<P> The indigenous inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands are the Torres Strait Islanders, an ethnically Melanesian people who also inhabited the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula, distinct from the Australian Aboriginals who are the Indigenous Australians in the rest of the country . </P> <P> The Spanish navigator Luís Vaez de Torres explored Torres Strait in 1606 . Torres had joined the Queirós expedition which sailed from Peru across the Pacific Ocean in search of Terra Australis . </P> <P> Lieutenant James Cook first claimed British sovereignty over the eastern part of Australia at Possession Island in 1770 . The London Missionary Society mission led by Rev. Samuel Macfarlane arrived on Erub (Darnley Island) on 1 July 1871 . The Islanders refer to this as "The Coming of the Light", and all Island communities celebrate the occasion annually on 1 July . In 1879 Queensland annexed the Torres Strait Islands . They thus became part of the British colony of Queensland and (after 1901) of the Australian state of Queensland - although some of them lie just off the coast of New Guinea . </P> <P> In 1898--1899 the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition led by Alfred Cort Haddon visited the Torres Strait Islands . In 1904 the Torres Strait Islanders became subject to the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act . </P>

When did the torres strait islanders come to australia
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