Natural history travel expeditions from Heritage Expeditions Christchurch New Zealand.

Chatham Islands

Of all the Islands south of Australia and New Zealand the Chathams are unique as the only group to have permanent human settlement. The impact of people on the endemic flora and fauna has been huge. Many species have been lost, habitat altered; but what remains is unique and subject to some incredible conservation efforts.

Geographical Information:

43º 40’S – 44º 25’S to 177º 00’W - 176º 00’W, in the South Pacific Ocean, 860 km east of New Zealand

Area:

They have a total area of 97,000 ha which is spread unevenly amongst some 40 different islands. Chatham Island (90,000 ha) and Pitt Island (6,190 ha) are the only two islands permanently inhabited by people.

Maximum Altitude:

283m

Physical Features:

Pyramid Rock

The islands are located at the eastern extension of the Chatham Rise which runs due west toward New Zealand and which together with Campbell Plateau, the Lord Howe Rise, Norfolk Rise and Three Kings Rise, is considered to be part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland.

The Islands are the only part of the Chatham Rise above sea level. This results in part from block faulting initiated about 100 million years ago and exposing older rocks of which the basement rock, Chatham Schist is the oldest and in part results from repeated episodes of basaltic volcanism in the last 80 million years. Different formations of limestone and other associated sedimentary rocks indicate episodes and prolonged histories of marine submergence and emergence. This has largely been due to sealevel changes associated with the ice ages and from the late Pliocene era (2 million years ago) through the Pleistocene to the present.

The islands lie in the convergence zone of the colder (north bound) ocean currents from the south and the warmer (southbound) ocean currents from the north. Climatically, the islands reflect their mid latitude oceanic setting. Temperate conditions predominate, low 20 degrees Celsius in mid summer and 5 – 8 degrees in mid winter, with mists associated with ocean current convergence, and strong prevailing north-west and south-west winds.

Map:

Chatham Islands ©

Historical Features:

Early in 1791 an expedition, under the command of Captain George Vancouver, left England under orders to complete the survey, made by Cook, of the northwest coast of America. Running short of stores when passing south of Tasmania Vancouver turned towards New Zealand and, on November 2nd 1791, dropped anchor in Dusky Sound. On November 21st the `Discovery' and the `Chatham' sailed from Dusky Sound, their rendezvous being Otaheiti. Lieutenant W R Broughton, commander of the tender `Chatham', shaped a course around the south end of New Zealand, discovered the Snares, and sailed northeast to discover the Chathams. In his journal, Lieutenant Broughton gives a very full account of the discovery of the Chathams:

`Early on the morning of the 29th (November 1791) low land was discovered, bearing by compass N.E. to E.N.E.; and being then in 40 fathoms water, we brought till daybreak.. ……. After sailing about 10 leagues, we came abreast of a small sandy bay. With our glasses we observed some people hauling up a canoe, and several others behind the rocks in the bay. Accompanied by Mr Johnston, the master, and one of the mates, we proceeded towards the shore in the cutter....As (the people) approached they made much noise, and having soon joined us, we entered into conversation by signs, gestures, and speech, without understanding what each other meant. We presented them with several articles, which they received with great eagerness and seemed pleased with whatever was given them but would make no exchanges.

The available evidence of recent archaeological field work indicates the Chatham Islands have been settled for about the same period as New Zealand, and that its initial settlement occurred within the interval AD 800 to 1000. The first landfall was made by Archaic East Polynesians from New Zealand, presumably as a result of an accidental drift. Secondary settlement of the Chathams may have occurred, but only in the interval prior to about AD 1400, and even then arrivals were solely from New Zealand and infrequent. The islands became a closed system that date because a climatic deterioration, known as the Little Ice Age, worsened sea conditions and therefore effectively distanced the Chathams even further from New Zealand. The population grew and divided permanently, as widely separated areas of the archipelago were settled by new groups, which were formed as social fission proceeded.

The Moriori were obviously different from the Maori people in northern New Zealand. They lacked fortifications and even villages. There were no canoes of the type seen by Cook and other early observers in New Zealand. Tattooing was not practised and the Moriori wore few personal ornaments. They carried no fine artefacts and were poorly or scantily dressed.

To explain this difference, early anthropologists developed the theory that the Moriori were of Melanesian or mixed Melanesian/Polynesian origins, who had been forced to flee to the Chatham Islands, from New Zealand, by the more assertive Polynesians who arrived with the `Great Fleet' of 1350 AD. In other words, they had been part of a group of original settlers of New Zealand that had been pushed on or forced to flee when the Polynesians settled in New Zealand. This theory has now been dismissed, for there is no evidence to indicate the first settlers of New Zealand or the Chatham Islands were other than Polynesian. Secondly, the aboriginal people of the Chathams were not refugees fleeing an invasion of New Zealand by Polynesians, because this external military force did not exist.

The people who first landed on the Chathams could not grow any traditional Polynesian cultigens there, due to the overcast and temperate climate. They therefore lived on the indigenous food resources of the islands. Most of the available food occurred either in the sea or along the shores.

The earliest sealing recorded on the Chathams followed closely the initial successes on the southern coasts of New Zealand and, more particularly, the bonanzas of the Antipodes and Auckland Islands. In what is commonly called the early period in sealing, that is prior to 1810, only three Sydney sealers and one American can be positively identified as visiting the Chathams, though evidently there were several more.

As elsewhere around southern New Zealand, there followed a relatively quiet period from 1810, until the sealing industry staged a short revival from 1822 to 1829. It is particularly difficult to assess the extent and importance of the Chathams during the second or middle period (1810 to 1835) because records are far and few between, especially for the first half of this second period. The final decade 1835 to 1844, leading to the extinction of the Chatham Island sealing, is marked by a disproportionate quantity of historical material. Throughout, there is a striking lack of seals, and the sealers in this period must have spent more time growing potatoes and pigs, than actually sealing. The beginning of this decade (1835) was marked by the invasion of Ngatiawa Maoris from Wellington.

It is apparent that there had been a number of Maori visitors to the Chathams prior to the invasion of 1835. A number of Maoris worked on sealing ships and there is a record of a Maori sealing gang, from Kapiti Island, moving to the Chathams in 1832. It was these Maori visitors who gave the Maori name, Wharekauri, to the Chathams, a name they could pronounce more easily than the Moriori one of Rekhou. These two groups of people, the Maori and the Moriori, obviously got on well together and there are records of mixed settlements. All that changed in 1835.

Under pressure from the more northern tribes, such as the Waikatos, from about 1826 onwards, the Ngatiawa tribe began to spread south from Taranaki to Waikanae, to Kapiti Island and Wellington. Two of the Ngatiawa subtribes, the Ngati-Matunga and the Ngati-Ama, settled about Wellington, but in mid 1835 a close alliance with Te Rauparaha and the Ngatitoa tribe changed to a bitter quarrel and the two panic stricken subtribes prepared to flee.

Various refuges were apparently being considered, when several Maoris who had visited the Chathams on sealing and whaling vessels recommended it in the highest possible terms. A European vessel, the Lord Rodney of Sydney, was seized to transport 700 Maori from Wellington to the Chathams.

The Maoris were more or less ignored by the Morioris until, after several weeks spent hurriedly planting their valuable potatoes and building a fortified pa at Whangaroa, the Maoris began to spread throughout the island encroaching on the Morioris food supplies. The Morioris held a `council of war' in which they decided to offer no physical resistance because they were pacifists by religion. Then the Maoris began to `walk the land', killing and eating sufficient of those met en route (about one-eighth) to establish a new title to the land in accordance to the Maori custom of conquest, enslaving many, and conquering the remainder who, though permitted to occupy their former homes, became feudal vassals rendering service as required.

Slavery was relaxed progressively from the adoption of Christianity in 1842 and abolished on the Maoris' acceptance of British authority on 6 July 1858, but by then only a remnant remained. A very religious, stubborn and conservative people whose lives were hedged about with innumerable deadly prohibitions, the Morioris were soon dispirited, broken in morale and often found little reason to stay alive. They believed their race was destined to die, and died in compliance.

No doubt the influenza plagues of 1839 and 40 contributed to the death rate of the Moriori. Their decline was phenomenal - from at least 1663 in mid 1835, to 268 in 1848, and only 160 in 1861. Mr Tommy Solomon, the last full blooded Moriori, died on the Chathams in March 1934. There is a monument to Tommy Solomon at Owenga. With the advent of Christianity in 1842, and the arrival of five resident German missionaries in 1843, all fighting ceased and most Moriori slaves were given at least a partial release.

In October 1843, still dissatisfied, a group of 40 Ngati-Matunga Maoris and 25 Moriori slaves hired the pirated Sydney brig Hannah, for 150 hogs, to take them to the Auckland Islands.

Today the island is populated by descendants of Moriori, European and Maori, they are all known as Chatham Islanders. They are predominately farmers and fisherman. The population is approx 700 people.

Flora and Vegetation:

Because the Chatham’s are isolated in distance and geological time from New Zealand mainland, it is not surprising that they have the highest proportion of endemic plants of any region of comparable size in New Zealand, with 40 to 45 species and varieties found nowhere else. This makes the Chatham’s of exceptional biological interest.

About 325 species of flowering plants are indigenous to the Chatham Islands. Almost 40 plant species, subspecies and varieties are endemic, including two highly distinctive genera Embergeria (Chatham Islands sowthistle) and Myosotidium (Chatham Island forget-me-not).
Some plants are common to both the Chatham Islands and the mainland, or differ to only a very minor degree. A significant number of endemic Chathams plants are related to species found in temperate northern New Zealand, such as Chatham Islands species of koromiko (hebe) and toetoe (Cortaderia turbaria). Other plants such as the Chatham Island species of Olearia (tree daisies) have a relationship with southern New Zealand and the subantarctic islands, so that the islands have an interesting mixture of plants from both cooler and warmer climates.

Birding Highlights:

Shore Plover ©

Many opportunities here, but a highlight has to be the Chatham Island Albatross on the Pyramid Rock, the Pacific Albatross, the endemic Shore Plover and Oystercatcher and the two endemic cormorants. A walk through a forest reserve on the main island should reward you with the Chatham Island pigeon and warbler.

The indigenous animal and plant life of the Chathams is renowned for its high degree of endemism. Of 48 indigenous species and subspecies of birds inhabiting the group at the time of the first European settlement (about 1800), 20 or 42% were endemic.

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Chatham Islands

Chatham Islands

Geographical Information:

43º 40’S – 44º 25’S to 177º 00’W - 176º 00’W, in the South Pacific Ocean, 860 km east of New Zealand

Area:

Maximum Altitude:

Physical Features:

Map:

Historical Features:

Flora and Vegetation:

Birding Highlights:

Further Reading: