Aboriginal Australians have inhabited Western Australia since about 50,00070,000 years ago.

70,000 BC–1600s (prior to European contact)

The Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia practiced an oral tradition, with no written language, before contact with Europeans.

1629–1829 Aboriginal life in the two centuries between 1629 and 1829 was characterized by the increased presence of Europeans along the Western Australian coastline. First contact appears to have been characterized by curiosity and trust, but with Aboriginal peoples willing to defend themselves against any unwarranted intrusion.Reynolds, Henry (2006), "The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia" (Penguin Books)

1600s 4 June 1629 – After the ship was wrecked on uninhabited islands, two young mutineers were marooned on the mainland. 28 April 1656 – Wreck of the ship (). 68 survivors made it to the mainland and disappeared. It has been suggested that there was a "white tribe" of Aboriginal people who survived until the 19th century. 5 January 1688 – William Dampier aboard the Cygnet arrives near Kimberly. He describes the Aboriginal people he meets as "the miserablest People in the World". Dampier spent time observing the people at the northern end of Cape Leveque; the encounter was hostile with casualties on both sides. 1699 – Return of Dampier aboard Roebuck, exploring from Broome to the Pilbara.

1700s 1712 – The Zuytdorp was wrecked near Geraldton. Survivors are known to have landed, and the story of their welcome and preservation by local Aboriginal people was known as far south as Perth 122 years later. A rock carving of what appears to be a Dutch ship has been found at Walga Rock, some 300 kilometers from the coast, up the Murchison River April 1787 – Arthur Phillip, Governor of New South Wales, issues instructions to "endeavour by every means possible to open intercourse with the Aborigines, and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all our subjects to live in amity and kindness to them. And if our subjects shall wantonly destroy them, or give them unnecessary interruption in the exercise of their several occupations that you cause such offenders to be punished according to the degree of that offense". 1788 – Smallpox and measles arrive with the first fleet on the east coast of Australia and spread across the continent, possibly introduced as a form of biological warfare. 1791 – George Vancouver entered Albany harbor. He acknowledged the prior ownership of the land by Aboriginal Mineng people, and took possession of the land for the British crown. His act was premature, as annexation of the west would not be allowed for another thirty-five years.The Voyage of George Vancouver 1791–1795, Volume 1. W. Kaye Lamb (ed.). Hakluyt Society. 1984

1801–1828 1801 – Matthew Flinders visits Western Australia. The local Aboriginal people called the Europeans , or spirits returned from the dead land of (potentially ), the land beneath the ('sea') in the direction of the setting sun. In King George Sound, although Aboriginal people indicated they did not want Europeans visiting their campsite, amicable relations prevailed and trading occurred. Flinders gave a special parade of the soldiers under his command as thanks. A (Noongar 'corroboree') was adopted by the local people and performed by Aboriginal groups along the south coast for over a century (see Daisy Bates). The Swan River was explored by the French Captain Baudin in the Géographe, and his midshipman Heirisson gives his name to the area known to the Wadjuk Noongar as ("place of leg deep"). 1818 – The first of Phillip Parker King's voyages to Western Australia. Mineng Noongar, from Albany, assisted the sailors in food gathering. King also explored the Cambridge Gulf area of the Kimberley.O'Grady, Frank (1974). "King, Philip Gidley (1817–1904)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. 5. Canberra: Australian National University 1822 – King's last voyage. He was welcomed by the Mineng Noongar.Frank O'Grady, op cit 1826 – Mokare, one of the Mineng Aboriginal people who later emerged as a key person in the success of early white-Aboriginal relations in Albany, was recorded in Jules Dumont d'Urville's visit of that year. Colbung, ancestor of Aboriginal activist Ken Colbung, is also recorded. 25 December 1826 – Major Edmund Lockyer, in the brig Amity, takes possession of King George Sound for the crown, at the orders of Governor Darling. On Michaelmas Island he was signalled by an Aboriginal man, who had been abducted and marooned by sealers. These eight sealers, led by a certain Bailey, had also killed another man and abducted women. Randall, another sealer from Tasmania, had also been abducting Aboriginal women, and was arrested by Lokyer. Aboriginal people here expressed their anger at Europeans cutting down trees, but Lokyer chose not to intervene. The Aboriginal site, is renamed Albany, after the Duke of Albany. 1827 – James Stirling, in the Success, anchored off the mouth of the Swan River. Exploring the river, he was attacked by Aboriginal people at Claise Brook. Nine years later the Aboriginal people of the area explained that the first party of whites they had seen was the marauding party of Randall. At Jane Brook, another party of Aboriginal men was found (women and children were seen hiding), who mimicked English calls of "How do you do!" and traded spears and womeras for clothing and swans shot by Stirling. Stirling explored as far as Guildford where he commented on the fine alluvial soils. He then sailed south to Albany. Lockyer was eager to return to Sydney with the Success, with Randall, as captive and to get him to stand trial for his crimes of murder and abduction. Stirling reluctantly agreed to allow Lockyer, but refused to allow the sealers and the women with them on board. They were released from custody, and later left Albany. 1828 – Mokkare became friends with the assistant surgeon Isaac Scott Nind, sharing a house and food in Albany. When Nind's health deteriorated, Mokkare became companion, guide, and advisor to successive commandants—Lieutenant Sleeman, Captain Wakefield, and Captain Collet Barker—living with Barker when seasonal fishing brought him to King George Sound. He became an especially good friend of Dr. Collie. Mokkare and his brother Nakina assisted troops recapturing runaway convicts, and were given steel tomahawks as a reward. By Dylan Thornley 10 February 1828 – British colonists from Van Diemen's Land Company kill around 30 Aboriginal men in the Cape Grim massacre.

1829–1881

The settlement of Western Australia by Europeans, under James Stirling, in the early 1840s, created a new generation of colony-born young men who were engaged in hostilities with Aboriginal people and the imprisonment of those who dared question their authority. The settlement proceeded with the expropriation of land, the exploitation of cheap labour, and the extermination of any resistance by Aboriginal people.

1829–1834 18 June 1829 – Declaration announcing the settlement within the Territory of Western Australia, recognising the "Aboriginal inhabitants as British subjects and stated that any person behaving towards them in a 'fraudulent, cruel or felonious Manner' would be liable to prosecution and trial" October 1829 – Aboriginal people stole sheep, poultry and goats, and plundered a house of provisions in the Swan district. Settlers, such as Robert Menli Lyon, were deterred from taking up grants in outlying areas as a result of their fear of Aboriginal attack. He moved to and rented, William Dixon's land, which he later purchased. He mentioned that some of the soldiers, coming from Van Diemen's Land came "principally from those classes in the lower orders of society who would count it a fine sport to shoot a native as a Kangaroo". 1 November 1830 – Captain Frederick Irwin dispatched a corporal and four privates to the Upper Swan, where they were joined by armed settlers, who came upon a group of Aboriginal people attempting to stop their passage. The Aboriginal leader, attempting to throw a spear, was shot dead by one of the settlers. Several others were captured and brought to Perth, and subsequently released. Irwin regretted the loss of life, but hoped that the Aboriginal people would be "taught a lesson". 1831 – George Fletcher Moore wrote "the Aborigines were not so despicable a race as was first supposed... they are not very numerous and we are on good terms with them". Aboriginal people often shared food, and returned lost settlers to their homes. George Fletcher Moore was one of the settlers who allowed Aboriginal people to continue hunting on his lands. Others drove them off. 26 June 1831 – Mokare dies. The Noongar People and Europeans had assembled at Collie's house and walked to a site selected by Nakina, Mokare's brother, where the Europeans dug a grave and Mokare was interred with a buka cloak and personal artefacts to Nakina's specifications.Dale, R. 1834 Descriptive Account of the Panoramic View &c. of King George's Sound and the Adjacent Country p. 9 When Collie himself was dying from tuberculosis in 1835, he asked to be buried alongside Mokare. Their graves are together beneath Albany Town Hall. Four years after Mokare's death, the surveyor John Septimus Roe had his body exhumed and re-interred at the newly established Albany Cemetery. 3 October 1831 – Stirling appointed Edward Barrett-Lennard commanding officer of the Yeomanry of the Middle Swan, a citizens militia, to pursue and capture Aboriginal offenders. Henry Bull was appointed commander of the Upper Swan. The orders were that, on being called out, the Yeomanry were "to cause the offending tribe to be instantly pursued, and if practicable captured and brought in at all hazard, and take such further decisive steps for bringing them to Punishment as the Circumstances of the Case may admit." From then on shepherds were armed. May 1832 – William Gaze, a settler on the Canning River was killed. A witness identified Yagan, son of Midgegooroo, as the killer, He was declared outlaw, and twenty pounds offered for his capture. 26 June 1832 – At a meeting at Guildford to discuss the "Aboriginal Question", Robert Menli Lyon reminded settlers that they had seized what was Aboriginal land and called for someone to act as mediator between the Aboriginal peoples and settlers. Four resolutions passed calling for whatever conciliatory or coercive measures were seen fit, and that if action was not taken the settlement might need to be abandoned. 1 August 1832 – Stirling established the Corps of Mounted Police, under the command of Captain Theophilus Ellis, with a Mr. Northcott as assistant superintendent and orders being sent to Cape Town for horses. September 1832 – Yagan was captured and sent to Carnac Island. He escaped six weeks later by taking a boat belonging to his captors. No attempt to recapture him was made, the six weeks' imprisonment being considered adequate penalty. 1833 – Based on evidence learned from Yagan at Carnac Island, R. M. Lyon described the territory of Yellagonga as Mooro, bounded by the sea, Ellen Brook, the Swan River, and Banister River (Gingin Brook or Moore River) to the north. The country of the Daren people, headed by Weeip, was the area from immediately southeast of Ellen Brook and the upper Swan River, to the Darling Scarp. The Wurerup people, were on the upper Swan River. The Beeliar were the inhabitants west of the Canning River down to Rockingham, and were led by Midgegooroo. The Beeloo were south of the Swan and east of the Canning, as far as the Darling Scarp. 1833–34 – In response to Aboriginal people being killed by settlers, "pay-back" killings by Aboriginal people occurred.