Karl Schmidt, age 12, of Columbus, Ohio, for his question:
WHO DISCOVERED NEW ZEALAND?
New Zealand, an island country that belongs to the Polynesian group, is located in the southwest Pacific Ocean about 6,500 miles southwest of California. Today it is an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations and was once part of the British Empire.
First European to sight New Zealand was a Dutch sea captain named Abel Janszoon Tasman. He attempted to send a group of his men ashore, but when the native Maoris attacked the landing craft, Tasman made no further attempt to land.
More than 100 years passed before another European came to New Zealand. All that time the land was on the maps as Nieuw Zeeland, named by the Dutch after a province in The Netherlands.
The first European to land was Captain James Cook of the British navy who arrived in 1769. Cook made friends with the Maoris and explored and chartered both the North Island and the South Island.
The first people to live in New Zealand were the Maoris, a group of people who probably came to the country by canoes from the Marquesas or Society islands to the northeast. No one knows when or why the Maoris first came, but historians believe it was about A.D. 750.
Since the Maoris kept no written records, the first written history of New Zealand dates back to Captain Cook's time.
Explorers from France, Spain and other countries visited New Zealand during the late 1700s. Visitors also arrived from America to hunt seals and whales, and there were international traders from many lands to buy flax and timber from the Maoris.
The British became the first colonists. During the first half of the 1800s, the Maoris population dropped from about 200,000 to about 100,000 due to disease brought by the foreigners and tribal wars. In 1840, the Maori chiefs signed a treaty with the British queen for protection.
The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi provided that the Maoris accept the British queen, Victoria, as their ruler in return for British protection of all Maori rights, including property rights. Under the treaty, the Maoris gave the British control of New Zealand, although some of the Maoris did not realize this at the time.
A British businessman named Edward Wakefield formed the New Zealand Company in Great Britain to colonize the islands. His company established colonies at Wellington and Wanganui in 1840 and at New Plymouth and Nelson in 1841.
The New Zealand colonies prospered as the island's rich grasslands provided good grazing for sheep. Soon the settlers were exporting wool.
In 1861, gold was discovered in Otago. Immigrants poured into the country, hoping to strike it rich. Few miners found as much gold as they hoped for but many stayed to become citizens.