New Zealand Journal of History, 2011, 45(1): 71-84

"Cross-cultural intimacy has been a productive site for postcolonial scholarship since the 1980s, particularly for historians interested in the relationship between gender, race, sexuality and colonialism. Scholars have drawn attention to the relationship between the ‘tense and tender ties’ of colonial structures of both the law and private life.[2] Much has been revealed, for instance, about the workings of interracial relationships within colonial contexts. Notably, North American and New Zealand scholars have demonstrated the crucial importance of interracial intimacy and indigenous women to the establishment of economies of trade and exchange and to the settlement of newcomers within tribal territory.[3] The application of postcolonial approaches to the study of interracial relationships has centred upon indigenous women’s experiences, agency and voices. Given their interest in reassessing national story-telling, postcolonial theories about hybridity (both in its biological and cultural forms) have also worked to disentangle interracial marriage from a national identity based on harmonious race relations.4 Interracial marriage, for instance, gained official support in New Zealand from the 1840s. Under racial amalgamation policy, which encouraged Māori to take up British customs and values, notably in the form of commerce, law and Christianity, interracial marriage and the production of ‘half-caste’ children were seen as the ultimate expression of that policy.

In this article, I move away from the ‘affective ties’ that have been the subject of recent focus in New Zealand scholarship and examine what is rarely discussed in the history of cross-cultural encounters: interracial sexual violence. I focus on the 1860s, when Māori and the Crown were at war in Taranaki, Waikato and the East Coast region. I draw from the insights of postcolonial approaches already applied to the study of marriage and bonds of kinship at shore whaling stations in New Zealand." (Author's opening words). Record #6267