French Settlement in New Zealand and What Might Have Been

Feb 2, 2012
Brian Cross

Akaroa Today - Image by Maupuia

Whaling interests were behind efforts to establish the South Island as a French colony. France was too slow to beat the British, but the race was close.

From the late 18th century, French exploration was taking place in the Pacific. France still had no colonies in the region however, when their whalers began working the waters around New Zealand. Captain James Cook had claimed the country for Britain in 1769, but that was in the North Island, and British settlement was concentrated there. The South Island was still largely unpopulated apart from the widely spread Maori tribes.

Early French Interest in New Zealand

Jean François de Surville had been so close to Cook in the early charting of New Zealand that only bad weather prevented the two from meeting each other. De Surville's interest in New Zealand was incidental to his crew's survival, and he didn't linger long.

After Bay of Islands Maori murdered Marion Du Fresne in 1772, French colonial ambitions for New Zealand waned. But when the whalers came a convenient land from which to carry out their operations became a pressing need. It was one of their number who did something about it.

In 1838 Jean-François Langlois, a successful whaler in command of the Cachalot and working the South Pacific, decided that France had to act if it wanted to beat Britain in the race to annex the South Island. Langlois set up camp at Akaroa Harbour on Banks Peninsular, and negotiated with the local Ngai Tahu tribe for the purchase of the surrounding land. Akaroa thus became the site of the first, and only, French community to be established in New Zealand.

France Decides it will Annex the South Island

When Langlois returned to France in 1839 he enlisted business support for his New Zealand venture. Compagnie Nanto-Bordelaise was formed to commercially exploit a planned French colony in the South Island, and by the end of the year Langlois had King Louis Philippe’s sign of approval.

France’s plan was to plant sufficient French settlers in the South Island to convince the British that it should drop any ambitions of its own for the land the Maori called Te Waipounamu. In February 1840 the naval vessel L’Aube left France to oversee the arrival of the first settlers. They would follow aboard the Compte de Paris, which the French government had lent to Nanto-Bordelaise. In March the Compte de Paris set sail from the port of Rochefort with the Langlois in command.

As Langois was gathering support in France and organising the venture, the British had been making fast progress in establishing their colonial interests in the North Island. The gathering of chiefs at Waitangi on 6 February 1840 gave New Zealand sovereignty. The process of adding signatures to the Treaty of Waitangi then moved south, and Ngai Tahu chiefs signed in May. The first South Island signing in fact took place at Akaroa.

Britain Claims the South Island

When the French arrived at Akaroa in August, they found they were now entering British territory. The British flag was flying in Akaroa, and the land Langlois thought he owned had been sold again by the local Maoris in his absence. Fortunately, The outcome of the intriguing set of circumstances that surrounded France’s attempts to colonise the South Island of New Zealand would be a triumph for diplomacy. In 1841 the British agreed to protect the rights of existing French interests in New Zealand, so that the emigrants from France could settle in Akaroa as intended.

Some 60 French men and women thus made their homes in Akaroa, but it wasn't long before the community became assimilated into the Anglo-Saxon society that soon dominated. Today Akaroa is a popular tourist destination that still promotes and boasts of its French origins. The clearest evidence of that French colonial excursion into New Zealand is in the street signs that bear French names.

Akaroa is also the main South Island venue for Waitangi Day celebrations. Speculation often arises about what New Zealand might have been with a British Northern island and a French Southern island.