In this article I interact with the narratives of five Pakeha (European) secondary school teachers, who choose to teach Aotearoa New Zealand histories including about Te Tiriti o Waitangi at senior level (years 11-13). I highlight characteristics of the active stance adopted by participants towards teaching and learning the difficult histories of home, central to which are the effects of colonisation and Indigenous Maori-settler entanglements. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's (2015) understanding of the key role played by emotion in shaping social and political attachments, I argue that emotional work was just as important as intellectual effort on the part of participants for helping form and fortify their stance. Subject knowledge and effective pedagogical skills are crucial, but neither transcend the affective realm, where teacher orientation toward the content itself can influence the quality of student engagement. To provide background context for participants' narratives, I outline active elements in history education discourse featuring Pakeha positionality and the practice of ignorance in relation to school curricula and settler constructions of history. This study has implications for teacher professional development as schools prepare to respond to forthcoming changes in national curriculum policy making the study of New Zealand histories compulsory for primary and junior secondary students.