New Plymouth History

History

Local Maori iwi (tribes) have long contested Taranaki lands. In the 1820s they fled to the Cook Strait region to escape Waikato tribes, who eventually took hold of the area in 1832. Only a small group remained, at Okoki Pa (New Plymouth), where whalers soon joined the fray. When European settlers arrived in 1841 the coast of Taranaki seemed deserted and there was little opposition to land claims. The New Zealand Company bought extensive tracts from the remaining Maori.

When other members of local tribes returned after years of exile, they fiercely objected to the land sale. Their claims were upheld when Governor Fitzroy ruled that the New Zealand Company was only allowed just over 10 sq km of the 250 sq km it had claimed around New Plymouth. The Crown gradually acquired more land from Maori, and European settlers became increasingly greedy for the fertile land around Waitara.

The settlers forced the government to abandon negotiations with Maori, and war erupted in 1860. While Maori engaged in guerrilla warfare and held the rest of the province, the settlers seized Waitara. Taranaki chiefs had refused to sign the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 and were brutally treated as rebels. By 1870 over 500 hectares of their land had been confiscated with the remainder acquired through dubious transactions.

In a time of relative peace, economic stability was largely founded on dairy farming. The discovery of natural gas and oil in 1959 and the creation of a natural gas field off the South Taranaki Bight have kept the province economically healthy in recent times.