For Europeans during the nineteenth century, the Urewera was a remote and savagely enticing wilderness; for those who lived there, it was a sheltering heartland. This history documents the first hundred years of the 'Rohe Potae' (the 'encircled lands' of the Urewera) following European contact. The text describes how the idea of internal self-government for Tuhoe was born - and for a period partly realised. It provides the historical context for an idea that has come again to the 'negotiating table': Tuhoe's quest for a constitutional agreement that restores their 'nationhood'.