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This concluding chapter focuses on Maori sovereignty. Just as Europeans have drawn from their own social and political histories to claim sovereignty as a fundamental political principle with practical legal consequences, Maori can make a similar, equally valid claim for rangatiratanga (autonomous authority) from the basis of tikanga Maori (Maori custom law). Maori society lived in accordance with this principle long before 1840, when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. Thus, “sovereignty,” whether inherent or otherwise, is not a tuturu (genuine) starting or end point for Maori discourse about their right to exercise authority over their own existence and territories, either as distinctive tribal groups or collectively as Maori.

In 1982, an incident occurred at the Auckland Trade Union Centre in New Zealand. A small group of Maori radicals, called Black Unity, who ran the Polynesian Resource Centre were accused of antitrade unionism and racism and, consequently, were evicted from the Auckland Trade Union Centre with the assistance of the New Zealand police. This chapter explores the radical ideas of Maori sovereignty and Black feminism propagated by Black Unity that inflamed Auckland trade unionists, focusing on the writings of the group's spokeswomen, Ripeka Evans and Donna Awatere. It chapter examines the philosophical position that Maori nationalist members of Black Unity espoused. It explores the historical context for the demand for Maori sovereignty first articulated by Black Unity in 1981; explains why the Maori sovereignty position was also a Black feminist position; and asks what led Maori women to turn with such anger on the radical Left in the early 1980s Finally, it analyzes the longer-term affect of Maori sovereignty demands on the Maori protest movement, the women's movement, the sectarian Left, and the trade union movement.

Chapter 5 takes the story of indigenous activism to New Zealand where it chronicles how Maori activists contested the terms of their incorporation into a symbolic national story. Beginning with protests against the interpretation of the colonial Treaty of Waitangi (1840) as making one people in the settler state, it follows young activists as they joined with older leaders to demand land rights and asserted their distinct identity. The chapter explores the significant reinterpretation of the treaty as recognizing Maori sovereignty in the context of a newly created commission of inquiry, the Waitangi Tribunal, established in 1975 to examine Maori grievances. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the 1987 Lands Case in the context of radical neoliberal reforms to New Zealand’s economy and considers how and why judges in that case recognized Maori as partners with the Crown.