AustLit

'For its first three years, the town of Albany, situated on the shore of the spectacular King George Sound on the south coast of Western Australia, existed as a military garrison of New South Wales, its principal purpose to forestall French claims to the coast and hinterland of the western portion of the continent. In this environment, where the aim was to establish a presence rather than the groundwork for a colonial enterprise, relationships between the small group of about fifty colonisers, including eighteen soldiers and twenty-three convicts, and the Kincannup traditional owners of the site of the settlement were relatively harmonious. Conflict was actively avoided, and the Europeans made few demands on Kincannup lands and resources, travelling only occasionally into the wider Menang domain. The journals of Isaac Scott Nind (assistant surgeon 1826–29), Captain Collett Barker (commander 1829–31 when the new crown colony at Perth took over), and Alexander Collie (colonial surgeon 1830–32) provide an unusually detailed and vivid account of the early years of the settlement. ...'