William Cooper: An Aboriginal Life Story by Bain Attwood

Who was William Cooper?

 ‘On Saturday 7 August 1937 an unusual event occurred. An Australian newspaper published a feature story about an Aboriginal man that was based on an interview one of its leading journalists had conducted with him.[…] The Aboriginal man was William Cooper.’

William Cooper (born in 1860 or 1861– died 29 March 1941) was a Yorta Yorta man, an Aboriginal Australian political activist and community leader. He was the first Aboriginal Australian the first to lead a national movement recognised by the Australian Government.

After reading a review of this book, I needed to read it for myself. I had not heard of William Cooper and knew nothing about his activism. This should have been part of the history I learned at school during the 1960s: much more relevant than the British monarchy, or John Macarthur’s single-handed (tongue-in-cheek) development of the Australian wool industry. While I am old enough to remember the 1967 Referendum (which sought to change two sections of the Constitution in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples), I naively thought that equal rights would follow. More than half a century later, I can only hope that the ‘Voice to Parliament’ referendum is passed later this year.

‘This book seeks to tell the story of William Cooper’s life and times, but it necessarily diverges from traditional biography to some degree. The historical sources an academic historian requires for such a study—extensive private papers that are created by the subject of the biography—simply do not exist.’

As I read about William Cooper’s life and campaigns, about his petition to King George V for an Aboriginal representative in the Australian parliament, his call for a day of mourning after 150 years of colonisation, the walk-off of the Yorta Yorta people from Cumeroogunga reserve in 1939 and his opposition to the establishment of an Aboriginal regiment in the Second World War, I was filled with admiration. This self-taught man, full of dignity, campaigned tirelessly.

‘The rights that Cooper and his fellow Aboriginal campaigners mostly called for were the same rights that other Australians enjoyed—what they called ‘equal rights’ or ‘citizenship rights’—rather than Indigenous rights, which are the rights that only Indigenous people can claim on the basis of being the descendants of the country’s First People.’

The 1967 referendum went some way to providing citizenship rights, but more was needed then and is still needed. And then, there is this:

‘But what distinguished him [Cooper] from other campaigners was the fact that he called for Aboriginal political representation. He realised that historical difference meant that Aboriginal people saw the world differently: they thought black whereas whitefellas could not do this. This meant that in order to hear the Aboriginal voice the federal parliament had to agree to changes being made to the nation’s constitution.’

It is time!

If, like me, you have never heard of William Cooper, then I recommend reading this book.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Book 4 in my 2023 Nonfiction Reader Challenge. I’ve entered as a ‘Nonfiction Grazer’ and this book should be included under the heading of ‘Biography’.