Hammond Island (Indigenous name: Keriri or Kiriri) is an island with a town of the same name, in the Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia. It is the only island within the locality of Keriri Island within the local government area of Torres Strait Island Region. In the , Hammond Island had a population of 261 people, of whom 253 (96.9%) identified as Indigenous Australians.

History The Kaurareg people know Hammond Island as Keriri and are believed to have occupied this area prior to first contact with Europeans.In the case of Kaurareg People v Queensland FCA 657 at para 2, it was noted by Justice Drummond that 'the Kaurareg were the original inhabitants of the islands of the Kaurareg Archipelago prior to and at the time of the claim of sovereignty made on behalf of the English Crown in 1770 by Captain Cook and thereafter in addition, the Kaurareg people currently have three active native title applications awaiting determination: Federal Court file numbers: QUD266/2008; QUD267/2008; and QUD362/2010. For a discussion on the history of Hammond Island, see N Sharp, Footprints Along the Cape York Sandbeaches (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra; 1992) 14, 106-108. Hammond Island is located in the Southern or Prince of Wales Island group of the Torres Strait. For thousands of years the Kaurareg followed traditional patterns of hunting, fishing and agriculture, and maintained close cultural and trading ties with the Aboriginal groups of the Northern Peninsula Area of Cape York. These close ties continue to exist today.

European contact Captain Edwards of HMS Pandora named Hammond Island in August 1791, as he travelled through the Torres Strait with the captured Bounty mutineers.Captain Edwards may have named Hammond Island after the Naval Officer, Sir Andrew Hammond, Queensland, Queensland Placenames Database, Department of Environment & Resource Management website, https://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au/mapping-data/place-names/search/queensland-place-names-search 25 May 2013. In 1802, the British navigator Matthew Flinders, in charge of HMS Investigator, sailed past Hammond Island. He noticed camp fires burning on the island but did not make contact with the Kaurareg people.M Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, (W Bulmer and Co, London, 1814)

In August 1864, a government settlement was established at Somerset at the tip of Cape York. The police magistrates of Somerset were hostile in their dealings with the Aboriginal people of the Northern Peninsula Area of Cape York and the Kaurareg.N Sharp, Footprints Along the Cape York Sandbeaches (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra; 1992) 14, 35-40, 55-56.

1869 Massacre

In April 1869, the crew of the cutter Sperwer was killed after the ship anchored off Prince of Wales Island. Government authorities determined that "the Korrorega natives" (Kuarareg) were responsible for the killings.Author unknown, murder of the crew of the Sperwer, Brisbane Courier, 27 November 1869, 6N Sharp, Footprints Along the Cape York Sandbeaches (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra; 1992) p 57. Three Kaurareg men were captured, found guilty of the Sperwer killings and executed by a party of Australian native police led by Somerset police magistrate Henry Chester. Frank Jardine, Chester's successor, led additional retaliatory attacks against the Kaurareg people on Prince of Wales Island during the 1870s.Queensland State Archives, Colonial Secretary’s correspondence, COL/A153, 71/524; J Singe, The Torres Strait, People and History(University of Queensland Press, St Lucia,1979) 47, 168-169.

1872 Queensland Government control In 1872, the Queensland Government sought to extend its jurisdiction and requested the support of the British Government.S B Kaye, Jurisdictional Patchwork: Law of the Sea and Native Title Issues in the Torres Strait (2001) 2 Melbourne Journal of International Law, 1. Letters Patent were issued by the British Government in 1872 creating a new boundary for the colony which encompassed all islands within a 60-nautical-mile radius of the coast of Queensland.Queensland Statutes (1963) vol.2, 712. This boundary was further extended by the Queensland Coast Islands Act 1879 (Qld)Colonial Boundaries Act 1895 (Imp); Wacando v Commonwealth(1981) 148 CLR 1. and included the islands of Boigu, Erub, Mer and Saibai, which lay beyond the previous limit. The new legislation enabled the Queensland Government to control and regulate bases for the beche-de-mer and pearling industries which previously had operated outside its jurisdiction.S Mullins, Torres Strait, A History of Colonial Occupation and Culture Contact 1864-1897 (Central Queensland University Press, Rockhampton; 1994) 139-161.

During the 1880s, a pearling station operated on Hammond IslandJ Foley, Timeless Isle, An Illustrated History of Thursday Island (Torres Strait Historical Society, Thursday Island, 2003) 49. and in 1889, gold was discovered on the island. A number of prospectors and miners began moving to the island in September 1889 and these deposits were quickly exhausted.'Gold Discovery on Hammond Island', The Queenslander, 21 September 1889, 551.

An Aboriginal reserve was gazetted on Hammond Island by the Queensland Government in 1881. J.F.G. Foxton, W.E. Parry-Okeden and Dr W. Roth were appointed trustees of the reserve in February 1900.Queensland, Queensland Government Gazette, 31 December 1881, vol.29, no.98, 1450; Queensland, Queensland Government Gazette, 3 February 1900, vol.73, no.29, 314; Queensland, Annual Report of the Northern Protector of Aboriginals for 1901 (1902) 18.

1900–1950 The majority of the Kaurareg people were moved to Hammond Island in the first decade of the 20th century.N Sharp, Footprints Along the Cape York Sandbeaches (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra; 1992) p109 The Annual Report of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals for 1913 stated that around 80 Kaurareg people were living on Hammond Island, comprising "representatives from all Islands adjacent to Thursday Island".

Strenuous efforts were made by the government in 1913 to encourage the Hammond Islanders to move to a new settlement on Moa Island, but without success.The Annual Report of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals for 1913 mentions that the Kaurareg were prepared to move from Hammond Island but wanted to be resettled at Port Lihou on the south east corner of Prince of Wales Island, which was part of their traditional lands. Queensland, Annual Report of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals for 1913 (1914) 13. The Kaurareg people on Hammond Island were neglected by the government and received no school or medical facilities. Thirteen people died the following year, when an influenza epidemic swept through the island community.N Sharp, Footprints Along the Cape York Sandbeaches (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra; 1992) 109.

By the 1920s, the Queensland Government was determined to move the Kaurareg people from Hammond Island, publicly stating that their close proximity to Thursday Island encouraged drunkenness and immorality in the community. Preparations for the removal began in 1921, with the construction of new quarters at Adam village on Moa.Queensland, Annual Report of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals for 1921(1922) 7Queensland State Archives, Home Secretary’s correspondence HOM/J538, 1925/228, removal of Hammond islandersA Shnukal, 'Historical Mua' (2008) 2, 2 Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series. In March 1922 the Kaurareg community was forcibly removed by the government authorities from Hammond Island and transported to Moa Island on a Papuan Industries vessel named the Goodwill. Three members of the Hammond Island community, who protested against the removal, were arrested without charge by police armed with revolvers.N Sharp, Footprints Along the Cape York Sandbeaches (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra; 1992), pp. 110–112Queensland State Archives, Home Secretary’s Correspondence HOM/ J419, 1922/1962Sydney Morning Herald 8 March 1922, 13; The Queenslander 11 March 1922, 17.

From the 1880s onwards, many Filipino immigrant workers living in the Torres Strait married local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. These marriages were conducted by the Catholic Church. During the 1920s, the presence of mixed-race families on Thursday Island was an embarrassment to the government authorities, who were applying strict racial legislation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In 1928, the Catholic Church on Thursday Island obtained permission to establish a mission settlement for families of Filipino ancestry at Hammond Island. St Joseph's Catholic mission station was officially inaugurated at Hammond Island on Ascension Thursday in 1929. The mission was administered by Catholic priests and nuns of the Sacred Heart Order. The families of Nicholas Sabatino and Joseph Kanak were the first to settle at the mission. Catholic families from other Torres Strait Islands were encouraged to move to St Joseph's mission, where St Joseph's School (Hammond Island) opened in 1935.A Shnukal, 'Pre-War Filipino Communities in Torres Strait' (2009) 23, 2, KASAMA. The school closed during World War II when the island was evacuated. Nuns returned in 1950 to reopen school, but it closed in 1963.

In 1936, 70% of Torres Strait Islander workers went on strike, protesting against government control over their livelihoods.N Sharp, Footprints Along the Cape York Sandbeaches (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra; 1992)N Sharp, Footprints Along the Cape York Sandbeaches (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra; 1992), 181-186J Beckett, Torres Strait Islanders: Custom and Colonialism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 1987) 54. The strike produced significant reforms including the establishment of a system of government consultations with elected Islander council representatives. The new island councils were given a degree of autonomy including control over local Island police and courts.J Beckett, Torres Strait Islanders: Custom and Colonialism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 1987), 54-55. The first Inter-Islander Councillors Conference was convened at Yorke Island in August 1937. Representatives from 14 Torres Strait communities, including Hammond Island, attended.N Sharp, Stars of Tagai, The Torres Strait Islanders, (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1993) 210-214Boigu Island Community Council, Boigu, Our History and Culture (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1991) 135-136. In 1939, the Queensland Government passed the Torres Strait Islander Act 1939, which incorporated many of the recommendations made at the conference.A key section of the new act officially recognised Torres Strait Islanders as a separate people to Aboriginal Australians, Queensland, Annual Report Department of Native Affairs for 1939 (1940) 1N Sharp, Stars of Tagai, The Torres Strait Islanders, (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1993), 214-216. A key section of the new act officially recognised Torres Strait Islanders as a separate people from Aboriginal Australians.Sections 3 (a) – (c) of the Torres Strait Islander Act (Qld) 1939. See also Queensland, Annual Report Department of Native Affairs for 1939 (1940) 1; Sharp, above n 23, 214-216.

During World War II, the civilian population of Hammond Island was evacuated to the Sisters of Mercy Convent at Cooyar in southeast Queensland. The mission buildings on the island were taken over by the army, and an RAAF radar station operated between 1942 and 1943.

1950–2000