A new island settlement in the 1820s

The 1938 chronology dates the British acquisition of Lemain Island, renamed MacCarthy Island, to 1823 and says it became a settlement for liberated Africans and a Wesleyan mission base. This is an institutional account of a new colonial settlement, not the beginning of human life on the island. ^{[books-colonial-1938]}

Bowdich wrote soon after that a small garrison was present and that discharged soldiers of the Second West India Regiment were expected to receive land to build and cultivate. Her future-facing description does not prove that every grant or proposed school was realised. It nonetheless records the intended shape of the early settlement that grew into Janjanbureh. ^{[books-bowdich-1825-42]}