The 1898 Dog Tax War as an Incursion on Māori De Recto Sovereignty
Date
Authors
Moon, Paul
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Abstract
In the Hokianga region of Northland in 1898, a war nearly broke out between Māori and the Crown, ostensibly over the Crown’s imposition of a tax on dogs. This article explores some of the underlying issues that led to that crisis, focusing particularly on how various forms and dimensions of sovereignty were contested in the post-1840 colonial period in New Zealand. What the so-called ‘Dog Tax War’ exemplified was a trend during that era of encroaching Crown sovereignty into indigenous communities in the colony, coupled with efforts by Māori to resist that process. This work introduces the idea of Māori de recto sovereignty in connection with these incursions of Crown sovereignty, and examines the ensuing dynamics that emerged between different conceptions of sovereignty among Māori and the Crown, set against the backdrop of the trajectory of growing Crown power in the colony.Description
Keywords
2103 Historical Studies, History, 4303 Historical studies, Sovereignty, Māori, Rangatiratanga, dog tax, Kīngitanga, Treaty of Waitangi
Source
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, ISSN: 0308-6534 (Print); 1743-9329 (Online), Informa UK Limited, 1-24. doi: 10.1080/03086534.2026.2648626
Publisher's version
Rights statement
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.