Publisher's Synopsis
Arthur James Vogan (1859-1948) was born in England but migrated with his family to Te Puke in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand where he grew up. He trained as a surveyor and worked as a journalist and illustrator for the Auckland Star and Bay of Plenty Times. In 1885, aged 26, he volunteered to join an expedition to New Guinea funded by the Geographical Society of Australasia and his voyage north from Sydney appears to be his first venture into Queensland but was not to be his last. From 1886-89 he undertook a number of trips in his role as correspondent for the Town and Country Journal, The Australian Mining Standard, and the Illustrated London News for which he produced an illustrated series of accounts of outback life. Vogan was horrified by the treatment of indigenous Australians that he witnessed on his travels, and in particular was outraged by the brutalities perpetrated by the Native Police and the denial of basic human rights in evidence on the pastoral frontier. Determined to shed light on the matter, he produced articles for a number of colonial newspapers, and then went on to write this "novel with a purpose," the incidents recounted being based on real events, in the hope of drawing the subject to the attention of a wider audience. Published in 1890, the book is illustrated with Vogan's own drawings and includes his map showing the areas of Australia affected by differing degrees of Aboriginal slavery.
