The Original Settlers

Archaeological evidence shows the first human (Māori) occupation of New Zealand occurred around  1250–1300,^[1] with population concentrated along the south east coast.[1] A camp site at Kaikai's Beach, near Otago Heads, has been dated about that time. There are numerous sites in the Dunedin area which date from this early phase of Māori culture, when moa hunting was at its peak. Researchers believe there were permanent villages at Little Papanui and Harwood Township in the 14th century. As moa numbers dropped, the population slumped but it grew again with the evolution of a new Classic culture which saw the development of fortified villages (pa). The pa at Pukekura (Taiaroa Head) was established about 1650.

In this period there were Māori settlements in what is now central Dunedin (Otepoti), above Anderson's Bay (Puketai), on Te Rauone Beach (Te Ruatitiko and Tahakopa), around Otago Harbour. There were also settlements at Whareakeake (Murdering Beach), Pūrākaunui, Mapoutahi (Goat Island Peninsula) and Huriawa (Karitane Peninsula) to the north, and at Taieri Mouth and Otokia (Henley) to the south, all inside the present boundaries of Dunedin.

 

Central Dunedin was still occupied about 1785 but was abandoned before 1826. Pūrākaunui and Mapoutahi were abandoned late in the 18th century and Whareakeake about 1825.

Māori tradition speaks of Rakaihautu excavating Kaikorai Valley in ancient times, of Kahui Tipua and Te Rapuwai, ancient peoples of shadowy memory, and then Waitaha, followed by Kati Mamoe, the latter arriving late in the 16th century.  Kai Tahu came from about the middle of the 17th century. Although European accounts of these successive arrivals have often represented them as invasions, modern scholarship suggests that they were probably really migrations, incidentally attended by bloodshed, just like the later European arrival. Personalities from this time and later, such as Taoka and Te Wera, Tarewai and Te Rakiihia are identified with events at Huriawa, Mapoutahi, Pukekura and Otepoti and have descendants known in the historical period. Te Rakiihia died and was buried somewhere in what is now central Dunedin about 1785.

The sealer, John Boultbee, recorded in the 1820s that the 'Kaika Otargo' (settlements around and near Otago Harbour) were the oldest and largest in the south.

Captain James Cook on board the Endeavour stood off at what is now the coast of Dunedin between February 25 and March 5, 1770 and named Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsula and Saddle Hill. He charted the area and noted penguins and seals in the vicinity. His reports encouraged sealers to visit, their first recorded landings being late in the first decade of the 19th century. A feud between sealers and Māori, sparked by an incident on a ship in Otago Harbour in 1810, continued until 1823. With peace re-established, Otago Harbour went from being a secret sealers' haven to an international whaling port.

Before the Scottish settlement of the 1840s, William Tucker settled at Whareakeake (Murdering Beach) in 1815. The Weller brothers, Joseph, George and Edward, established their whaling station at Wellers Rock, in what is now called Ōtākou, in 1831. Long, Wright & Richards started a whaling station at Karitane in 1837 and Johnny Jones sent pioneers to settle land at Waikouaiti in 1840, all inside the territory of the modern City of Dunedin.

Ōtākou was at the centre of a network of stations owned by the Wellers. They established 'fisheries' above Pilots Beach and on Te Rauone Beach in 1836 and 1837, and later they operated stations at Purakanui, Taieri Island, Timaru, and Banks Peninsula. Ōtākou was a large station, so there were many jobs to fill. These included the men who went out to sea and caught the whales, and those who worked on shore. The whales were usually found fairly close to shore in the bays, between two and seven miles off the coast. The whale kills were achieved using a fleet of small whaleboats. In 1835, George Weller stated there were eighty men working at the station. At some stage, twelve boats were in use; as many as eleven were seen at one time in the harbour.  Most whaling stations were funded from Sydney and staffed with newcomers from all over the world.

There were two other fisheries about which little seems to be known.  One was situated at Te Rauone Beach and the other near Harrington Point.  One was an American station and the other was called the Hobart Town Fishery.[2]  The first European settler was reputedly James Washburn Hunter, an American,  who was put ashore because of some infirmity.[3] He became the first pilot for the harbour.

The settlements at Wellers Rock, Karitane and Waikouaiti have endured, making modern Dunedin one of the longest European settled territories in New Zealand.

The country immediately round Port Chalmers was visited by Captain James Herd in the Rosanna expedition in 1826, by D'Urville, the French navigator, in 1840, and in the same year by Governor Hobson, who obtained the nominal cession of this part of the country from the Maori chiefs, Karetai and Koroko. Captain W. Mein-Smith in 1842 reported on the district as a possible site for settlement, but preferred Akaroa. Dr Shortland examined the country round Ōtākou with some care in 1843, and camped in what was then called Oteputi, and is now Dunedin. Bishop Selwyn spent a day at Ōtākou Harbour in 1844. The officers of the New Zealand Company were therefore able to draw on a range of information sources about the district when they were asked to have it examined and surveyed for the new settlement.[4]

The European Precursors

It is perhaps customary to think of the pākehā settlement of New Zealand as beginning with the “first ships”.  While this is true in terms of the major emigrations, it ignores the very important precursors, the people Jamie Belich called “old New Zealand”, who laid important groundwork for the later settlement. This is particularly true for the Otago Peninsula which was an important region in the lives of the Dicks in particular, but also the Allans.  It is therefore worth looking at the people who were really “the first” European settlers.  Some were to have significant associations with the Dick families who came later.

The sealers and whalers began the process. From occasional ship visits emerged land stations. In 1831, a schooner came into the lower Otago Harbour carrying the Weller brothers, who promptly set up a land based whaling station at Ōtākou. This survived until 1848 but many of the other stations were fairly ephemeral: Moeraki and Waikouaiti, 1838-1843; Taieri Island, 1839-184; Matau (Molyneux) 1838; and Tautuku 1839-1846

Although no family connection exists, the Willsher Bay Whaling Station led into settlement and agriculture.  The first livestock came in 1840, in the form of pigs and goats, with many escaping into the bush.  There were houses seen by William Tuckett in 1844  which George Wilsher and Thomas Russell established.  At Tautuku, rabbits were liberated in the sand dunes.  They were of course isolated from the Otago grasslands by the forested Catlins so may not have contributed to the plagues of the 1870s.