Rewi Maniapoto, who had some tribal links to Tūhoe, visited the Urewera in 1862 and persuaded them to take part in the rebellion against the government; he went against the wishes of some of the elders.

[4][page needed] During a cease-fire in the Battle of Orakau, under a flag of truce, Gilbert Mair, a translator, was shot in the shoulder by a Tūhoe warrior.

The Crown took the Tūhoe's only substantial flat, fertile land, which also provided their only access to the coast for kai moana (sea food).

[5] In 1868, Tūhoe sheltered the Māori leader Te Kooti, a fugitive who had escaped from imprisonment on the Chatham Islands.

Te Kooti arrived in the area with a large group of escaped convicts, fully armed with modern weapons he had stolen from the ship he had hijacked.

[6]Te Kooti himself escaped to the King Country, and after the events surrounding the hunt for him, Tūhoe isolated themselves, closing off access to their lands by refusing to sell, lease or survey them, and blocking the building of roads.

In practice however, the Crown through a mixture of ineptitude and bad-faith "...totally failed to give effect to its promises in the UDNR Act; failed to act fairly, reasonably, and honourably...and failed to protect the Treaty rights of all the peoples of Te Urewera..."[7] Historian James Belich describes the Urewera as one of the last zones of Māori autonomy, and the scene of the last case of armed Māori resistance: the 1916 New Zealand Police raid to arrest the Tūhoe prophet Rua Kenana.

They moved like a small army with wagons and pack-horses, and included New Zealand Herald photographer Arthur Breckon.

After a trial on sedition which lasted 47 days, New Zealand's longest until 1977, he was found not guilty; but sentenced to one year's imprisonment for resisting the police.

[1] Tūhoe did eventually realise, especially in the Great Depression, that to develop their local economy they needed good roads to the outside world.

In the early 1900s traces of gold were found in the Ureweras and Rua Te Kanana tried to sell illegal mining rights to raise money.

[citation needed] In the 1920s Gordon Coates, Minister of Public Works, went to the area to check its suitability for a railway and to discuss roads.

[4] A 1936 report noted that land development at Maungapohatu Mountain (a Ringatu stronghold) "would be a social success if undertaken".

There was a major armed-police raid in the Ureweras on 15 October 2007 amid claims that some Tūhoe had run terrorist training-camps there.

[12][13] Roadblocks were set up between Ruatoki and Taneatua by armed police, who searched and questioned everyone who passed through,[14] including a school bus,[15][16][17][18] and locals said they felt intimidated.

[19][20] No terrorism charges were laid,[21] and the Police Commissioner Howard Broad later publicly apologised for the actions of his officers during the raid, acknowledging they had set back relations between police and Tūhoe people: "We regret the hurt and stress caused to the community of Ruatoki and we will seek an appropriate way to repair the damage done to police-Maori relations.

"[22] A 2013 IPCA review found "...police searches, vehicle stops, roadblocks and photographs taken in Tuhoe country on October 15, 2007, unlawful, unjustified and unreasonable.

[24][25] Under the deal, Tūhoe received financial, commercial and cultural redress valued at approximately $170 million; an historical account and Crown apology; and the co-governance of a new legal entity, Te Urewera.