British policy was to foster trade, encourage Māori to 'amalgamate' with settler society and continue their education under the missionaries, and have them prosper alongside the settlers. Britain also needed the legal authority to deal with British subjects.
1840 Land purchases prohibited
Governor Gipps prohibited further private land purchases from Māori, and no existing claims were to be recognised until they had been investigated by the authorities. William Hobson repeated the proclamation at the Bay of Islands on 30 January 1840.
Early European settlers
The contribution of guns to Māori intertribal warfare, along with European diseases, led to a steep decline in the Māori population during this time.
The British Government wanted to ask the different iwi if they would agree to Britain making the laws about behaviour for New Zealand and making sure everybody obeyed them. They sent Captain William Hobson to New Zealand as a governor to ask Māori rangatira if their iwi agreed to the idea.
Colonisation meant the erosion of traditional practices, and the loss of cultural identity and the large-scale confiscations and theft of Māori land, which resulted in the loss of many cultural protective factors for Māori wāhine and tamariki.
There is a common belief that musket warfare between 1810 and 1840 caused heavy mortality among Māori. However, war deaths were not great in number compared with the deaths from other causes. From 1810 to 1840 there were around 120,000 deaths from illness and other 'normal' causes, an average of 4,000 a year.
Missionary influence
Although Māori were slow to convert to Christianity, as they did so they abandoned the practice of morning and evening worship in place of a Sabbath service. Missionaries also taught literacy, and reading became a highly popular activity in villages at the end of the day's work.
The New Zealand wars were a series of mid-19th-century battles between some iwi and government forces (which included British and colonial troops) and their Māori allies, who were sometimes known as kūpapa.
Before 1840, the British government had no legal power to protect its citizens while they were in New Zealand – nor could it make unscrupulous ones obey British laws. This was a problem. Māori, British traders, and missionaries all expressed their dissatisfaction.
New Zealand became a British colony in 1840, legitimised by the Treaty of Waitangi and Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson's 21 May declaration of sovereignty.
Although many people no longer believed theories about Māori origins, racist stereotypes of Māori continued. They were described as lazy, and not really able to cope with city life. Māori were seen as warriors, and Māori soldiers in the Second World War were thought of as brave and exceptional fighters.
Maori and Europeans began to trade with each other from the late eighteenth century. To a large extent, Europeans relied on Maori for food, including fish and vegetables, as well as for fibres such as flax, and for help with building fences and shelters.
Around 1830 there were about 300 Pākehā living in New Zealand, and at least 100,000 Māori. Trade had grown between visiting whaling ships and Māori – in return for goods such as muskets or iron tools Māori provided food, water and firewood.
As the Pākehā population grew, the colonial government emphasised the use of English more. In 1867, the Native Schools Act was passed, establishing a schooling system designed to assimilate Māori into Pākehā society. The Act required English to be the only language written or spoken in .
More than 4 million acres of Māori land were confiscated at this time, including large areas of the Waikato. The Native Land Court (and various Native land laws) led to a further 8 million acres passing to European ownership between 1865 and 1890.
Te reo Māori in decline
The Education Ordnance Act 1847 set English as the predominant, normal language of schools. While it wasn't made explicit in legislation, schools started to ban te reo Māori, punishing children who were caught speaking it.
There was no known prehistoric contact between Australian Aboriginal people and New Zealand Māori, although the Polynesian ancestors of Māori were accomplished navigators, who did establish short-lived settlements on Norfolk Island.
Raupatu — confiscation of Māori land
Under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, the Crown could confiscate the land of any iwi 'engaged in rebellion' against the government. Altogether 1.3 million hectares of Māori land was confiscated, including most of the lower Waikato, Taranaki and the Bay of Plenty.
Tens of thousands of Māori may have died in the intertribal Musket Wars fought between the 1810s and the 1830s.
Cowan put the total war's dead at an estimated 2990 people, comprising 736 British and Colonial troops, as against 2254 Māori. And a further 1589, writes Cowan, were seriously wounded.
1863, Nov 20–21: The Battle of Rangiriri was a major engagement in the invasion of Waikato. More than 1400 British troops defeated about 500 warriors of the Kingitanga (Māori King Movement).
An Ireland midweek team showing 15 changes to the side which beat New Zealand on Saturday claimed a 30-24 victory over the Maori All Blacks on Tuesday, keeping momentum going for Andy Farrell and co.
British and other visitors to New Zealand were quick to realise the business opportunities this land offered. Likewise, Māori saw that the visitors offered new trading possibilities.
The early settlers lived in small hunting bands. Seals and the large, flightless moa bird were their main prey, until moa were hunted to extinction. In the South Island, hunting and gathering remained the main mode of survival.
With the introduction of muskets, disease, Western agricultural methods, and missionaries, however, Māori culture and social structure began to disintegrate. By the late 1830s New Zealand had been joined to Europe, and European settlers landed by the score.