With the arrival of musket-trading Europeans in the Bay of Islands around the beginning of the nineteenth century, Northland Ngapuhi were able to launch successful raids on the Tamaki Maori which, combined with the predations of smallpox epidemics, left the region almost uninhabited, a significant factor in its choice as the new capital after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Scottish medic John Logan Campbell was one of few European residents when this fertile land, with easy access to major river and sea-borne trading routes, was purchased for A?55 and some blankets. The capital was roughly laid out and Campbell took advantage of his early start, wheeling and dealing to achieve control of half the city, eventually becoming mayor and "the father of Auckland". After 1840, immigrants boosted the population to the extent that more land was needed, a demand which partly precipitated the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s .

During the depression that followed, many sought their fortunes in the Otago goldfields and, as the balance of European population shifted south, so did the centre of government. Auckland lost its capital status to Wellington in 1865 and the city slumped further, only seeing the glimpse of a recovery when prospectors flooded through on their way to the gold mines around Thames in the late 1860s. Since then Auckland has never looked back, repeatedly ranking as New Zealand's fastest growing city and absorbing waves of migrants, initially from Britain then, in the 1960s and 1970s from the Polynesian Islands of the South Pacific and, most recently, from Asian countries. Rising with its head high after the depression years of the early 1990s, and a brief slump after the Asian financial melt down, Auckland is confidently leading New Zealand's renaissance as a modern nation, accepted on its own terms.