By contrasting a selection of abduction cases that occurred in the penal era with those that captured the attention of the newspapers during the 1840s and 1850s, this article considers the role of abduction trials during a period in New South Wales when the colony recognised that the procurement of greater political and economic autonomy was dependent upon transforming its reputation from a degraded penal outpost to a respectable British society. Between 1848 and 1851, at the very moment when the political climate reached a definitive tipping point in favour of self-government, three abduction cases came before Sydney's criminal court that attracted unprecedented newspaper coverage and helped to define gender roles in a way that complemented these broader colonial ambitions.