55 Human Rights Commission Chapter 3: Ngā Hikoi Māori Renaissance Protests This chapter examines the contribution of the Māori renaissance protest movement to realise justice and self-determination for Māori in Aotearoa. Māori protest movement begins Tino rangatiratanga, mana whenua, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, whenua Māori, te reo Māori, mana motuhake, ‘not one more acre’, ‘Honour the Treaty’, and tino rangatiratanga were the foundations of historical Māori resistance (Harris, 2004, p. 13). Emerging during the 1960s, the Māori renaissance protest movements ignited a response building on a legacy of resistance, population recovery and urbanisation to fight land dispossession, cumulative historical marginalisation and impoverishment, and systemic white racism. The protest movements became a powerful force in the struggle for justice and self-determination for Māori in Aotearoa. Historical legacy The movement, its leaders and stalwarts trod in the footsteps of 130 years of anti-racism resistance against colonisation. As described in Chapter 2, nineteenth century tangata whenua made repeated attempts to engage the government in relationship discourse. These were unsuccessful and their aims to exercise their tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake, to participate in political and economic power and hold onto their lands were hampered and attacked by the government of the time. They were also forced to defend themselves against the violence and wrath of the government and protect their mana and land in the Wairau, Northland, the Hutt Valley, Whanganui, Taranaki, Waikato, the Bay of Plenty, Central North Island, East Coast and Hawke’s Bay. Titokowaru Riwha and Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki led guerrilla campaigns across the central North Island (Walker, 2004, pp. 101-103, 120-134). As previously noted, Māori won many battles, but like other Indigenous peoples were unable to comprehensively defeat a colonial government able to apply large numbers of settlers, overwhelming military resources, and divide and rule Māori auxiliaries to extinguish the flames of those it labelled as rebels. Please refer to the previous chapter, Wars of sovereignty and unjust legislation pp 48-53. Rising from the ashes of defeat, Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi of the Parihaka community adopted strategies of passive resistance and civil disobedience, anticipating modern activism. Following a decade of passive resistance, Parihaka was denuded of men by arrest and detention without trial, followed by armed invasion, forced removal, looting, destruction and Apartheid-like pass laws in 1881 (Riseborough, 1989, pp. 96-117). Civil disobedience and occupation characterised other nineteenth century causes; all Māoridom was stirring during these years. Wiremu Parata and Hone Heke Ngāpua saw Kotahitanga as the best defence against the loss of autonomy, land, and cultural integrity, creating a Māori Parliament in 1889. Te Arawa chiefs refusing to pay dog taxes were put to work with shovels and wheelbarrows outside the Tauranga Court in 1895. Te Mahuki Manukura, described as a “veteran Maniapoto ploughman”, set fire to a Pākehā store in Te Kūiti in 1896, angry at continuing land dispossession. Te Mahuki was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment before taking ill and dying soon afterwards in Avondale Hospital (Scott, 1975, pp. 178-179). Modern radicalism also draws lineage whakapapa from Article Two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, guaranteeing Māori te tino rangatiratanga, and Section 71 of the 1852 New Zealand Constitution Act, which empowered the Governor to establish autonomous Native Districts where customary law could prevail. The Crown honoured neither. In response, central North