ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the important yet overlooked phenomenon of the influence of antislavery discourse in Australia over the course of the nineteenth century. After its 1830s climax the power of antislavery debates gradually faded, only to be revitalized by reference to the American struggle, and especially Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly (UTC), published in 1852. Another, less successful, attempt to unite these diverse strands was the 1890 novel The Black Police , by young English-born journalist and artist Arthur James Vogan, as a journalist and newspaper artist, Vogan was active participant within an imperial global network of newspaper narratives and engraved illustrations that expanded tremendously in the late nineteenth century. Vogan's novel aimed to challenge local injustices via the internationally recognizable language of antislavery as well as imagery and references specific to UTC. The lack of photographic evidence for Australian frontier violence and murder precisely maps white settler society's moral blind spot.
