Face of Nation : British explorer Captain James Cook and the crew of the HMS Endeavour came to shore at Gisborne on 8 October 1769 ushering in colonial rule. Several days of events are taking place to mark the milestone date. But New Zealand had been populated by the Maori people for hundreds of years, and many say it is not an anniversary to celebrate.
Last week British High Commissioner Laura Clarke delivered a statement of regret to local tribes – known as iwi – over the death of nine indigenous people during the first meeting between Cook and the Maori. But she stopped short of issuing an apology.
Maori people from Polynesian islands are believed to have arrived in New Zealand – or Aotearoa in Maori – hundreds of years prior to the first Europeans. Capt Cook had been sent on a mission from the UK to find and map what people at the time believed must be a large continent in the Pacific, south of Australia.
He didn’t find the mythical continent, but on 6 October his cabin boy, Nicholas Young, spotted New Zealand. The crew – including a Tahitian chief and navigator called Tupaia who helped Cook communicate with the Maori – came ashore at Tuuranga-nui, now Gisborne, on the east coast of North Island two days later.
Cook went on to sail and chart much of the coast of New Zealand, stopping at several places and establishing relations with Maori residents. He also claimed possession of two areas in the name of the British crown, starting the process of colonisation.
Though James Cook’s exploration of New Zealand dominates history books, Dutch navigator Abel Tasman was the first European to catch sight of it, in 1642, but he never made it to land.
New Zealand has planned several days of events to mark the milestone of the first meeting between Maori and Europeans. In a speech she called for a more open conversation about New Zealand’s history, encouraging people to “imagine what it would be like to hear a story be retold, knowing that, actually, you lost an ancestor directly because of those encounters”.
She said in the past, New Zealand was “only really telling, I believe, 50% of the story, and not always telling it well”. New Zealand should continue to learn and tell the full story of its past, she added. Then on Tuesday morning, a flotilla of ships including a replica of the Endeavour reached Gisborne.
Members of Parliament Kelvin Davis and Kiritapu Allan went aboard to greet the crew. Protesters were also present in the town, which is also known by its Maori name of Turanga-nui-a-Kiwa.
