Led by Dame Whina Cooper, the hīkoi (march) started in Northland on 14 September, travelled the length of the North Island, and arrived at the parliament building in Wellington on 13 October 1975. The purpose of the march was to protest the loss of Māori rights and land. More than 5000 people participated. In particular the march was in response to the ongoing theft of Māori lands from the 1953 the Māori Affairs Act meant to enable the use of what was called "unproductive Māori land". Applicants to the Māori Land Court could apply to have land vested in trustee ownership. The Māori Affairs Amendment Act 1967 introduced compulsory conversion of Māori freehold land with four or fewer owners into general land. The march was led by respected elder Whina Cooper and organizers also included the more radical young activist group Ngā Tamatoa. It was meant to raise awareness of "twin themes of landlessness and cultural loss" and to appeal to a broad coalition of Māori. A commonly used slogan for the march was "Not one more acre of Māori land". At the end of the march, they presented a petition signed by 60,000 people that called for an end to monocultural land laws which excluded Māori cultural values, and asked for the ability to establish legitimate communal ownership of land within iwi.

About 300 Seneca warriors during Pontiac's Rebellion ambush a wagon train and it's armed escort killing 81 British soldiers before the British retreat. The battle occurred near Niagara Gorge which was an area traditionally controlled by the Seneca. In particular there was frustration over settler control of a portage which had been run by the Seneca previously employing hundreds of Seneca porters. There was larger discontent amoung Indigenous peoples of the wider Great Lakes area over settler encroachment which led to Pontiac's Rebellion of which this attack was a part. Regardless, some historians do consider this attack to be the first labor uprising in what became the United States because the loss of the Seneca porter jobs was a part of the reasoning for their involvment in the wider Pontiac's Rebellion. This attack was almost certainly a part of the siege of Fort Detroit of which this area was a supply line. Seneca warrior Dekanandi later told the British the Seneca had only one man wounded in the attack. The battle was the deadliest engagement for the British during the war. While the Seneca eventually ceded land along the Niagara river, it was well known they desired it back and white settlers did not move in to the area until after the American Revolutionary War when most Haudenosaunee relocated to what is now Canada.