New Zealand - Russell - South View, beach scene - Unknown Photographer - Real Photo Postcard Format #501520 Russell - Before the arrival of the Europeans, Russell was inhabited by Māori because of its salubrious climate and the abundance of food, fish and fertile soil. Russell was then known as Kororareka, and was a small settlement on the coast. The early European explorers like Britain’s James Cook (1769) and France’s Marion du Fresne (1772) have remarked that the area was quite prosperous. - When European and American ships began visiting New Zealand in the early 1800s, the indigenous Māori quickly recognised there were great advantages in trading with these strangers, whom they called tauiwi. The Bay of Islands offered a safe anchorage and had a large Māori population. To attract ships, Māori began to supply food and timber. What Māori wanted was respect, plus firearms, alcohol, and other goods of European manufacture. - Kororareka developed as a result of this trade but soon earned a very bad reputation as a community without laws and full of prostitution. It became known as the "Hell Hole of the Pacific", despite the translation of its name being "How sweet is the penguin" (kororā meaning blue penguin and reka meaning sweet). European law had no influence and Māori law was seldom enforced within the town's area. Fighting on the beach at Kororareka in March 1830, between northern and southern hapū within the Ngāpuhi iwi, became known as the Girls’ War. - On 30 January 1840 at the Christ Church, Governor Hobson read his Proclamations (which were the beginnings of the Treaty of Waitangi) in the presence of a number of settlers and the Maori chief Moka Te Kainga-mataa. A document confirming what had happened was signed at this time by around forty witnesses, including Moka, the only Maori signatory. The following week, the Treaty proceedings would then move across to the western side of the bay to Waitangi. - By this time, Kororareka was an important mercantile centre and served as a vital resupply port for whaling and sealing operations. When the Colony of New Zealand was founded in that year, Hobson was reluctant to choose Kororareka as his capital, due to its bad reputation. Instead he purchased land at Okiato, situated five kilometres to the south, and renamed it Russell in honour of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord John Russell. Captain Hobson soon decided that the move to the Okiato site was a mistake, and Auckland was selected as the new capital not long after. - Kororareka was part of the Port of Russell and after Russell (Okiato) became virtually deserted, Kororareka gradually became known as Russell also. In January 1844, Governor Robert FitzRoy officially designated Kororareka as part of the township of Russell. Today the name Russell applies only to Kororareka while the former capital is known either by its original name of Okiato or as Old Russell. (source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell,_New_Zealand)