23 – 28 January - Jules Dumont d'Urville is the first European to make the passage through the notoriously dangerousFrench Pass thus determining the insularity of the island which now bears his name. On the 23rd he discovered the passage; on the 25th he sailed it in a ship's boat; and on the 28th he took the corvetteAstrolabe through, considered a 'masterful feat of seamanship'.[1][2]
– Ngā Puhi chief Hongi Hika is shot during a minor engagement at Mangamuka beach in the Hokianga.[6] The wound is serious but Hongi survives for 14 months.
– Captain William Wiseman in the Elizabeth on a flax trading voyage, names Port Cooper (now Lyttelton Harbour) after one of the owners of the Sydney trading firm, Cooper & Levy.[8]
Undated
John Guard establishes a whaling station at Te Awaiti on the Arapawa Island shore of the Tory Channel. This is the first permanent land-based whaling station in New Zealand and the first European settlement in the South Island.[9][10][11][12] (previous whaling stations have been seasonal or temporary; other settlements with Europeans have been predominantly Māori)