page_title: White people
section_title: New Zealand
hierarchical_section_title: White people / Census and social definitions in different regions / New Zealand
caption_attribution_description: English: w:Lucy Lawless @ 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International
context_page_description: White people is a racial classification and skin color specifier, used mostly and exclusively for people of European and Western Eurasian descent; depending on context, nationality, and point of view. The term has at times been expanded to encompass persons of Middle Eastern and North African descent, persons who are often considered non-white in other contexts, and at times excluded people of Southern European descent. The usage of "white people" or a "white race" for a large group of mainly or exclusively European populations, defined by their light skin, among other physical characteristics, and contrasting with "black people", Amerindians, and other "colored" people or "persons of color", originated in the 17th century. It was only during the 19th century that this vague category was transformed in a pseudo-scientific system of race and skin color relations.
  The concept of a unified white race did not achieve universal acceptance in Europe when it first came into use in the 17th century, or in the centuries afterward. Nazi Germany regarded some European peoples such as Slavs as racially distinct from themselves.
context_section_description: James Cook claimed New Zealand for Britain on his arrival in 1769. The establishment of British colonies in Australia from 1788 and the boom in whaling and sealing in the Southern Ocean brought many Europeans to the vicinity of New Zealand. Whalers and sealers were often itinerant and the first real settlers were missionaries and traders in the Bay of Islands area from 1809. Early visitors to New Zealand included whalers, sealers, missionaries, mariners, and merchants, attracted to natural resources in abundance. They came from the Australian colonies, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany (forming the next biggest immigrant group after the British and Irish), France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, and Canada.
  In the 1860s, discovery of gold started a gold rush in Otago. By 1860 more than 100,000 British and Irish settlers lived throughout New Zealand. The Otago Association actively recruited settlers from Scotland, creating a definite Scottish influence in that region, while the Canterbury Association recruited settlers from the south of England, creating a definite English influence over that region.
  In the 1870s, the MP Julius Vogel borrowed millions of pounds from Britain to help fund capital development such as a nationwide rail system, lighthouses, ports and bridges, and encouraged mass migration from Britain. By 1870 the non-Māori population reached over 250,000.
  Other smaller groups of settlers came from Germany, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe as well as from China and India, but British and Irish settlers made up the vast majority, and did so for the next 150 years.
caption: Lucy Lawless, New Zealand actress.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4752", "Image ImageLength": "3168", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 50D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2016:02:11 01:10:08", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "304", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1028", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1142", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5470", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:07:13 16:34:53", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:07:13 16:34:53", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "69/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "300", "EXIF SubSecTime": "48", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "48", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "48", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2477", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3096", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "792000/149", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1056000/199", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}