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The
Maori are the native inhabitants of New Zealand and are of Polynesian origin
numbering over 500,000 today. This is about 15% of New Zealand's population.
Over 95 percent
of Maori live on New Zealand's North Island.
Evidence suggests that the Maori originally immigrated to New Zealand probably around 1200 AD from the Cook Islands, Society Islands, and Marquesas Islands in the Pacific Ocean. According to Maori legend, their ancestors set out together from a place in Polynesia in a fleet of large canoes. Before the arrival of European colonists in the late 18th century, the Maori had settled throughout New Zealand.
In 1841 New Zealand officially became a colony of Britain. Many European settlements were established and between 1843 and 1872 violent conflicts between the Maori and European colonizers, known as the New Zealand Wars took place.
After the New Zealand Wars, some Maori lands were confiscated illegally and during this time the Maori population declined rapidly as a result of the wars and European diseases.
Today the Maori have adjusted well to western culture and the population has increased substantially. Since 1980 the Waitangi Tribunal, a government body established to settle legal claims based on the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, have engaged in recompensing Maori for land that was illegally confiscated.
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