources in the library about Māori urban migration: 

• Urban Māori: the second great migration - Bradford Haami examines the post-war migration that changed the face of Aotearoa
• Heke Tangata: Māori in markets and cities - economist Brian Easton tracks Māori migration since 1945
• A report on the impact of the Māori Trade Training scheme
• A 1973 pamphlet promoting Māori Trade Training

Ngāi Tahu in the City Today