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The following lists events that happened during 1837 in New Zealand.
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The following lists events that happened during 1837 in New Zealand.
The history of the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand dates back to settlement by Māori people in about the 14th century.
The following lists events that happened during 1838 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1835 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1834 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1831 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1830 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1829 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1827 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1823 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1820 in New Zealand.
The following lists events that happened during 1819 in New Zealand.
The first Christian mission is established at Rangihoua. The Hansen family, the first non-missionary family also settles there. Samuel Marsden explores the Hauraki Gulf and travels to within sight of Tauranga Harbour. The first book in Māori is published in Sydney. The first European is born in New Zealand.
With the purchase of a vessel by Samuel Marsden for use by the Church Missionary Society at the beginning of the year the establishment of a mission in New Zealand is at last possible. After a preliminary scouting trip Marsden and the missionaries arrive at the end of the year and the first mission is begun at Rangihoua Bay in the Bay of Islands.
There are still far fewer ships visiting New Zealand than before 1810. This is due to the economic depression which started in New South Wales in 1810 and continues until 1815. The concern that the Boyd massacre might be repeated abates somewhat as a number of reports that it was provoked reach Port Jackson. As more ships resume visits to the Bay of Islands they consistently report that they are well treated.
Foveaux Strait is the centre of attention for sealing ships. Sealing gangs are dropped along the coast from southern Fiordland to Otago Harbour and on Stewart Island / Rakiura. The Bay of Islands is sometimes on the journey to or from Port Jackson. The Chatham Islands are also visited. A few whalers also operate around New Zealand; some also collect timber from Bay of Islands.
There is a new sealing rush to the Bounty and Auckland Islands. Sealing also continues at Bass Strait and the Antipodes Islands. Foveaux Strait is a frequent stop for these sealing ships. Whaling continues off the east coast of the North Island. Ships are now visiting the Bay of Islands on a reasonably regular basis. The first reports about the poor behaviour of visiting ship's crew are sent to the Church Missionary Society in London.
Sealing continues at Bass Strait and the Antipodes Islands. At the end of the year there is a new sealing rush to the Bounty and Auckland Islands. Few sealers, if any, are known to have visited the Foveaux Strait area at this time, although this may be due in part to the secrecy of the captains and owners in reporting where they operate and/or the existence of the Strait not yet being widely known. Whaling continues off the east coast of the North Island. Ships are now visiting the Bay of Islands on a reasonably regular basis. The first reports about the poor behaviour of ships crews are sent to the Church Missionary Society in London.
As most sealing is taking place in Bass Strait, although the rookeries there are declining, there is little interest in Dusky Sound, the rookeries of which are also declining. It is however still being used as a provisioning stop and rendezvous by sealers looking for new sealing grounds to the south and east of New Zealand. Foveaux Strait is discovered in December but its existence does not become widely known for some time. There is a marked increase in the number of whalers operating in the north of New Zealand, due in part to attacks on British boats in the South Atlantic as a result of the Napoleonic wars. There is also an increase in American ships from New England.
There is a lessening of the sealing rush at Bass Strait as the rookeries become thinner, and as a result sealers return to Dusky Sound and explore the surrounding coast. Little of the movements of these ships is actually recorded as a veil of secrecy still surrounds their activities while the various ships try to make the most of any discoveries before the competition arrives. They occasionally meet local Māori but little information regarding these encounters survives. There are again around half a dozen whalers off the north-east coast of New Zealand, a few of which call into the Bay of Islands. The first Māori to join a whaling ship, and possibly the first to leave New Zealand in 10 years, does so early in the year.
Peraki, a Māori language place name with an initial spelling of Pireka, is a bay on the south side of Banks Peninsula, New Zealand. It is the site of the first permanent European settlement in Canterbury. George Hempelman, a Prussian whaler, established a whaling station in the bay in 1835, and from 1837 lived there permanently. Peraki has a small cemetery, one of the earliest European cemeteries in New Zealand.