ABSTRACT
The search for conciliation between the forces of empire and Indigenous peoples was a core element to the search for “humane policies” toward Indigenous peoples. It was consistent with the social formations of the empire described in Chapter 1. Yet the practitioners of conciliatory policies could not escape complicity in the atrocities against indigenes that marked this period. That conundrum forms the main theme of this chapter. How did policies that sought conciliatory relations end at the verge of genocide? How did policy makers manage the contradictions between their humanitarian claims and the results of their actions?
