History of Cook Islands

The 15 islands that make up the Cook Islands were settled by migrants from nearby islands in what is now French Polynesia and from Samoa in the 13th century. According to the oral traditions of both the Cook Islands and New Zealand Maori people, who share very similar languages, New Zealand was originally settled by canoe voyagers from Rarotonga. Hundreds of ocean-going vaka [canoes] are thought to have landed in New Zealand from about 1000AD - both from Rarotonga and from other islands around the Pacific region. Rarotonga is the last Pacific Island on the sailing route to New Zealand and the island would have been where the canoes replenished their supplies before making the final leg of their epic voyages. Given the well-documented navigational and sailing skills of the early ocean-going voyagers and the strength and agility of their double-hulled craft, it is quite likely that there were also some return journeys, according to some anthropologists. The most legendary migration from Rarotonga took place in 1350 when seven vakas are reputed to have set sail from Avana Harbour to make the arduous voyage to New Zealand. The Cook Islands was named after famous explorer Captain James Cook of the Royal Navy who landed on and surveyed a number of the islands between 1773 and 1777.

The Missionaries Representatives of the London Missionary Society began arriving in the Cook Islands in 1821. After the early conversion of a number of important ariki (chiefs) support for Christianity increased rapidly throughout the Southern Group. Working through the ariki the missionaries drew up draft legal codes which together with the abolition of violence as a means of dispute settlement, led to unprecedented political stability. In 1881 the British Colonial Office decided that New Zealand interests in the area needed some form of protection against foreign powers and the British Government granted a petition by local European traders and planters for the appointment of an unpaid British Consul for the Hervey Islands, as the Southern Group was then known. In 1888, acting on a petition from the principal ariki seeking British protection, the British Government agreed to permit its then vice-consul in Rarotonga to declare a Protectorate over the Southern Group islands to protect pro-British islanders and New Zealand trade. Similar protectorates were declared over several islands in the Northern Group in the early 1890s. The Colonial Office also decided that certain other Northern Group islands should be annexed for possible future use as trans-Pacific cable stations. In October 1885 the Colonial Office accepted an offer by New Zealand, which was then a self-governing British colony, for New Zealand to pay for a British Consul for Rarotonga on condition that he be nominated by New Zealand and act as the country’s official agent. This "Resident" was also to act as adviser to the ariki in drafting and administering laws and he would sign all acts of the local legislature in the name of the Governor of New Zealand. He would also have the right to reject proposed legislation. In 1890 the newly appointed Resident persuaded the ariki of Rarotonga to form a provisional Rarotongan legislature or General Council, the first government for the entire island. The following year representatives of the ariki from Rarotonga and the Southern Group islands agreed to form the first federal legislature in the islands. However the path through the last decade of the 19th century was far from smooth and the numerous changes that took place were not well accepted by the traditional leaders. Ill feeling between the islanders and New Zealand reached a point where two ariki told the New Zealand premier that the traditional leaders wanted the Cook Islands to be annexed to Great Britain. On 27 September 1900 the New Zealand Parliament approved the annexation of the islands to New Zealand and the following month the British Governor in New Zealand landed at Rarotonga. Without any discussion on its implications, the ariki and other traditional leaders signed a deed of cession and from June 11, 1901 the boundaries of New Zealand were extended to include the Cook Islands. In spite of the fact that the ariki and local government had told a visiting New Zealand parliamentary mission in 1903 that they wanted to remain independent in legislative matters and that the Cook Islands were, under the terms of the annexation a self-governing community under the British Crown, by 1909 the first New Zealand Resident Commissioner and the Minister of Island Territories had taken almost complete responsibility for the administration of the Cook Islands. Enactments of the New Zealand Parliament had the effect of doing away with the Federal Council by 1915. The New Zealand Parliament would legislate for the Cook Islands, while the laws of England at the time New