Concept
Cocos Malays are a community that form the predominant group of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, which is now a part of Australia. Today, most of the Cocos Malay can be found in the eastern coast of Sabah, Malaysia, because of diaspora originating from the 1950s during the British colonial period. Despite that they all have assimilated into the ethnic Malay culture, they are named in reference to the Malay race, originating from different places of the Malay archipelago such as Bali, Bima, Celebes, Madura, Sumbawa, Timor, Sumatra, Pasir-Kutai, Malacca, Penang, Batavia and Cirebon, as well as South Africa and New Guinea. The first Malays are believed to have arrived and settled in the Islands in 1826 "when Alexander Hare, an English merchant, brought his Malay harem and slaves there." In 1827 John Clunies-Ross changed the lives of the Malay slaves when he settled the Islands with his family. The existing Malays and a large number of newly arrived Malay immigrants that Clunies-Ross brought with him were employed to assist with the harvesting of coconuts for copra. People from British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies as well as South Africa and New Guinea were brought in by Hare and by Clunies-Ross as indentured workers, slaves or convicts. In September 1978, the Australian government forced the Clunies-Ross family to sell the Cocos Islands to them. Since then, the Chief of State has been King Charles III, represented by the current Administrator, Natasha Griggs. The Chairman of the Islands Council is Aindil Minkom. The descendants of the people brought to the islands by Hare and Clunies Ross are seeking recognition from the Australian Federal Government to be acknowledged as Indigenous Australians. The Cocos Malays in Malaysia primarily reside in several villages known as Kampung Cocos in the towns of Lahad Datu and Tawau, both located in Tawau Division of Sabah state. Originally from the Cocos Islands, they settled on this area in the 1950s after being brought back by the British.
