1771: Benjamin Franklin’s New Zealand
August 28, 2020
By AHNZ
On August 29th, 1771, USA Founding Father Benjamin Franklin drafted a plan to be a New Zealand Founding Father as well.
Within only six weeks of Cook returning the Endeavour to England, Franklin had a scheme to help out the Maoris by giving them the seed capital of..”..the conveniences of life, as fowls, hogs, goats, cattle, corn, iron, etc., to those remote regions…”
“The country, called in the maps New Zealand, has been discovered, by the Endeavour, to be two islands, together as large as Grey Britain; these islands, named Acpy-nomawee and Tovy-poennamoo, are inhabited by a brave and generous race, who are destitute of corn, fowls, and all quadrupeds, except dogs.”- Plan for Benefiting Distant Unprovided Countries
We were, after all, one big happy Empire back then before the American Revolution. Perhaps it didn’t come about because the Americans could not raise sponsorship for the scheme. It’s also true that the British East India Company jealously monopolised the South Pacific and certainly didn’t want any settlers getting in the way of that.
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Ref. Benjamin Franklin’s plans to colonise New Zealand; Slightly Intrepid (2015)
Ref. p7, Crown Colony Government in New Zealand; McLintock (1958)
Ref. Plan for Benefiting Distant Unprovided Countries; The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1905); Google Books
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