User:DerbyCountyinNZ/1790s in New Zealand

The 1790s mark the first known arrival of European ships since the departure of James Cook's final voyage in 1777. It is also the beginning of commercial, rather than exploratory, visits. There are visits by sealers, flax/timber collectors and whalers as well as a few scientists/explorers. For the first time Māori leave New Zealand, visit European settlements and return to New Zealand. Philip Gidley King, commandant of the Norfolk Island penal colony and later Governor of New South Wales becomes the first official to become interested in the possible European settlement of New Zealand. His successor in this endeavour, Samuel Marsden, arrives in New South Wales at this time.

Regal and vice regal
The colony of New South Wales nominally encompasses New Zealand from 1788 to 1840. Therefore the head of state is the monarch of the United Kingdom, represented by the Governor of New South Wales. However, British sovereignty is not established over New Zealand per se until 1840, at which point the Treaty of Waitangi retroactively recognised that it had been an independent territory until then. Furthermore, the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand signed by a number of Māori chiefs in 1835 is formally recognised by the British government at the time, indicating that British sovereignty did not extend to New Zealand before then.
 * Head of State – King George III
 * Governors of New South Wales
 * 1) 23 January 1788 - 10 December 1792 - Captain Arthur Phillip RN
 * 2) 11 September 1795 - 27 September 1800 - Captain John Hunter RN

1791

 * 2 – 22 November – Vancouver Expedition in HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham visits Dusky Sound.

1792

 * 6 November – 1 December – The Britannia, under the command of Captain William Raven, arrives at Dusky Sound from Port Jackson and drops off the first sealing gang to be landed in New Zealand. The sealers are the first Europeans to stay ashore for more than a few weeks and build the first European structures in New Zealand.

1793

 * 25 February – The Malaspina Expedition, under Alessandro Malaspina, arrives in Dusky Sound.
 * c. March/April – The Daedalus, Lieutenant James Hanson, anchors off the Cavalli Islands. Hanson has instructions to find 2 Māori to take to Norfolk Island to instruct the convicts in the production of flax. He kidnaps Tuki(-tahua) and Huru(-kokoti) who are not only men (flax weaving is done by women) but also high-born. The Daedalus returns to Port Jackson where Tuki and Huru are transferred to the Shaw Hormuzear, Captain William Wright Bampton, which leaves for Norfolk Island where it arrives before the end of the month. When it is discovered that Tuki and Huru know virtually nothing about flax production Commandant King offers them the choice of leaving on the Shaw Hormuzear for England or staying on the island until they can be returned home. They choose to stay. During their stay King learns much about New Zealand from Tuki and Huru, including a map of the country drawn by Tuki and draws up plans for settling New Zealand of which he hopes to be in charge.
 * 20 October – The Britannia and Francis, Captain, having collected the sealing party dropped off the previous year, leave for Norfolk Island where Lieutenant-Governor King commandeers the Britannia to return Tuki and Huru. They are returned home on 13 November and King gives gifts to Tuki and Huru including clothing, tools, potatoes and pigs. The latter 2 are the first in this part of New Zealand.

1794

 * 10 March – Samuel Marsden arrives at Sydney to become the assistant chaplain to Reverend Richard Johnson.
 * 20 November – *21 February 1795 – The Fancy, Captain Thomas Dell, arrives in Hauraki to collect spars and flax. She leaves after having felled far more timber than she can carry away. She also has a large quantity of dressed flax.

1795

 * 18 September – The Endeavour, Captain William Brampton, and the Fancy, Captain Dell, leave Port Jackson with fifty passengers (mostly freed convicts) and, they later discover, 40 escaped convicts and deserters, a total of 244 people aboard the two vessels. They arrive in Dusky Sound on 12 October with the first two pakeha known women to visit New Zealand, Elizabeth Heatherly (aka Bason) and Ann Carey. After a week, during which time they finish a schooner left by the Britannia sealers in 1793, the Endeavour is condemned as unseaworthy. They decide to refit the Endeavour’s longboat into another seaworthy vessel.

1796

 * 7 January – The Fancy and the schooner Providence sail from Dusky Sound for Norfolk Island, where the passengers (including Elizabeth Heatherly and her son) and some seamen are left before carrying on to China. In March the convicts (including Ann Carey) and some ex-convicts (including shipwright James Heatherly) and seamen leave Dusky for Norfolk Island in the Assistance (the Endeavour’s longboat). There are still 35 people left in Dusky.

1797

 * May – The American snow Mercury, Captain William Barnett, rescues the remaining survivors of the Endeavour and takes them to Norfolk Island.

1798

 * 20 August – The Hunteri, Captain James Fearn, leaves Port Jackson for China. En route she collects spars from Hauraki (possibly in early October). Some of the spars may have been those left by the Fancy in 179). The loading is assisted by local Māori but there is no other information about contact between the ship and the locals.

1799

 * 7 October – The Hunterii, Captain William Hingston, leaves Port Jackson for Calcutta. She stops at Hauraki to collect spars. Thomas Taylor and 3 other seaman (possibly all 4 were escaped convicts from New South Wales) leave the ship and stay with local Māori (they can possibly be considered the first Pākehā Māori). Taylor later marries a local woman and meets the crews of 2 ships that arrive in 1801. His later fate is unknown nor is that of the other 3. The Hunter continues to Bengal where it is seized by the authorities and the ship’s log is lost.