Andruana Ann Jean Jimmy (30 September 1912 – 17 October 1991) was an Australian Aborigine activist and politician known for campaigning against the closure of the aboriginal Mapoon Reserve and her subsequent forced removal.

Biography

Jimmy was born on 30 September 1912 near the

Pennefather River The Pennefather River is a river located on the western Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia. Location and features Formed by the confluence of a series of waterways including the Fish Creek in the Port Musgrave Aggregation ...

in Far North Queensland, Australia. She was the second of three children; her brother was Richard (1898–?), also known as Dick Luff, and her sister was Maggie (1910–?). Both her parents were of Wimaranga ancestry and her name, Andruana, meant wattle in their native language, signifying feminine resolve. She spent most of her formative years in a

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

lodging in Mapoon, rarely seeing her father, Philip, who was an evangelist for aboriginal people. On 29 August 1933, she married sailor Gilbert Jimmy; they relocated to Thursday Island after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. She later protested the leasing of a significant area of the Mapoon Reserve to mining, before being forcibly removed along with other fellow Aborigines to New Mapoon, Queensland. She revealed her experiences to the 1964 Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders Conference. She later served as the leader of the local council for two years, before moving to Weipa South, where she served as leader of the local council for three years. Jimmy also provided

Les Hiddins Major Leslie James Hiddins AM (born 13 August 1946 in Brisbane, Queensland), known as "The Bush Tucker Man" is a retired Australian Army soldier and war veteran who is best known for his love and knowledge of the Australian bush. Hiddins is recog ...

with medicinal information that her mother had taught her. She died on 17 October 1991 at Weipa Hospital and was buried in the Mapoon cemetery. A Land and Sea Centre in Mapoon was posthumously named after her.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jimmy, Jean 1912 births 1991 deaths People from Queensland Indigenous Australian people Australian activists