The Umbakumba community started in 1938 as a base for trepanning and as a service point for Qantas flying boats. During World War II it was a service point for the Royal Australian Air Force flying boat base. After the war, the Church Missionary Society ran Umbakumba as a mission until 1966, when it was taken over by the Australian Government. The first local council began in 1982. This was absorbed into the East Arnhem Shire Council in 2008, when Umbakumba became part of the East Arnhem Shire and the Shire Council took over local government.

The Groote Eylandt economy changed dramatically when manganese was discovered near Angurugu. The Church Missionary Society and BHP agreed on royalty payments to allow mining. In 1964 the Groote Eylandt Mining Company was granted leases on the island, and the first shipments of manganese ore left in 1966. Groote Eylandt now produces over three million tonnes of manganese ore each year.

Mining employs many Indigenous people, however, to secure the island’s economic future, the traditional owners—through the Anindilyakwa Land Council and with Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island Enterprises—have started the Dugong Beach Resort and other culture-based tourism businesses. Groote Eylandt became Aboriginal freehold land in 1976. The Groote Eylandt archipelago became an Indigenous Protected Area in 2006.

Umbakumba is in the traditional lands of the Warinindilyakwa people. Groote Eylandt’s Indigenous population has 14 clan groups, which make up the two moieties on Groote Eylandt. The Anindilyakwa-speaking clans maintain their traditions and have strong ties with the people in the community of Numbulwar and on Bickerton Island.

The Anindilyakwa were traditionally hunter-gatherers. Anindilyakwa myths describe huge lizards, snakes and other reptilian creatures who lived in waterholes, and the Anindilyakwa performed ceremonies in the hope of pleasing these creatures so that they might be safe to go near the waterholes. Traditional Anindilyakwa belief holds that Yandarrnga, or Central Hill, the highest point on the island, was originally on the mainland and travelled across, bringing some plants and animals with ‘him’.

Anindilyakwa is the language of the communities of Groote Eylandt. Umbakumba also has a number of Yolngu Matha speakers.