Who arrived on the island of New Zealand before the Europeans

1. Polynesian immigrants arrived between about 500 and 1300 AD and became the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand.

2. The first known Europeans to arrive here were the fleet led by Dutchman Abel Janszoon Tasman, who arrived on the west coast of the "North and South Islands" in 1642. At the time, they did not know that the two islands were separate, so the whole was named Staaten Landt (state land). The name was later changed to Nieuw Zeeland after their base in present-day Batavia, Indonesia. The base was originally named after the Dutch mainland province of Zealand.

3. In 1769, Captain James Cook began to study New Zealand carefully, visited the South Pacific and New Zealand three times, and drew a map of New Zealand. Its original map treated Stewart Island as a peninsula and Banks Peninsula as an island. Cook's map led to the expansion of European whalers' activities in the waters, and New Zealand eventually became a European colony.

4. After the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, New Zealand became a British colony. However, the treaty has two versions, English and Maori. The British royal representative signed the English version, and the Maori signed the Maori version. The Maori version promises to give Maori people "tino rangatiratanga", which means "autonomy" in Maori, but the English version translates it as "chief position". The two sides have different meanings and interpretations of the text. This term and other issues remain a source of bitterness between the New Zealand government and Maori. For example, the issue of ownership of "Ownership of Seabed and Foreshore".

Remarks: #Polynesia (from the Greek, poly means numerous, and nesi means island) is a large group of more than 1,000 islands located in the central and southern Pacific Ocean It consists of scattered islands and sparsely populated islands. Geographically, Polynesia has three endpoints, namely the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand and Easter Island, roughly east of 180° longitude; the distance between north and south is about 7,600 kilometers, and the widest point from east to west is 9,000 kilometers. In addition to the three endpoints, Samoa, Tonga and French Polynesia are the main island groups in the Polynesian Triangle.