Issue and opponent: With the leadership of Te Whiti and Tohu, the Māori begin a resistance movement protesting European settlers confiscating indigenous land. The protests were located under Mount Taranaki in New Zealand during the mid0860s. After failed negotiations and rebellions failed to return the land to the Maori, Te Whiti decided to pursue an act of civil disobedience by passive obstruction. The main negotiators for the Europeans were Hall’s Native Minister Bryce and two men named Grey and Hall.
Dilemma Action: All around Taranaki, the leaders of the resistant movement, Te Whiti, and Tohu began to organize multiple non-violent resistant protests. They decided to pursue a dilemma action that would organize groups of plowmen to find farms confiscated by European settlers and start to plow the land. Te Whiti instructed not to fight back against the settlers, and to not enter any property. As people were arrested, others would jump in to fill their place. On June 29th, the arrests of protesters began, and it was the Māori with the most prestige were the ones who volunteered to be apprehended first.
Outcome: By August 1879, around 200 people were apprehended and taken into custody. Most of the Māori arrested never received a trial and were beaten. On November 5th, 1880, Bryce, a leader of the European settlers, lead 1,600 militiamen to the farms occupied by the resistant movement and placed Te Whiti and Tohu under arrest. Te Whiti and Tohu organized many gatherings of civil disobedience. Te Whiti’s followers disrupted these surveys and plowed and fenced off land occupied by settlers. Many were arrested and held without trial in the South Island, but the protests continued. For months these acts of civil disobedience frustrated the European settlers as they did not know how to act. The Hall Native Minister, Bryce, resigned after his colleagues refused to use force against the Maori. The colonial government changed the laws so they could imprison anyone suspected of ‘“endangering the peace’ by digging, plowing, or building or dismantling a fence.”