Ngāpuhi attack Kororāreka in the Northern War

Seven men convicted of killing Wirrayaraay people at Myall Creek were hanged. The rare punishment shows a limited breach in the tolerance of colonial violence. It did not end dispossession or the...

Māori leaders signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi alongside Crown representatives. The Māori and English texts differed in important understandings of authority. Later struggles drew on promises of protection...

The United States Supreme Court recognized the freedom of Africans who had been illegally transported and had resisted aboard the Amistad. Their own revolt and testimony were essential to the case....

A confrontation followed settlers’ attempts to assert control over disputed land at Wairau. Ngāti Toa leaders contested the claimed sale. The deaths and subsequent controversy showed that settler...

Te Haratua and other Ngāpuhi cut down the flagstaff that symbolized British authority. Hōne Heke’s movement protested the Crown’s growing power and threats to chiefly autonomy. Symbolic action against...

British forces attacked Puketutu during the Northern War. Māori defensive works and military strategy complicated the colonial advance. The conflict belonged to a struggle over authority after the...

A British assault on the pā at Ōhaeawai suffered severe losses. Defenders’ fortifications were designed to withstand artillery and expose attackers. The outcome challenges colonial claims of...

British and allied Māori forces entered Ruapekapeka after a siege; fighting continued outside the pā. The war ended without a straightforward destruction of Ngāpuhi authority. Its sophisticated...

After federal officers arrested Shadrach Minkins in Boston under the Fugitive Slave Act, activists removed him from the courthouse and helped him escape. Collective action directly challenged a law...

Colombia passed a law to end slavery from the following January. Enslavers received compensation, while formerly enslaved people did not receive comparable reparations for their labor. The measure...