Eddie Mabo

Activist

• Born: June 29, 1936
• Birthplace: Las, Australia
• Died: January 21, 1992
• Place of death: Brisbane, Australia

Also known as: Edward Koiki Mabo; Koiki Mabo

Education: James Cook University (attended 1981–84)

Significance: Eddie Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander activist who became the head plaintiff in a landmark case that overturned the doctrine of terra nullius and acknowledged Indigenous Australian land rights.

Background

Eddie Mabo was born Eddie Koiki Sambo on June 29, 1936 in Las, on the island Mer, part of the Murray Islands in the Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia. He was the fourth surviving child of Robert Zezou Sambo and Annie Mabo. His mother died shortly after his birth, and in accordance with customary law, he was adopted by his maternal aunt and uncle, Benny and Maiga Mabo. After adoption, his name was changed to Eddie Koiki Mabo.

Mabo grew up in Las, where he learned the customs of the Meriam people. His native language was Meriam Mir, but he also spoke Torres Strait Islander Creole and English. The latter he learned at a state-run primary school on Mer, where teacher Robert Victor Miles became a mentor. Mabo even lived with Miles for a short time when his adoptive mother was ill. In 1951, when Miles was transferred to a school on Yorke Island, Mabo accompanied him and became a teachers’ aide for grades 1 and 2. The following year he worked as an interpreter for a medical research team investigating a malaria outbreak on Cape York.

After returning to Mer in 1953, Mabo violated Mer bylaws by drinking alcohol. The Island Council banished him from Murray Island for one year. Mabo served his sentence on Thursday Island, where he began working as a pearl diver on trochus pearl fishing luggers. Two years later, he returned to Mer. He continued to work on pearl boats in various locations until 1957 when he moved to the mainland.

After Mabo arrived in the port of Townsville, Queensland, he split his time between the interior, where he worked as a railroad construction laborer and cane cutter, and the coast, where he worked on fishing boats.

Activism

After settling permanently in Townsville, Mabo became involved in politics. From 1960 to 1961, he was a union representative for the Torres Strait Islander workers on the Townsville–Mount Isa rail construction project. In 1962, he became the secretary for the Aborigines Advancement League, but he left the organization in 1969, disillusioned with its goals. The following year he became the president of the Council for the Rights of Indigenous People. From 1962 to 1967, Mabo worked for the Townsville Harbor Board. At the same time, he helped found the Townsville Aboriginal and Islander Health Service and campaigned for the 1967 referendum that granted Indigenous Australians the right to vote.

The same year Mabo became a gardener at James Cook University, a position he held until 1975. Interested in learning, Mabo often sat in on lectures and studied during his lunch period. He later co-organized the interracial seminar “We the Australians: What Is to Follow the Referendum?” Interested in providing his children a foundation in their Torres Strait Island language and culture, he co-founded the Black Community School in Townsville in 1973 and served as its director from 1973 through 1985. He also served on the National Aboriginal Education Committee from 1975 to 1978 and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Education Advisory Committee from 1978 to 1979. Between 1981 and 1984, he studied toward but did not complete a diploma of teaching from James Cook University, which had absorbed the Townsville College of Advanced Education.

Mabo’s activism brought him in contact with several academics. One day, during a discussion with historians Noel Loos and Henry Reynolds, Mabo learned the Australian government-owned his family’s ancestral land. Stunned, he turned his activism toward Indigenous land rights. Mabo and Loos chaired the 1981 conference “Land Rights and the Future of Australian Race Relations” at James Cook University, where Mabo gave a speech about the Meriam people’s traditional land ownership and inheritance. A lawyer in the audience encouraged Mabo to make a claim for his own traditional land that he had expected to inherit following his father’s death. Four other Mer Islanders joined his claim, and the case, Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2), was filed in the High Court of Australia on May 20, 1982. It took ten years to go through the court system, and Mabo died of cancer on January 21, 1992, before a decision was made. On June 3, 1992, the High Court rendered its decision and ruled that Mabo and the other plaintiffs had a right to traditional ownership of their land on Mer Island. The Court also ruled the doctrine of terra nullius—a legal concept asserting that Australia had belonged to no one when the British settled there—was invalid for all of Australia and thus recognized Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land ownership.

Impact

The Mabo case led to an overhaul of Australian land laws. In 1993, the Australian parliament passed the Native Title Act, which provided a system to recognize and protect native land ownership. Despite fears of some opponents, the act did not result in a large-scale reclaiming of traditional lands. It did, however, result in some land-use agreements that benefited Indigenous Australians. Many consider its most significant result a recognition of Indigenous Australians’ basic rights, which has advanced reconciliation between Indigenous and settler Australians.

Mabo is a symbol of the land right's victory and has inspired films, literature, songs, a fifty-cent coin, a podcast, and a reconciliation march. He was awarded the Human Rights Award by the Australian Human Rights Commission in 1992, after his death. The Torres Strait Islanders honor him with the public holiday, Mabo Day, every June 3.

Personal Life

Mabo and Ernestine Bonita Nehow married in October 1959. They had ten children and lived in Townsville, Queensland, where Mabo died in 2018.

Bibliography

“Eddie Koiki Mabo.” Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 31 May 2019, aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/eddie-koiki-mabo. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.

Grant, Stan. “Eddie Mabo’s Legacy: 25 Years Later, Where Does It Stand?” ABC News, 1 June 2017, www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-02/eddie-mabo-high-court-decision-legacy-25th-anniversary/8583294. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.

Kennedy, Duncan. “Eddie Mabo, the Man Who Changed Australia.” BBC News, 6 June 2012, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18291022. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.

Loos, Noel. “Mabo, Edward Koiki (Eddie) (1936–1992).” Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 19, 2021, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mabo-edward-koiki-eddie-16122/text28064. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.

Loos, Noel, and Eddie Koiki Mabo. Eddie Koiki Mabo: His Life and Struggle for Land Rights. 2nd ed. U of Queensland P, 2013.

Russell, Peter H. Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism. U of Toronto P, 2018.