ABSTRACT
Racial amalgamation was the third aspect of the effort to create a humane policy for empire. It was the central theme of Sir George Grey’s governorship of New Zealand 1845–53. It reflected the ideal of an empire of racial reconciliation. But it was also conditioned by the pattern of engagement between imperial and Indigenous forces in New Zealand which recognized a sphere of Maori power. Once settler power asserted itself in the 1860s, the idea of racial amalgamation was appropriated by the settler regime, but this time as a description of its desire to assimilate and suborn Maori power.
