Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism

by Peter H. Russell

A judicial revolution occurred in 1992 when Australia's highest court discarded a doctrine that had stood for two hundred years, that the country was a terra nullius - a land of no one - when the white man arrived. The proceedings were known as the Mabo Case, named for Eddie Koiki Mabo, the Torres Strait Islander who fought the notion that the Australian Aboriginal people did not have a system of land ownership before European colonization...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802094430
• ISBN13: 9780802094438
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 450 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

a review of historic injustices

To some Australians, the Mabo case threatened to overturn all that had happened since the British arrived in 1788. But to others, it was a long overdue acknowledgment of historic injustices. The author gives us the background behind Mabo. Chronicling years of effort by Aboriginal activists to assert some residue of native title. It's not a cheery read. Much is explained of the parlous conditions under which many Aborigines labour; especially those still in rural tribal environments. Still, the account shows how persistent efforts led to a seminal decision by the High Court. The book does not describe the aftermath. In the few years since it came out, little has changed in the typical Aboriginal condition.