William Cooper (Aboriginal Australian) - Campaign For Aboriginal Rights

Campaign For Aboriginal Rights

Cooper's long campaign for Aboriginal rights, especially land rights, began with the Maloga petition in 1887. One of eleven signatories, it was addressed to the Governor of Victoria. The petition held that Aborigines of the district, "should be granted sections of land not less than 100 acres per family in fee simple or else at a small nominal rental annually with the option of purchase at such prices as shall be deemed reasonable for them under the circumstances, always bearing in mind that the Aborigines were the former occupiers of the land. Such a provision would enable them to earn their own livelihood..."

For most of his adult life, Cooper lived and worked in missions such as Maloga and Warangesda. He also found work as a "shearer, drover, horse-breaker and general rural labourer in Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.

Well into his 70s, when he discovered he was ineligible for the pension if he remained on an Aboriginal reserve, Cooper moved to Footscray in western Melbourne in 1933. Here he found his calling as an activist, an organiser, and a relentless letter-writer.

At first this was in an individual capacity. But by 1935 Cooper had helped establish the Australian Aborigines League. As its secretary, Cooper circulated a petition seeking direct representation in parliament, enfranchisement and land rights. He collected 1814 signatures despite active obstruction from the national and state governments of the day. He appears to have been helped in his cause by some missionaries, such as Rev E. R. B. Gribble in 1933. The text of the distributed petition, which was also published in The Herald (Melbourne) on 15 September 1933, was as follows:

“Whereas it was not only a moral duty, but also a strict injunction included in the commission issued to those who came to people Australia that the original occupants and we, their heirs and successors, should be adequately cared for; and whereas the terms of the commission have not been adhered to, in that (a) our lands have been expropriated by your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth, (b) legal status is denied to us by your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth; and whereas all petitions made in our behalf to your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth have failed: your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Majesty will intervene in our behalf and through the instrument of your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth grant to our people representation in~ the Federal Parliament, either in the person of one of our own blood or by a white man known to have studied our needs and to be in sympathy with our race.”

The petition was received by the Commonwealth Government in August 1937. However, by February 1938, it was clear that the Cabinet led by Joseph Lyons had decided that it should not be submitted to the King, who, by this time, was George VI.

Cooper was also effective in securing face-to-face meetings with governments. 1935, he led the first aboriginal deputation to a Commonwealth minister and in 1938, the first deputation to the Prime Minister. The government of the day rejected his requests.

Seeing the failure of using democratic means, Cooper's Australian Aborigines League joined forces with Jack Patten and William Ferguson from the Aborigines Progressive Association to shame white Australia. They arranged a Day of Mourning to commemorate the sesquicentenary of colonisation, on Australia Day, 1938. The event, held in Australian Hall in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, was the first combined, interstate protest by Australian Aborigines. On that he stood to say: "Now is our chance to have things altered. We must fight our very hardest in this cause. I know we could proudly our own with others if given the chance. We should all work in cooperation for the progress of Aborigines throughout the Commonwealth."

William Cooper continued protesting the injustice of the Australian treatment of its Indigenous people right up until his death in 1941. His major success was the establishment of a National Aborigines Day, first celebrated in 1940.