6 February - Waitangi Day

Two French published scenes of a pirogue or waka (dug-out canoe), the man on the left in the second is carrying bottles of Liebig meat extract. The French were never far behind the British when it came to South Pacific colonisation.

On 6 February 1840 the British signed a Treaty with Maori chiefs at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands, which is considered the founding of NZ.  In Australia the British never bothered with such formalities and if the aborigines didn't like it, the solution was to go out and shoot them.  Not that the Treaty of Waitangi was always respected, and settling grievances has been a feature of the past 4 decades.