Talk:History of New Zealand

Timelines, anyone?
How about a timeline as for Canada or various other countries? There are several types, including the fancy new ones introduced this month. Does it need a "Project"? Robin Patterson 22:52, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Subheadings, maybe?
(as a first step...) Robin Patterson 22:52, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Both sound good
A timeline looks like a good idea, the canadian one is great. I think multiple pages breaking up history into various bits might be good. Other countries have a series of articles. User:SimonLyall

Could we also have "see also" links for each section. This is a very high level overview. eg the first acts creating the General Assembly should be expanded upon greatly in a separate article. Abeorch 03:11, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Timeline plus WW2 History.
I'm working on a timeline right now, just getting it in draft form for initial posting. What I'm thinking of is a single page to start with somelike the Timeline of Polish history and when it gets full enough moving to the Timeline of Canadian history format with perhaps a intermediate stage.

Also I've been expanding the New Zealand in World War II article a bit but it still needs lots of work. See the external links at the bottom for good reference sources. Any help appreciated.

Put me down a a vote in favour of a NZ history project, or even a general NZ project.

SimonLyall 11:55, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

NZ timeline page created
I've created a Timeline of New Zealand history page. See the discussion page for it for details. Needs a lot of rework before it goes more live mainly because I grabbed most of it from the statsNZ website so the content needs to be reworked to add lots of content, avoid possible copyright problems (although its fairly open copyright already), and to tidy up and wikify. - SimonLyall 11:01, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Categories
With all due respect to User:Moriori, I don't think the addition of Category:History of the Germanic peoples was a bad idea. Canada, South Africa, and the big Germanic-speaking American countries have their histories in it, and for the last 140+ years the majority of residents of New Zealand have had a derivative of Anglo-Saxon as their first language and hundreds of former residents of England, Denmark, Norway, and Germany among their ancestors (not to mention monarchs with distinctly German lineage).

I see someone has put it back again as I write! Kia ora koutou. Robin Patterson 01:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay Robin. I don't see the relevance,  because NZ is also made up of descendants of other peoples as well. I don't see the point of attaching that category to zillions of countries -- which would need to be done to be consistent -- when those countries don't rate a mention in Wiki's article Germanic tribe. New Zealand certainly doesn't rate a mention!. Never mind. I go with the flow (sometimes). :)-. Cheers. Moriori 01:37, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

If the argument is that all English-speaking countries should be in this category, because English is derived partly from Old German, then we should have a category for English-speaking nations, which can be a subcategory of the German one. I don't think this category belongs on this article, as it stands.-gadfium 02:16, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject History/Status
I have created WikiProject History/Status, which has some notes about what needs to be done to make this article featured. Please add other suggestions and see what you can to help. Tuf-Kat

sweet potato history
A sentence in this article says that Sweet Potatoes were brought to New Zealand from Polynesia by the Maori. I wonder if someone can clarify the timing of this. According to the sweet potato article, sweet potatoes came from the America's. Did the cultivation of sweet potatoes spread faster than European colonization or were Polynesian peoples still migrating to New Zealand in the 1800s. Or, maybe I'm totally misunderstanding the article's explanation. Liblamb 23:03, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, sweet potato (kumara) originated in the Americas, and spread from South America through the Eastern Pacific. I believe that this points to Polynesians having visited South America (using The Quest for Origins by K R Howe as my source), but the Sweet potato article suggests that tubers may have floated across the Pacific. It seems pretty clear that Maori brought kumara to New Zealand when they first arrived (possibly a little later than the article suggests - ie about 7-800 years ago).-gadfium (talk) 23:28, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Westport
I removed this from the article: , capital Westport after Westland province. I've seen maps of the old provinces (e.g. ). Westport is quite clearly well within the boundarys of Nelson Province. Greymouth, I believe is just within Westland, but so close to the border that I'd be surprised if it was heavily settled (borders tend to keep away from population centres). My guess then, by process of elimination, is that Hokitika was the capital of Westland. There's not much else on the coast. Ben Arnold 13:06, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Referring to the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand the capital of the westland provincial district was Hokitika. Abeorch 03:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Westport is the main township of the Buller District Council and Hokitika is the main township of the Westlands Distirict. zZParagonZz

Political information at end of page is out of date.
Article does not include results of 2005 election.

history/first settlement
The data of the 1st settling on New Zealand differs in New Zealand(between 13th and 15th century) and New Zealand history article(between 1000 and 1300 CE) and, as well, to the german wikipedia(in the 14th century)! --Edroeh 20:10, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Some questionable statements
There's a fair few uncited assertions in the text, some of which I've left stand but others I've reworked - the first para originally sounded like it implied that NZ history really only started once Europeans got here. The Musket Wars and the Land Wars are major historical events but barely get a mention. Motivations for signing the Treaty - there's a lot of citable material out there starting with Claudia Orange - the idea of Britain saving Maori from the Musket Wars (which had petered out in the Chathams five years beforehand) isn't very well supported. The depopulation thing is very debatable before 1840 - there are conflicting contemporary (Dieffenbach, Cook) and modern sources (Ian Pool) on both the original population and the level of decline. There's no dent in the male population around 1840ish of the sort you'd expect caused by warfare over the previous 20 years. --Tirana 03:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Women Voting Rights
This NZ article states "In 1893 New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant women voting rights in national elections." History of Pitcairn Island's article states "In 1838, Pitcairn became the first British colony in the Pacific and also the first country in the world to give women the right to vote." If someone knows, it'd be good to more clearly highlight, in both articles, the women voting rights difference esp. since both were/are colonies. Thanks. OliverBBurke 04:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)Oliver B. Burke
 * Women's suffrage gives the important dates. It boils down to how you define a country. There's also a distinction between women's suffrage and universal suffrage, although the History of New Zealand and History of the Pitcairn Islands articles don't make this distinction clear.


 * Was there some other British colony which gave women the right to vote earlier than Pitcairn? This seems to be implied by the wording of History of the Pitcairn Islands. If so, that should be added to the suffrage article.-gadfium 05:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Australia the republic
"Jim Bolger suggested in 1994 that New Zealand should follow Australia in severing links with the monarchy and becoming a republic".

Last time I checked, Australia is not a republic, and probably wasn't one in 1994 either. --Helenalex 05:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not actually accurate either, Bolger didn't state that he wanted New Zealand to "follow" Australia, he actually wanted to 'beat them to it'. Then Aussie PM Paul Keating said he thought Australia should become a republic in 2001, the 100th anniversary of Australia's federation, whereas Bolger said NZ should aim to do it by 2000, beating the Aussies by one year... I'll re-write the sentence in question. --Lholden 06:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Dominion and Realm
This section focusses a lot on constitutional stuff, which a) has its own page and b) is generally not that important or interesting.

I propose heavily editing down the content about the constitution, adding a link to the 'New Zealand Constitution' page, and adding in a lot more content about other things (politics, society, culture, race relations... it is probably okay for external relations stuff). This might work best subdivided into a bunch of subsections ie Constitutional, External Relations, Race Relations, Maori, Economy, the changes of the 1980s etc. Most of these topics are barely covered, and in general this section is disorganised. It could use renaming as well. 'The 20th Century' seems like an obvious option.

This is an important page so I don't want to go hacking (so to speak) and slashing without some kind of discussion, but it is also too important not to be improved. The other sections could generally use some work as well. --Helenalex 06:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with the rewording, less constitutional stuff and more other things are needed, however I would hold back from renaming the section now, as 1) policy says sections should not be renamed in case they are linked to, and 2) it fits in with the other current sections nameing (ie Colonial Period) Brian | (Talk) 22:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I wasn't aware that sections could be linked to. --Helenalex 23:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think what Brian is referring to is Section, which is advice rather than policy. If I'm wrong, please link to the policy page. My opinion is that sections should be renamed when that improves the quality of the article. Any links will fail gracefully, by going to the full article instead of producing an error message for the non-existant section. Click on Talk:History of New Zealand for an example.-gadfium 08:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My mistake, yes its advice as opposed to policy Brian | (Talk) 08:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I have completely rewritten the 'dominion and realm' section. I had to cut out quite a bit of constitutional history, so I added a link to the history section of the New Zealand constitution page. The rest of the page could use some tweaking - the colony section on similar lines to this, and the Treaty section could be reduced a bit, since there is a good page on it. --Helenalex 04:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

More rewrites!
I have just rewritten some of the earlier stuff as what was there was a) really Eurocentric, and b) too focussed on constitutional stuff. I removed a lot of detail about the Treaty and the Declaration of Independence, as both have their own pages. The colonial period section has similar problems and I will probably rewrite that at some point soon. I hope I'm not pissing anyone off here.

I'm wondering what the point of the 'bibliography' section is. Specific references should be in the 'reference' section, and the list of books isn't good background - it is dominated by books on WWII and there are no recent general histories (plus the further reading section covers that). Unless someone explains its purpose within the next few weeks I will delete it. --Helenalex 03:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't there be an explanation before a change. The detail comprises the precise annexations and attempts.  The history is deficient without these details.  Britain made the islands of NZ as part of New South Wales.  The administration of NSW largely ignored these islands just as it did much of the territory of NSW.  One example is - when South Australia took control of the Northern Territory in 1863 there were zero settlements in place and NSW had ignored the territory.  Nevetherless it was part of NSW just as were the islands in NZ until 1840. Alan Davidson 06:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It is always difficult to edit something like this - inevitably things will be left out, and there will be no agreement over exactly what should be included. Essentially I felt the section on sovereignty was in danger of becoming large and unwieldy, so I pruned it down to the basics. This page attempts to cover all of New Zealand history in a few thousand words so, as I said, inevitably things will be missed out. As you point out yourself, the NSW administration had no real impact on New Zealand, so given the restrictions of space I felt (and still feel) justified in cutting it out. It probably should be mentioned somewhere, and I would suggest adding it to New Zealand Constitution. --Helenalex 22:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

If there's a feeling that the natural limits on article size are forcing the removal of material here, perhaps we should split the article into multiple parts. See for example History of Australia, or as a better example, the featured article History of Russia.-gadfium 01:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

British exercising Power
There was real power over the islands of New Zealnd, it is just that they did not use the power - it was ignored - indeed as much of mainland Australia was ignored for even longer periods of time. Alan Davidson 00:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * By 'real power' do you mean real legal power, or actual military force? I think both claims are doubtful, given the length of time it took for the early colonial government to assert control over New Zealand following the Treaty. --Lholden 03:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The British may have had some kind of legal claim to NZ before 1840 but they obviously didn't think it was very strong, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with the Treaty, the proclamations etc. It has been pretty firmly established (by Belich in particular) that the British took most of the 19th century to get real (ie actual enforceable) power over the whole of NZ. A supposed legal claim to NZ which had no effect would seem to come under the category of 'kind of interesting, but not important enough to be on this page'. As I have said before, there is a constitutional history of NZ page, and I have yet to see any reason why that isn't a good enough place for this.


 * Re. what Gadfium says above about splitting up the page, I think this would be a bad idea. It is useful to have the whole history on one page, and it has been successfully done by countries with far longer histories than NZ's. There are already seperate pages for constitutional history, military history etc for going into those issues in depth, and no matter how long or divided this page is, there will always be someone who thinks something important has been left out. --Helenalex 03:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * With respect, I think you have simplified the task too much. The history of New Zealand page relies too much on the flows of people to and from New Zealand, although this is not recognised enough in the first paragraph. Clearly polynesian peole emigratd to New Zealand. See the acticle Immigration to New Zealand while being historical, also allows the contemporary to better compared with what has gone before. I think the cummulative process of wikipedia is worth defending. In that way, this article should be a collection of many narratives, depicting an integrated collection of history's, everything from education, health, sport, media, etc...Clearly a project in those terms could not be represented in a page, except by making main page references. Fred114 01:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Speaking as a lawyer I mean real legal power. NSW clearly exercised this power in many parts of mainland Australia and Tasmania (when Tasmania too was part of NSW).  But due to the vastness of the territory of NSW (much bigger than any country in Europe) much of it was ignored.  One example is of the Northern Territory.  It was part of NSW until handed over to South Australia, to become part of South Australia in 1863.  In 1863 the non indigenous population was zero - no settlements, military or otherwise.  So from 1788 until 1863 this vast area of land had been almost entirely ignored - because NSW had many other settlements and interests. But clearly NSW had power to exercise over it. The islands of New Zealand fell into the same category.  The power was real, but there was no interest until Bushby in 1835. Alan Davidson 03:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, I thought so. In which case the article needs to state "legal" power. I know that it is 'real' power within what any legal mind would see as a reasonable meaning of the word, but I doubt most readers of Wikipedia would notice subtle the difference. --Lholden 04:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * At the moment it does not refer to power at all. What would you add?  And is any more needed? Alan Davidson 05:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was being obstuse on reflection. I don't think any changes need to be made. --Lholden 01:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Use of the word Pākehā
Just as an outside observer reading this article for the first time, I found the use of the word "Pakeha" to describe, I guess, European settlers, sort of jarring. I looked at the page on the term, and it seems to be controversial, or at least subject to debate, in New Zealand. But even more, the word, to me, represents the adoption of a specific point-of-view, that of the Maori. Granted, with this sort of issue there isn't a neutral point-of-view, but at a minimum I don't think this is typical Wikipedia practice (e.g., the history of the US doesn't use Iroquois or Cherokee words to describe settlers or colonists). Perhaps this issue has already been discussed, or maybe New Zealand is a special case, but I wanted to highlight it. Sertorius 23:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There are New Zealanders who dislike the term, but the majority accept it as purely descriptive and not in any way offensive (I don't have figures to back this up). There is no simple term which can be substituted which is less controversial. European settlers is not a term that many people who were born in New Zealand would identify with; and New Zealand European is not much better.-gadfium 02:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that use of the word 'Pakeha' does not represent a 'Maori POV'. It probably is slightly point of view, but, like words in most naming disputes, so are all the alternatives. But its certainly not a strong point of view, or one confined to any particular race. --Helenalex 05:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The only other more neutral term would be "New Zealanders with British ancestry", or "British settlers" in the context of this article... however that opens the whole "British New Zealander" can of worms. --Lholden 05:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * What about NZers of Irish ancestry like Massey and Savage? Pakeha is a lot broader than people of British descent. 'New Zealanders of European descent' would be totally neutral (I think), but it would be pretty awkward to use it every time. --Helenalex 07:27, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't believe that Dalmation-New Zealanders (for example) are entirely part of the same culture, or at least, they were not in the 19th and early 20th century. The term would have to be 'New Zealanders of Anglo-Irish descent', which brings me back to the point that no simple term adequately replaces Pakeha, which is a term sufficiently flexible to encompass that most non-Maori culture is Anglo-Irish, but enriched with other European cultures including French and Dutch, and with Chinese and Indian cultures playing a role from the start.-gadfium 08:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Racism
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS! I observe that an individual has been displaying extreme bias by reverting my edits in Wikipedia without valid reason. The person cites "Absence of adequate references" as reason enough. But then, I've provided links to the Wikipedia article which contains acceptable references. I protest this exhibition of extreme high-handedness and bias. - Ravichandar84 04:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

For all those who might not be knowing about the points which have been tampered upon, let me give you a brief explanation. The points I made are about the Tamil Bell and all I did was to include a brief description of the Tamil bell and included links to the other page which contains the references. However, I observed that my edits are being frequently reverted. Alternate theories certainly deserve mention and it is not in good faith that cover-ups and deliberate removals are being attempted. Thanks - Ravichandar84 04:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is all a giant conspiracy. 'They' don't want people to know that Asians reached NZ before Europeans because 'they' are racist pigs. Of course, 'they' have no problem with the idea that Polynesians performed amazing acts of navigation centuries before europeans got the guts to leave sight of land, but this is clearly all part of the plot as well, somehow. And all historians and archaelogists are in on it. As is everyone on Wikipedia except Ravichandar84.


 * (sarcasm mode off) Ahem. Your edits are being reverted because you are presenting a theory which has little or no academic credibility and only a tiny amount of circumstantial evidence as if it was likely fact. Alternate theories only deserve mention if they are likely or if enough people believe in them that public discourse is being affected. For example, there is a case for mentioning intelligent design on the evolution page, even though ID is clearly bollocks, because of the whole debate about that. There is no equivalent debate on the discovery of NZ, and no reputable writer has tried to start one. The theories are kind of interesting, and I would support the creation of an Alternative theories about the discovery of New Zealand (or something) page, but they are too fringe to be on this page. At most, there could be a sentence saying something like 'Although some people believe that Asian exlorers visited New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans, the earliest known non-Polynesian contact with New Zealand was Abel Tasman...'


 * And speaking of good faith, it's not good faith to accuse people of racism or cover-ups just because they remove your edits, and new additions to the talk page should go at the bottom. --Helenalex 23:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've added 'Tamil' and 'History of New Zealand' to the categories in 'Tamil Bell' page.But here, you could observe that the category History of New Zealand had been purposely removed by the individual concerned while the category Tamil wasnt.Also, you could observe that all references to possible Tamil landings have been removed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tamil_bell&diff=157550172&oldid=157547487


 * While sources dont confirm Tamil discovery of New Zealand with any certainty, it is an accepted fact that the Tamil bell WAS FOUND IN NEW ZEALAND and is in every way connected with its history. This being the case, why should the individual concerned remove History of New Zealand from amongst the categories. Besides, why should links to the article in History of New Zealand be removed while the article on the Tamil bell itself remain untouched. I dont know with what intention the concerned individual performed these edits and reversions but all that I wish for is that Wikipedia article dont become objects of propaganda or prejudice. -- Ravichandar84 04:08, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The theories are kind of interesting, and I would support the creation of an Alternative theories about the discovery of New Zealand (or something) page, but they are too fringe to be on this page. At most, there could be a sentence saying something like 'Although some people believe that Asian exlorers visited New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans, the earliest known non-Polynesian contact with New Zealand was Abel Tasman...'

Thats right! An article on the alternative discovery of New Zealand could be created and a link could be included in this page on the History of New Zealand. I too am in favor of it. But I am certainly not in favor or reverting edits or removing points. Rather, these points could be edited and rewritten appropriately.Thanks - Ravichandar84 04:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The article in question could be linked with a simple sentence under the "Explorers and other visitors" section - such as "Some theories exist that Tamil explorers discovered New Zealand, mainly arising from the discovery of the Tamil Bell in 1836". --Lholden 05:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I am in favour of mentioning on this page only if the bit about the spanish is also reduced. So perhaps replace the Spanish bit with a link to a page containing details about the Spanish, the Tamils, the Celts, the Chinese and the Mormons. - SimonLyall 07:11, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Let's not forget about the seven cigar-shaped spaceships that created a crater in the far south of the South Island in 1198 AD, infected moa with the Tapanui flu and caused their extinction - all this is truth covered up by NASA, the CIA and the New Zealand Government. Believe it or not, there are people who believe this too!! Yeah, I agree with Helenalex and SimonLyall, we should reduce this sort of material on this page, not increase it Kahuroa 07:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Kahuroa,Lholden Helenalex and SimonLyall, I agree with you people. But I am strongly protest merciless reversion of edits or deletion of pages or blocking members just because the user provides a seemingly unreliable source. Rather, as there are three or four websites mentioning the Tamil bell and a few of them even containing its picture, I feel that this does mandate a passing reference to the bell and a link to the Tamil bell. Maybe, it doesnt deserve anything more than that. But we could tackle this issue by reducing the description to a line or so and including a link on the Tamil bell rather than repeatedly reverting edits or deleting pages. - Ravichandar84 11:30, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There are probably at least a dozen alternative theories of early contact with New Zealand. It would not be appropriate to list them all in this article, nor should we get into a debate on which of these are the most valid. The article mentions that such theories exist and have little or no credibility with archaeologists or historians. Until we have an article covering them all, this is enough.-gadfium 19:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The fact that there are websites mentioning something is absolutely no reason to mention it on this page. There are dozens of things related to NZ which are mentioned online somewhere, and which are related to a historical event which definitely happened, which are not on this page and never will make it onto this page. We have limited space, so only stuff which is important should be here. Dubious theories don't qualify. --Helenalex 21:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And on that note, I've removed the paragraph on possible Portuguese discovery, which shouldn't have been there either. There is now a footnote linking to the Tamil bell page. --Helenalex 22:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Good work. --Lholden 22:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Well done. Kahuroa 00:01, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Assessment
Surprisingly the article's quality had not been assessed before today. I've rated it a start class article; it needs more references and obviously a much longer lead section, but it's generally a solid article, so very little work is needed to bring it up to a B. Richard001 05:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)