Helen Pondella, age 13, of Utica, New York, for her question:
HOW DID NEW ZEALAND GET ITS NAME?
New Zealand is an island country in the Southwest Pacific ocean about 6,500 miles from California. A Dutch sea captain named Abel Tasman in 1642 became the first European to sight the country. He named the land Nieuw Zealand after a province in The Netherlands.
Tasman tried to send a group of his men ashore, but the natives, a brown skinned Polynesian people called Maoris, attacked their two small landing craft and killed several of the men. Then, for more than 100 years, no other European came to New Zealand.
In 1769 a member of the British navy, Captain James Cook, landed on the North Island. Cook made friends with the Maoris and explored and charted both the North and South Islands. The Maoris kept no written records and so the written history of New Zealand only dates back to Cook's time.
The British and later explorers continued to call the island country by the name given to it by the dutch captain Tasman.
During the late 1700s, explorers from France, Spain and other countries made regular visits to New Zealand. By 1800, the seals and whales in New Zealand's coastal waters had begun to attract American, Australian and European hunters. British hunters and traders became the first colonists. Some were convicts from the British penal colony at Sydney, Australia.
In 1814, the first of many missionary groups to settle in the country arrived from Sydney. New Zealand had no legal government and it remained a lawless frontier country until 1840.
The arrival of foreigners brought great suffering to the Maoris. By 1840, warfare and disease had reduced the Maori population from about 200,000 to a little more than 100,000.
Finally on Feb. 6, 1840, a group of Maori chiefs and Captain William Hobson of the British navy signed the Treaty of Waitangi. the treaty provided that the Maoris accept the British queen, Victoria, as their ruler in return for British protection of all Maori rights.
New Zealand today is a beautiful country of snow capped mountains, green lowlands and many lakes and waterfalls. No place is more than 80 miles from the coast and nowhere are mountains or hills out of view. Over three fourths of the land lies at least 650 feet above sea level.
New Zealand's standard of living ranks among the highest in the world. The country has almost no extremely poor or extremely rich people. Most of New Zealand's income comes from the raising of sheep and cattle.
The nation's economy depends on foreign trade. Butter, cheese, lamb and wool are the chief exports.
New Zealand has a long tradition of equal rights and benefits for all its citizens. In 1893, it became the first nation to give women the vote. It was also among the first countries to provide Social Security benefits and old age pensions for its people. Today, the nation has one of the world's finest public health programs.