Story: North Americans

Canadian and American whaling ships brought some American Indians to New Zealand from the 1830s. A few settled in Southland, and their descendants are well known today. One such settler was William Elisha Apes, an American Indian of the Pequot tribe, who arrived about 1840 and married Mata Punahere of Ngāi Tahu. One of his descendants, Tiemi Apes, is pictured here. Native Americans continue to come to New Zealand: in the late 1990s they were said to number 200.