On 23 October 1823, Surveyor General John Oxley set out with a party in the cutter Mermaid from Sydney to "survey Port Curtis (now Gladstone), Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen (north of Rockhampton, ),[REF] with a view to forming convict settlements there".
As he approached Point Skirmish by Moreton Bay, he noticed several indigenous Australians approaching him and in particular one as being "much lighter in colour than the rest".