2. • Early Life.....................................................................................................1
• What Difficulties Did He Experience?..................................................3
• What Rights did he Want for Indigenous People?.............................2
• Why Did He Fight For Aboriginal Rights?............................................4
• Timeline of Mabo’s Life..........................................................................5
• Glossary.....................................................................................................6
• Index.............................................................................................................7
• Bibliography................................................................................................8
CONTENTS PAGE
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3. Early LIfe
Mabo’s real name is Eddie Kionky Mabo. He was born June the
26th, 1936 on Torres Island. Mabo was still a kid when his
mother died so his uncle and his wife had to look after him
until he was old enough to look after himself.When he was in
his twenties he got married to Bonita Nehow. He had ten
children. As he grew a bit older he got a job as a gardener, he
also was a member of the Merrian people and spoke about
wanting to get his land back to a lawyer.
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4. What Difficulties did
Mabo Experience?
Mabo faced many difficulties during his life. One of
the difficulties Mabo had to overcome was when
he was younger was getting expelled from his
own land. At the time Australia thought Mabo’s
land was Terra Nullias land, and belonged to
them to do with as they liked. Mabo spent about a
decade fighting for the rights to his land in the
High Court of Australia
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5. What Rights did he want
for Indigenous People?
Eddie Mabo proved terra nullias wrong so
when he was in Queensland he established
whose land it was.The court case allowed all
indigenous people to claim land if they were
using it. Unforunately, Mabo didn’t live to see
that he got the land back and that he won the
case.
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6. Why did he Fight for
Aboriginal Rights?
The reason Mabo fought for aboriginal
people is so they could regain their
rightful land and use it for traditional
reasons such as hunting, living and
ceremonies.
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7. Timeline of Mabo’s life
1936 Eddie Mabo is born
1974
Eddie Mabo worked as a gardener at James
Cook University
1981 A landrights conference is held at James
Cook University
1992 High Court decides to reject terra nullius
1992 Eddie Mabo dies
1993
The Keating goverment wins the election
and negotiates land rights with Indigenous
leaders
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8. Glossary
Ceremonies: Celebrating a particular event.
Expelled: Making someone leave land, schools or
anything else like that.
Merrian people: People who live on the island.
Terra nullias: The land is not owned by anybody.
Decade: ten years
Established: developed
Indigenous: people who were on the land first
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