Pākehā settlers

Pākehā settlers were European emigrants who journeyed to New Zealand, and especially to the Auckland, Wellington, Hawkes Bay, Canterbury and Otago regions during the 19th century. The ethnic and occupational social composition of these New Zealand Europeans or Pākehā varied from settlement to settlement. There was minimal immigration to New Zealand directly after 1769 when Captain James Cook first visited the islands. Between 1805 and 1835 the European population grew very slowly. Most Europeans were itinerant sailors. The Bay of Islands and the Hokianga in Northland had the most Europeans with about 200 in the 1830s. Before 1835, most migrants were runaway sailors, escaped convicts, sealers, whalers and missionaries with their families. An early custom of Pākehā settlers was to use the native poroporo berry to make jam. As more settlers arrived, feral pigs released during the earliest visits to the islands, which became known as Captain Cooker types, became scarcer as they were over-hunted. Despite often being poor and burdened with debt, Pākehā settlers working and farming new land benefited from the infrastructure of the British Empire, with secure titles, Crown-granted lands and protection by Land Transfer Acts. New Zealand Company Edward Gibbon Wakefield established the New Zealand Company in 1839. This company was established to attract settlers from England to set up homes and farms in New Zealand. The objective of the company was to bring over a ‘slice of England'. The company wanted a range of people from working class to upper class to establish a similar class system in New Zealand as was in England. Settlers were offered paid passage and the possibility of eventually buying land at a price low enough to attract them, but high enough to make them work manually for a few years to earn it. This principle was applied in many areas throughout New Zealand. Generally, it worked and settlers began to arrive in droves. This continued into the 1850s, with unprecedented masses of Pākehā settlers arriving from Britain and Europe, most of which understood little of local Māori culture and customs.