During Eddie’s childhood, life for the people of the Torres Strait Islands was strictly regulated with laws made by the Queensland Government but the Meriam people strived to maintain continuity with the past and continued to live a traditional lifestyle based on fishing, gardening and customary laws of inheritance. When Eddie was 16, he was exiled from the island for breaking a customary law of his community. After his banishment, Eddie moved to Northern Queensland, where he worked in various professions including railway labourer, cane cutter and deck hand. Mabo eventually settled in Townsville where he became the spokesperson for the Torres Strait Islander community. He was involved with the trade union movement and the Aboriginal and …show more content…
Eddie believed that Murray Island, belonged to the Torres Strait Islander people who had lived there for thousands of years. But, Australian law stated that the Government owned the land. The stated that Australia had been terra nullius before European settlement. In 1981, Eddie made a speech at James Cook University where he explained his people’s beliefs about the ownership and inheritance of land on Murray Island. A lawyer heard the speech and suggested to Eddie that he should challenge the Australian Government through the court system to determine who the true owner of Murray Island was. In 1982, Eddie Mabo and four other Meriam men began the legal claim for ownership of their traditional lands on the island of Mer in the High Court. The other four men were James Rice, Celuia Mapo Salee, Sam Passi and Father Dave …show more content…
By the end of the case it had progressed from the Supreme Court of Queensland to the High Court of Australia. The judges decided that 'the Meriam people are entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the lands of the Murray Islands'. The judgement claimed that the old law of Terra Nullius violated international human rights and denied the historical reality of Indigenous people's dispossession. They also said that the new Native Title law recognises that Indigenous Australians have a prior claim to land taken by the British Crown since 1770 and replaces the “legal fiction” of terra