Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia of Te Rarawa was a campaigner for women's suffrage who inspired future generations of Māori women. In 1893 she addressed the Kotahitanga Parliament — the first woman recorded to have done so — requesting not only that Māori women be given the vote, but that they be eligible to sit in the Māori parliament, going a step further than the contemporary aims of the European suffrage movement. She argued that Māori women were landowners who deserved political representation, and that Queen Victoria might respond more readily to their voices. A visionary ahead of her time, her mahi planted seeds that continue to grow.