Torres Strait Islands

The Spanish Explorer Luís Vaez de Torres sailed the Torres Strait in 1606. Torres had joined the expedition of Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, which sailed west from Peru across the Pacific Ocean, in search of Terra Australis. , c. 1849 Lieutenant James Cook first claimed British sovereignty in 1770 over the eastern part of Australia at Possession Island, calling it New South Wales in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third. British administrative control did not begin until 1862 in the Torres Strait Islands, marked by the appointment of John Jardine, police magistrate at Rockhampton, as Government Resident in the Torres Straits. He originally established a small settlement on Albany Island, but on 1 August 1864 he settled at Somerset Island. Although the Torres Strait Islanders had long dived for pearl shells themselves, the international industry of pearl and trochus shells, for using the mother of pearl as decoration, started in earnest in the 1860s. By the 1890s, the islands were supplying more than 50 per cent of the world's pearl shells. The London Missionary Society (LMS) mission, led by Rev. Samuel Macfarlane, arrived on Erub (Darnley Island) on 1 July 1871. After the Anglican Church took over their mission in the 20th century, they referred to the events as "The Coming of the Light", and established an annual Coming of the Light Festival on 1 July. In 1872, the boundary of Queensland was extended to include Thursday Island and other islands in Torres Strait within 60 miles of the Queensland coast. In 1879, Queensland annexed the other Torres Strait Islands. They were classified as part of the British colony of Queensland and, after 1901, of the Australian state of Queensland. But some of them lie just off the coast of New Guinea. In 1885, John Douglas was appointed as Government Resident Magistrate residing on Thursday Island. He made periodic tours of all the islands and was known to all the indigenous groups. He established the system under which the hereditary Elder of each island was installed as chief magistrate, supporting the local traditional system. He also established Native Police, but the only island on which the Native Police were armed was Saibai. There they were provided with Snider carbines to repel the attacks of the Marind-anim (formerly known as Tugeri), the headhunters who raided the islands from their territory on the New Guinea coast. They collected and took about 2000 cultural artefacts, ostensibly to save them from destruction by missionaries. But all of the artefacts collected by Samuel Macfarlane were sold in London, mostly to European museums. which gave substantial powers to the Queensland government in placing legal restrictions on First Nations peoples and on their land use. It is the only Australian Army unit to have been formed out of indigenous Australians. From 1960 to 1973, Margaret Lawrie captured some of the Torres Strait Islander people's culture by recording their recounting of local myths and legends. Her anthropological work, stored at the State Library of Queensland, has recently been recognised and registered with the Australian UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. The Australian Federal government wished to cede the northern islands to appease Papua New Guinea, but were opposed by the Queensland government and Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Under the Torres Strait Treaty of 1978 the islands and their inhabitants remained Australian, but the maritime boundary between Australia and Papua New Guinea was defined as running through the centre of the strait. In practice the two countries co-operate closely in the management of the strait's resources. In 1982, Eddie Mabo and four other Torres Strait Islander people from Mer (Murray Island) started legal proceedings to establish their traditional land ownership. Because Mabo was the first-named plaintiff, it became known as the Mabo Case. In 1992, after ten years of hearings before the Queensland Supreme Court and the High Court of Australia, the latter court found that the Mer people had owned their land prior to annexation by Queensland. This ruling overturned the long-established legal doctrine of terra nullius ("no-one's land"), which held that native title over Crown land in Australia had been extinguished at the time of annexation. The ruling thus has had far-reaching significance for the land claims of both Torres Strait Islanders and Australian Aboriginal people. Its effects are still being felt in the 21st century, as indigenous communities establish claims to their traditional lands under the Native Title Act of 1993. On 1 July 1994, the Torres Strait Regional Authority (TSRA) was created. In March 2008, fifteen Torres Strait Islander Councils were amalgamated into a single body to form a Torres Strait Island Regional Council, or Torres Strait Island Region, created by the Queensland Government in the interest of financial viability, and accountability and transparency of local governments throughout the State. It is administered from Thursday Island, but Thursday, Horn Island, Prince of Wales Island and many others are under the Shire of Torres council. In the , the population of the Torres Strait Islands was 4,514, of whom 4,144 (91.8%) were Torres Strait Islanders. These inhabitants live on only 14 of the 274 islands. For comparison, people identifying themselves as of Torres Strait Islander descent living in the whole of Australia numbered 32,345, while those of both Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal descent numbered a further 26,767. == Geography ==