In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed — or more accurately, Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed by the majority, while the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by the minority, which everyone agreed was either tremendously significant or tremendously significant, depending on which language you read it in. The Māori chiefs, under the impression they were keeping their "rangatiratanga" (chieftainship, very important) while merely allowing the British to do some light administrative work, signed Te Tiriti. The British, having read a different version, were under the impression they now owned everything and began acting accordingly. This was clearly not going to end well.
What followed was 186 years of Māori pointing this out in increasingly creative ways, from chopping down flagpoles to occupying land for 1,000+ days to performing haka in Parliament whilst ripping up legislation.
Hōne Heke cuts down the British flagstaff - again, (Manatū Taonga — Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated
The Early Protests (1840s–1860s)
The first great protestor was Hōne Heke, who is remembered chiefly for owning an axe. Heke, in a fit of what the British called "unreasonable behaviour" and what everyone else called "making a valid point," cut down a flagpole four times. This showed a fundamental misunderstanding of how to lodge a formal complaint, which only needs to be done in triplicate, not quadruplicate.
Some say he was making a political statement about sovereignty. Others say he just really hated that flagpole. Either way, it's the most effective use of an axe in political history, apart from that time Henry VIII invented an alternative to divorce. Having repaired their flagpole three times, the British were now well and truly miffed; hence the beginning of the first of the New Zealand Wars, the Northern War.
Following this early activism came a bewildering wave of movements, each more determined than the last.
The Kotahitanga Movement aimed to unify Māori tribes, which was sensible, and prevent land sales to Pākehā, which was also sensible. So, in the nature of history, being sensible, they were doomed to fail. Various Kotahitanga Parliaments were brought together, all of which lasted for about 10 years. The third one was established in 1892 with a lower house, upper house, premier, and speaker, and had its final meeting in 1902.
The Kīngitanga Movement emerged when Māori tribes, noticing that having lots of chiefs but no king was not working terribly well against people who had a Queen, decided to elect their own monarch. Pōtatau Te Wherowhero became the first Māori King in 1858. The Kingitanga's main policy was: "Perhaps we should keep our land and govern ourselves, actually." The British Government's response was: "No." This disagreement led to the Waikato War (1863–64), which ended with the confiscation of 1.2 million acres of Māori land as punishment for the Kingitanga's impertinence in existing. The Kingitanga continues to this day, proving that some things are harder to confiscate than land.
The New Zealand or Land Wars ran from 1845 through to 1870. They were called wars because calling them "The Great Land Confiscation" would have been too honest.
The Pai Marire Movement (also known as the Hauhau cult, which sounds much more exciting) sought to unify tribes through religion. It was prophetic, which meant they could see the future, though apparently not clearly enough to avoid the New Zealand Wars.
Other Prophets and Passive Resistance (1860s–1880s)
At Parihaka in Taranaki, two prophets, Te Whiti and Tohu, developed a cunning plan: peaceful resistance. Their followers ploughed up settlers' land (which had recently been their own land), pulled up surveying pegs and disturbed the peace... peacefully. In 1881, the Government sent 1,600 armed men to arrest two prophets and their followers who were armed only with songs, passive resistance, and the moral high ground (which, it turned out, was no match for guns). This was universally regarded as "beyond the pale," even by many Pākehā. If you send 1,600 armed men to arrest peaceful ploughers, who are the real criminals? (Don't answer that, it's rhetorical.)
Three other primary prophets shaped this era. Te Kooti combined military action with religion in a way that made the Government very nervous indeed. Rua Kēnana got arrested for sedition, which seemed excessive for a prophet. The Rātana Movement combined religion with politics and eventually threw in its lot with the Labour Party, which made everyone nervous — and the nervousness proved justified, as the movement was rather successful.
All these initiatives were united in their anger at the confiscation of land and their belief that the Treaty had been somewhat of a disappointment.
The 20th Century: Working the System
In 1909, Sir Āpirana Ngata, Sir Māui Pōmare, and Sir Peter Buck decided to take a different approach. Since chopping down flagpoles and prophetic movements hadn't shifted the needle, they might try getting university degrees, becoming MPs, wearing suits and working through Parliament. If the system was going to be persistently unmoved by dramatic acts of protest, perhaps the answer was to get inside the system and rearrange the deck chairs. This was either a pragmatic approach to improving Māori welfare or collaboration with the coloniser, depending on one's perspective. History, as it tends to do, has found room for both views simultaneously.
After World War II, Māori began moving to cities in large numbers, discovering that urban life involved new problems but the same old grievances about land and sovereignty. The Māori Women's Welfare League and Māori Council emerged, proving that one could influence government policy through official organisations, though this was much less dramatic than cutting down flagpoles.
Turning Up the Volume: The 1970s
In 1945, just over 20% of Māori lived in urban areas. By 2006, over 80% were urban dwellers. That shift changed how visible Māori opposition to the Treaty was.
By the 1970s, Māori — seeing that their land was still gone, their language endangered, and the socioeconomic statistics in the basement — had run out of patience with quiet. Groups like Matakite o Aotearoa organised significant protests. Others like Te Hokioi and the Māori Organisation on Human Rights appeared. Having noticed that politeness had achieved limited results since the turn of the century, these organisations had made the entirely reasonable observation that perhaps it was time to turn up the volume somewhat.
Other activist groups connected Māori liberation with global anti-racism movements, suggesting the problem wasn't just about New Zealand being slightly unfair, but about systematic oppression, which was much less comfortable for everyone involved. This was labelled "radical," which generally means that someone has said something obviously true that people weren't quite ready to hear yet.
Young Māori had noticed that most of their land was still gone, their language was endangered, and the socioeconomic statistics were, to use the technical term, rubbish. And Waitangi Day — the annual celebration of our famously ambiguous 1840 document — seemed to be operating in a sort of cheerful parallel universe where none of this had happened. Activists, including Syd and Hana Jackson, formed groups that protested at Waitangi Day celebrations. This was considered very rude by some Pākehā who felt strongly that a day celebrating a treaty should not be interrupted by people who had grievances about that treaty. The logic here, while not immediately obvious, was sincerely held.
The Hīkoi, Bastion Point and Land Occupations
In 1975, Dame Whina Cooper, aged 79, led the hīkoi from Te Hāpua in the far north to Wellington with the slogan "Not One More Acre of Māori Land." This was memorable because she was quite old to be walking that far when most people her age are having a perfectly nice time not walking several hundred kilometres. Thousands joined the march and it made everyone notice that Māori land issues had not gone away.
The Government's response was to set up the Waitangi Tribunal, which could hear grievances but not actually do anything about them until the Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Act 1985. Essentially, a complaints department that just listens to you complain and then says "that's nice, dear" and does nothing. In many ways similar to a marriage.
In 1977, in protest against the Auckland City Council's plans to develop Ngāti Whātua land for housing, protesters occupied Bastion Point for 506 days. That's over a year of sitting there, which is a very long time to be sitting in a place that doesn't have the weather that encourages outdoor endurance. The occupation ended when 600 police officers arrived and arrested 222 protesters; the whole thing was filmed and became rather embarrassing for the Government. Eventually, the land was returned to Ngāti Whātua, proving that occupying land for 506 days was more effective than the Government had wanted.
Various other land occupations followed, including at the Raglan Golf Course and Pākaitore (Moutoa Gardens), demonstrating that Māori had become quite good at peaceful occupation, media engagement, and making local councils uncomfortable.
Pākehā's Reaction
It was about this time that much of the rest of the population began to wake up to the issues Māori had patiently been pointing out since 1840.
For generations, New Zealand had maintained — with genuine conviction, which makes it simultaneously more understandable and more remarkable — that it had the best race relations in the world. This was supported by a series of observations that were each, in isolation, technically accurate. Māori men had been able to vote since 1867, which was genuinely progressive by the standards of the time. Everyone attended the same schools. Māori played alongside Pākehā in rugby and netball teams across the country. All of this, arranged carefully, produced the conclusion that everyone was equal, which was demonstrably not the case but had a satisfying ring to it.
However, faced with a different reading of history, New Zealand discovered it had systematically suppressed Māori language in schools, confiscated most Māori land, created significant socioeconomic disparities, and been somewhat economical with the truth about "best race relations."
The national self-image was obliged to undergo a quiet but significant revision. "Best in the world" became "working on it," which is the sort of downgrade that doesn't look like much from the outside but feels, from the inside, rather like discovering that the foundation of your house is not quite where you thought it was.
Matiu Rata, Mana Motuhake and MMP
In 1979, a man called Matiu Rata, who had been a perfectly good Cabinet Minister in the Labour Party, looked around at New Zealand politics, came to the sensible conclusion that Māori interests were not being vigorously championed, and did something about it. He founded a new party, Mana Motuhake, which translates broadly as "Māori self-determination," or more loosely as "we would quite like to have a say in things now, thank you."
This was a Bold Move. New Zealand had a First Past the Post electoral system at the time, which is specifically designed to make Bold Moves impossible. Mana Motuhake contested elections with the admirable regularity of a party that believed in what it was doing and the admirable lack of success of a small party operating under First Past the Post.
In 1996, all this changed. Following a referendum, New Zealanders voted to completely change their electoral system to MMP, thereby demonstrating that democracy works even when the outcome surprises everyone, including the people who voted for it. Suddenly, small parties could exist and win seats in Parliament. This was, for Māori political movements, rather exciting.
The Māori Party, in Which Things Finally Go Somewhere
You might think that beaches are fairly uncomplicated things. They are, by and large, sandy. They have waves. Children enjoy them. Seagulls, annoyingly, try to steal your chips. What could possibly be contentious? Quite a lot, as it happens. The Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2004 is remembered in New Zealand as a piece of legislation that managed to simultaneously annoy Māori, confuse everyone else, and cause a Cabinet Minister to resign in protest. The Cabinet Minister in question was Tariana Turia, who founded the Māori Party in 2004 with Pita Sharples and several other people who were also quite annoyed.
The Māori Party won seats. Actual seats! In parliament! This was, by the standards of the previous century, remarkable progress.
The party subsequently propped up a National government, which surprised people who thought it was a left-wing party and did not entirely surprise people who thought Māori political interests don't map neatly onto the left-right spectrum (invented in a room in France), which they don't, because why would they?
Having briefly not been part of Parliament between 2017 and 2020, Te Pāti Māori came back with considerable energy, winning seats in 2020 on the Māori electoral roll and by 2023 holding seven seats — more than at any previous point in history. This is what political scientists call progress, and what anyone paying attention would call long overdue.
Protest Goes Viral
By the 2010s, protest had acquired a new dimension. It was now global, simultaneous, and occasionally watched by a bored teenager in Madrid. A contested field in South Auckland could trend worldwide before the evening news had time to notice. Protest was no longer just visible — it went viral. The methods had updated again. The message hadn't.
Ihumātao (2016–2020)
Fletcher Building had plans to build 480 houses on 33 hectares of culturally significant land in South Auckland. SOUL — Save Our Unique Landscape — had objections. In 2016, they turned up and declined to leave. They kept declining to leave for 1,019 days.
This is, when you stop to think about it, an extraordinary commitment. SOUL maintained a physical occupation of a building site for nearly three years, through Auckland winters, which are not the dramatic frozen tundra winters of somewhere genuinely cold, but are damp and grey in a way that gets into your bones and makes you question your life choices.
In 2020, the Government purchased the land and halted development, proving that 1,000 days of occupation plus a social media storm equals results. Negotiations about what to actually do with the land continue, because New Zealand resolves its major disputes the way the rest of us untangle Christmas lights — slowly, with occasional swearing, and never quite as quickly as you'd hoped.
The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti (2024)
When the ACT Party introduced the Treaty Principles Bill proposing to redefine the Treaty's meaning in law, this was received in much the way you might expect if someone proposed to legally redefine what water is. Māori responded with one of the largest protests in New Zealand history — a nine-day march from Te Rerenga Wairua to Wellington. As it moved south, it accumulated people in the manner of a particularly purposeful snowball. By the time it reached Parliament, it had grown to somewhere north of 50,000 participants.
The bill won't become law (even ACT's coalition partners refused to support it past its first reading), but it sparked a crucial national conversation about the Treaty's place in modern Aotearoa. Some conversations are worth having even if you already know how they'll end.
What Have We Learned?
From Hōne Heke's axe to Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke's haka, from land marches to social media storms, from telegrams to TikTok, the message has remained remarkably consistent for 186 years. The methods change with the times — flagpoles give way to Facebook, prophets to politicians, axes to apps — but the kaupapa endures. Each generation finds new ways to say the same thing: honour Te Tiriti, return the whenua, respect rangatiratanga.
And so the protests continue, which is either depressing (that they're still necessary) or inspiring (that they're still happening). The pessimist sees a problem that hasn't been solved. The optimist sees people who haven't given up.
History, as someone really ought to have said by now, is just one long protest, punctuated by the occasional flagpole.