When Europeans founded the Swan River Colony in 1829, they did not recognise the indigenous ownership of the land. Land along the Swan River was surveyed by John Septimus Roe, the colony's Surveyor General. The survey resulted in the land being divided into long, narrow rectangular strips extending from the river. As the river was the only method of transportation in the early years of the colony, each piece of land had to have river frontage. The long, narrow strips were called "ribbon grants", however the term "grant" was misleading, as the grantees had a requirement that they make improvements to the land granted to them within 10 years, or be forced to forfeit the land. In 1830, the colonists travelled up the river to the land allotted to them. That year, there were several floods of the Swan River which washed away crops and inundated shelters, unluckily for the colonists as floods were not an annual occurrence. Most of these colonists either died or left the area soon after, due to the floods and poor quality of the land, with the land returning to the state.