Ngāpuhi defenses confront a British assault at Puketutu

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...

Forces associated with Hōne Heke and Te Ruki Kawiti attacked Kororāreka and cut down the British flagstaff again. The conflict challenged the extension of Crown authority. Māori were not a single...

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...

Sojourner Truth addressed the women’s rights convention in Akron, challenging assumptions that separated womanhood from the experiences of Black women. Accounts of her speech differ; the famous...