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On the 26th of August 1768, HMS Endeavor pulled out of the port of Plymouth in southern England with 94 people on board. This was the start date of the first of James Cook's three famous voyages. Over the next 11 years, Cook charted the South Pacific Ocean in unprecedented detail. He even voyaged to Alaska and crossed south of the Antarctic Circle. His explorations paved the way for Britain's colonization of Australia from 1788 onwards. What had motivated Cook's voyages? And what new lands did he discover? This is the story of Captain Cook, the great explorer of the South Seas. The man known to history as Captain James Cook was born on the 7th of November 1728 in the village of Martin in Cleveland in North Yorkshire in the
north of England. His father was also named James Cook. Cook senior hailed from Roxbrusher in the Scottish borders. After moving to Yorkshire to work as a day laborer, he married Grace Pace in 1725. Their first son, John, was born in January 1727. James was born the following October. They went on to have six more children. Four of these died in infancy. Only two sisters, Margaret and Cristiana, survived. The family was not wealthy and were not well connected in the way that earlier famed English explorers like Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh were. The Cook
family's prospects improved in 1736 when James Cook senior became a farm manager at the village of Greatton. Until then, 8-year-old James had received a rudimentary education, but the move enabled him to attend the fee paying postgate school sponsored by his father's employer, Thomas Scottto. While Cook's school records no longer survive, he is believed to have excelled at mathematics, an important subject for an explorer to be knowledgeable about in the 18th century in order to calculate lines of latitude and longitude and to read and produce nautical maps. The future navigator also had a keen sense of adventure and often climbed a local hill called Rosebury Topping. One day, Cook decided to descend the hill off the
beaten path and was marooned at a cliff face. Fortunately, a ship of the British Royal Navy was patrolling in the region after the Jacobite pretender to the British throne, Bonnie Prince Charlie, landed in Scotland and threatened to march into England. The sentry on Roseberry topping heard Cook's cries for help and organized a rescue mission. The same year, Cook began working as a shop assistant in the fishing port of Sts. In 1747, he began a three-year apprenticeship as a merchant seaman with a Quaker ship owner, John Walker, in Whitby. Cook was a quick learner and soon mastered the art of navigating these coalbearing ships south from Newcastle to London. After completing
his apprenticeship, the 21-year-old cook became an ordinary seaman on the 20th of April 1750. By 1752, he had qualified as a mate, testifying to his navigational skill. At this juncture, he was a merchant navy man. He had not yet joined the British Royal Navy. In 1755, after only three years as a ship's mate, Cook received an offer from Walker to become the master of his own ship. It was a rapid promotion for a man who had only been at sea for 9 years. But Cook chose instead to enlist in the Royal Navy. Although the merchant navy was considered more comfortable and more profitable than the Royal Navy, Cook was an ambitious young man who recognized that the Royal Navy's culture of meritocracy offered the prospect of
social advancement for talented naval officers, particularly during wartime. By the time Cook joined the Navy on the 17th of June 1755 and began his service aboard the 58 gun HMS Eagle, hostilities had already broken out between the French and British colonists in North America. This conflict from 1754 onwards is known as the French and Indian wars in North America and was part of a wider intense rivalry between Britain and France throughout the 18th century within Europe and for colonial dominance in North America, the Caribbean, and India. In 1756, the North American conflict morphed into a wider European struggle known as the 7 Years War that lasted down to 1763 and involved
Austria, Prussia, and Russia, too. With the eagle assigned to the blockade of Britany in northwestern France, Cook's abilities were noticed by his ship's captain, Hugh Palacer, who promoted him to Bosen in January 1756. In May, the Eagle captured a small merchant ship from the West Indies, and Cook was ordered to bring the prize to London. On the 30th of May, 1757, Cook had his first taste of naval combat when the Eagle captured the Duke Dutane after an hour's bombardment. He soon qualified as ship's master with responsibilities including navigation, charting, and management of stores. In the autumn of 1757, Cook received a prestigious appointment as the master of the 64 gun HMS Pembrook, destined for service in North America.
The war in North America had begun poorly for the British who were defeated on several occasions by the Marque de Monongam. By early 1758, William Pit, the chief strategist in the British government, sought to leverage the superiority of the Royal Navy by targeting French colonial possessions in India and the Americas while offering large subsidies to Prussia to keep the French distracted in Europe. Britain's naval superiority enabled the Royal Navy to ferry reinforcements across the Atlantic to support a four-pronged assault on French Canada under the overall command of James Abberrombi. In February 1758, the Pemrook joined Admiral Edward Boscowan's fleet, which arrived at Nova Scotia to support Jeffrey Amhurst and James Wolf's
operations to capture the fortress of Louisborg and advance on Quebec. Cook saw little of the six-week siege of Louisborg, which led to the surrender of the French garrison on the 26th of July. The following day, he met Samuel Holland, a Dutch military surveyor on Wolf's staff. Holland was impressed by Cook's understanding of scientific instruments, and the two swiftly became friends. When Cook introduced Holland to his captain, John Simco, the three became inseparable. Meanwhile, the British success at Louisborg was offset by Abocromby's defeat at Fort Tyonderoga. As Amhurst went to Boston to replace Abocrombi as commanderin-chief, Wol led a punitive campaign against
French fishing boats in the St. Lawrence River. The Pemrook was among the ships that accompanied Wolf. And while Cook had moral reservations about the general's conduct, he spent his time productively charting the St. Lawrence alongside Holland and Simco. As the Pemrook wintered in Halifax, Cook studied the charts of New Foundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and committed to making more accurate topographical surveys of the coast. In May 1759, after Wolf returned to North America aboard Vice Admiral Charles Saers fleet, the Pemrook formed an advanced party that sailed up the St. Lawrence. Cook suffered a personal tragedy when Captain Simco died of pneumonia on the 15th of May 1759. While Cook played an important role in
helping the fleet navigate the treacherous waters, Wolf gave the Navy little credit for his progress up river. On the night of the 12th of September into the early hours of the 13th, Cook participated in an elaborate deception to distract the French while Wolf's men scaled up to the plains of Abraham to defeat Mong outside [clears throat] Quebec in a battle that claimed the lives of both commanders. Cook was appointed master of the North Sumberland, the flagship of Commodore Lord Culville, and spent a second winter at Halifax. For the next 2 years, Cook saw little action, although his charts of the St.
Lawrence were praised by the Admiral T in London, and he received a bonus payment of £50 in January 1761. By 1762, the French had effectively given up on North America with the exception of the fisheries in Newf Finland. And in September, Kville sailed to St. John's on the east coast of Newf Finland to expel a French fleet. Cook was reunited with his old friend, Captain Palaca, and he was soon instructed to work alongside Army surveyor Joseph Debbar to survey the fisheries of Newfoundland. In late 1762, Cook returned to England, where the newly promoted Rear Admiral Kovville gave a positive account of his abilities to the Admiral T. 6 weeks later, Cook married the 21-year-old Elizabeth Bats on the 21st of December, 1762. While it remains unclear how their
relationship came about, Elizabeth and James would have six children, five boys, and one girl. Of the three boys who survived infancy, two would die at sea, while the third died in his late teens. Elizabeth would outlive all of her children, dying in 1835, aged 93. This video is sponsored by Kona Beach Antigga, the adults only all-inclusive boutique hotel. A hidden gem on Turner's Beach. This superb vacation spot is a serene retreat offering beachfront accommodation in rustic cottages, each with its own barley bed on the sand. Sanctuary cottages and plunge pool cottages have their own private plunge pools for total privacy and relaxation.
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the natural beauty of Antigga. Click the link in the description which takes you to the Kona Beach website where you'll find more information on how to book your ideal escape at Kona Beach, a true hidden treasure on the beautiful Caribbean island of Antigga. In spring 1763, Cook was appointed a king's surveyor and received instructions from New Finland's governor Thomas Graves to survey the island. Cook began work on the islands of Sierre and Mikolong which were to be handed back to France under the terms of the Treaty of Paris signed in 1763. He was soon rewarded with the command of his own ship named HMS Grenville after the new Prime Minister George Grenville.
Between 1763 and 1767, Cook spent five seasons surveying New Finland in the summer while spending the winter with his family in England. After Palaca succeeded Graves as governor in 1764, Cook was instructed to survey the parts of the island deemed most vulnerable to the prospect of French invasion in any future war where they might try to reclaim Canada. While working on the northwestern coast in August 1764, Cook suffered a serious accident when a powder horn blew up in his hand. The following July, the Grenville ran ground and Cook was forced to unload her cargo to reflat her. The Admiral T recognized Cook as a rising star and allowed him to publish maps of New Finland in his own
name. On the 5th of August 1766, Cook observed a solar eclipse and was able to determine his exact longitude by comparing his data with a set of observations taken in Oxford. Cook sent his findings to the astronomer John Beis and his efforts were recognized by the Royal Society in London. Cook's surveys, which contributed to the growth of the British fishing industry in Newf Finland, ensured that his requests for increasingly sophisticated equipment were readily granted by the Admiral T. Following a successful surveying season in 1767, the Grenville ran ground in the temp's estie, forcing Cook and his crew to go ashore in small boats. After spending the winter of 1767 to
1768 with his family in England, Cook expected to return to New Finland to continue his survey. Instead, the Admiral T appointed him to lead an expedition to the South Pacific and commissioned him as a lieutenant on the 25th of May alongside wider political and scientific objectives. The expedition was part of the Royal Society's project to observe the transit of Venus, a rare astronomical event in which the planet was seen moving across the face of the sun, offering scientists the opportunity to calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun using trigonometry. The transit came in pairs 8 years apart, separated by gaps of over a century. Since the observations of the 1761 transit had been unsatisfactory, the Royal Society planned to send
observers across the globe to record it in a better manner in 1769. Before Cook's appointment, the Admiral T purchased a 4-year-old Collier called the Earl of Pembrook and renamed it HMS Endeavor. The Endeavor would sail with just over 100 men, including several who had sailed with Byron and Wallace on HMS Dolphin. These included third lift tenant John Gore, a 38-year-old American, and Charles Clark, the 27-year-old deputy master's mate. Given the Royal Society's involvement, the endeavor also accommodated a group of scientists, including the young botonist Joseph Banks, who was to achieve great fame. Banks brought along his Swedish friend, Dr. Daniel Carl Solander, a compatriate and pupil of Carlaeus.
In early August, Cook received formal instructions to sail to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus alongside secret instructions to search for the great southern continent and to chart New Zealand and Tasmania. Cook insisted on strict discipline, but recognized the difficult conditions on board and showed special concern for his crews welfare. After leaving Plymouth in August 1768, Cook called at Madiraa and Tenneref before crossing the equator on the 25th of October and anchoring at Rio de Janeiro on the 13th of November. 2 months and 2,000 mi later, Endeavor approached Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America, where Banks and the scientists were caught up in a snowstorm that claimed the lives of his two
African servants. After rounding the Cape in late January 1769, Cook made swift progress through the South Pacific and anchored at Matawai Bay on Tahiti on the 13th of April 1769. The veterans of Wallace's expedition told him about the Polynesian women who offered their bodies in exchange for iron, resulting in the rapid spread of veneerial disease and the removal of iron fittings from the ship. Upon arrival, Cook obtained permission to build a fort and observatory named Fort Venus. The presence of the prominent islanders to Teha and Teal guaranteed the peace while banks proved an effective agent in securing provisions.
However, Cook was ignorant of the social organization on the island and angered Tutahha by receiving a woman called Pereira, who had been a powerful figure during Wallace's visit, but had since been reduced in status by Tutahha. The Europeans also struggled to prevent the islanders from stealing their equipment and were unaware that the Polynesians regarded trade as an exchange of gifts rather than a commercial enterprise. when a quadrant went missing. Cook captured Tuta and other local chiefs and held them hostage until it was returned. Cook was embarrassed when Banks retrieved the instrument after ascertaining its whereabouts from Tao and spent the following weeks making amends. On Saturday the 3rd of June
1769, Cook observed the 6-hour transit of Venus. But distortion effects prevented him from capturing its precise start and end, and he was disappointed that his observations contradicted those taken by the scientists he posted elsewhere on the island. Cook remained at Matavai Bay for several weeks to clean and repair the Endeavor and take on provisions. After 6 days surveying the island at the end of June, Cook left Tahiti on the 11th of July. Pere's high priest Tupaya hoped to visit England and Banks persuaded Cook to take him on board. He proved an excellent guide for the endeavor as Cook visited the neighboring islands, which he called the Society Islands. Cook then turned south and reached 40° latitude. But a heavy squall
convinced him there was no land further south. Cook approached the North Island of New Zealand from the east and allighted at a place he called Poverty Bay on the 8th of October. While Tupaya was able to communicate with the local marries in his Polynesian dialect, Cook faced a hostile reception. During the initial encounter, a Mouri warrior was shot dead when the Europeans attempted to come ashore. The following day, three Mauies were killed and three more were taken prisoner. Cook left Poverty Bay and made running surveys along the east coast. He encountered a friendlier reception at the Bay of Plenty. The endeavor continued north and Cook spent a week charting the picturesque Bay of
Islands before rounding the North Cape in mid December. After struggling through heavy gales along the west coast, Cook arrived at Queen Charlotte Sound on the South Island in mid January 1770. The crew found the local Mauies friendly, but identified signs of cannibalism. After sailing through the straits between the North and South Islands on the 1st of February, Cook rounded the southern Cape of the North Island, which he named Cape Palacer. He soon completed a circuit of the island and turned back south along the east coast of South Island. By early March, having reached 48° latitude and passing Stewart Island, which he took to be part of the mainland, Cook concluded that
there was no land further south and made his way up the west coast of South Island. By late March, they had reached Cape Farewell on the northern tip of the West Coast, and they returned to Queen Charlotte Sound. Although Banks was disappointed to find no sign of the southern continent, he was delighted by the 400 new plant specimens he collected across the two islands. Cook and his crew were ready to go home, but the men preferred to return via the southern Cape of Africa. Cook took the opportunity to explore the east coast of Australia to determine whether Tasman's New Holland was connected to Van Demon's land and also whether New Guinea was connected to the Australian landmass.
Stormy weather in the Tasman Sea carried Cook too far north of Demon's land and he cited land which he called New South Wales owing to the way in which the geography reminded him of southern Wales back in Britain. He landed on the 28th of April in Bot Bay. Cooking counted hostility from the Australian Aboriginals, people who could not understand Dupa's language. As the Endeavor continued north, Cook reached the Great Barrier Reef. On the 11th of June, 1770, Endeavor was grounded on a reef 20 m from shore. The mariners threw everything overboard in an effort to reflat the ship. And by late afternoon, all hands were manning the pumps as water came rushing in. By 10 p.m., the crew succeeded in refloating the Endeavor and limped to shore for
extensive repairs. After setting sail on the 4th of August, Cook carefully navigated the narrow passage to clear blue water, only to narrowly avoid running ground again on the 16th of August. By the end of the month, Cook sailed through the Endeavor and Taus Straits to prove conclusively that New Guinea and Australia were unconnected. While Cook was more familiar with the Dutch East Indies, he had to negotiate an unfriendly reception from Dutch colonial authorities in Batavia, modern-day Jakarta, where several of the men succumbed to malaria, including the Tahesian priest Tupaya and his young servant Tayata. As Cook entered the Indian Ocean in January 1771, an outbreak of dissentry claimed the lives
of many others, including the astronomer Charles Green and the artist Sydney Parkinson. After crossing the ocean in less than two months, Cook and his men spent a month recovering at the Dutch Cape Colony where Cape Town is today. The endeavor called at St. Helena, Ascension Island, and the Azors before arriving back at England on the 12th of July 1771. Public attention initially focused on Banks and Solander and King George III ordered the plants they collected to be taken to the royal gardens of Q. Although Cook felt sidelined by Banks, he credited the latter's influence with Lord Sandwich, the first
seaord for his promotion to the rank of commander on the 2nd of August. In mid- August, Cook was granted an audience with King George III, who expressed great satisfaction with his exploits. The Admiral Ty was already preparing a second mission to search for the southern continent. And in November, the Navy acquired two collers, which would bear the names resolution and adventure. While Cook was appointed to command resolution, Banks assembled a team of 15 scientists and prevailed upon Lord Sandwich to order alterations to the resolution to accommodate them. As Cook had foreseen, the resulting changes made the ship highly unstable and had to be
removed. When Banks then refused to join the expedition, the Royal Society sent the German scientist Yan Reinhold Foster and his son Gayorg in hisstead. The resolution's first lieutenant was Richard Paliser Cooper, a kinsman of Hugh Palazer. Its second and third lieutenants, Charles Clark and Richard Pickersgill, were veterans of the Endeavor expedition. The master of the resolution was the 40-year-old Joseph Gilbert, who worked with Cook on the New Fundland survey. Cook highly rated Gilbert's surveying capabilities and delegated much of the surveying and chartmaking to him. Meanwhile, the adventure was commanded by Tobias Ferno, who had been Wallace's second lieutenant on the dolphin expedition to Tahiti years earlier.
As Cook headed out to sea on the 13th of July 1772 to begin his second voyage, he was impressed by the superior qualities of his new ship. This time, the plan was to head around Africa and east via the Indian Ocean. Within 3 months, the expedition reached the Cape in southern Africa. Here, Cook planned his next steps in the quest for the southern continent. He had previously suggested to the Admiral Ty that any such land mass would be further south than 40° latitude, and with Harrison's H4 chronometer at his disposal on this voyage, he was confident of finding the legendary land mass. After leaving Africa in November, Cook spent four months negotiating the hazardous oceans around Antarctica. After reaching their first iceberg in
mid December, Fster recorded sightings of penguins and other previously unknown birds. Cook headed east and crossed the Antarctic Circle at 66° south on the 17th of January 1773, possibly becoming the first European to officially venture into the Antarctic region. He lost sight of the adventure in early February. After failing to find the sister ship, Cook turned south, encountering ever larger icebergs. By late February, Cook reluctantly turned north as his crew was desperate for restbite from the Antarctic gales. He reached Dusky Sound on the South Island of New Zealand on the 25th of March, where he established friendly relations with the Mauies and stayed a month before sailing around to Queen Charlotte
Sound, the designated rendevous point, where he and his men were delighted to find the adventure anchored within. Cook was disappointed to hear that Ferno had landed on Tasmania, but did not attempt to circumn the island and also rebuked him for poor discipline on the adventure. Cook attempted to introduce agriculture and livestock to the Mauies and learned at the fame of Tupaya. Apparently, the late Tahesian priest had boasted to the Mauies during the first voyage that he owned the endeavor and that the Europeans were his slaves. In early June, the resolution and adventure left New Zealand to continue their quest. But news that the
adventures crew had come down with scurvy despite Cook's dietary instructions to Ferno forced them to find refuge in Tahiti. Threading a narrow path through the Tu archipelago before anchoring at Viate Pi Bay on the southeastern portion of the island in mid August. Cook received a cautious welcome from the chief Veha whose namesake father had recently died. After a week, Cook headed for Matai Bay, where he received a more enthusiastic reception. After informing them of the fate of Tupaya, Cook learned that during his absence, the island had witnessed a bloody civil war in which Tuta and Teepa had fallen in battle against the elder.
The defeated high chief too survived and retained symbolic authority. His supporters were glad to see the Europeans return. The delicate situation on the island meant that Cook struggled to reprovision on Tahiti but had greater success on the nearby island of Huah where he was reacquainted with the chief Ai whom he had befriended on his previous expedition. Nevertheless, Cook's stay on the island was marred by hostilities provoked by Johan Foster, who had none of Banks tacted in dealing with the Polynesians. As he had done throughout his voyages, Cook labored in vain to limit the sexual encounters between his men and indigenous women. After leaving the society islands, Cook made for the Tonga Islands and befriended a local chief
named Otago on the main island of Tonga Tapu, who traded a large quantity of red feathers. After a few days, Cook reached New Zealand on the 21st of October. But after putting to sea, the resolution and adventure was separated again in poor weather. The adventure anchored at Queen Charlotte Sound in late November, shortly after Cook's departure. Cook's party had stirred up tensions with the Marries, who retaliated by killing several of the adventures men. Having covered the region south of the Indian Ocean in the previous season, Cook now proceeded to do the same for the southern extremities of the Pacific. As Cook approached Antarctica, Resolution narrowly avoided smashing
into an iceberg on the 15th of December. After assuring himself there could be nothing further south, he turned northeast. By January 1774, supplies were running dangerously low. But he turned back south and reached 71° latitude south, an extraordinary achievement for the time. Although Cook fell seriously ill from a gastrointestinal issue at this time, the resolution nevertheless arrived safely at Easter Island on the 14th of March to resupply. Cook proceeded to the Marqueesus Islands, but his illness prevented him from appreciating their legendary beauty. In April, Cook returned to Tahiti 7 months after his previous visit and quickly discovered that the islanders were desperate to trade for the red feathers from Tonga. With his men in need of rest and his
ship in need of repair, he stayed for several weeks during which he was dragged into a power struggle between Tu and the chief to offer and witnessed the preparation of an invasion fleet against the neighboring island of Muria. In mid-May, Cook left Tahiti for Huahin where he encountered opposition after his friend Ai lost authority among the people. Cook left the Society Islands in early June and reached Tonga by the end of the month. Owing to the cordial reception he received on his two visits. He called the island group the friendly archipelago. After leaving Tonga, Cook reached the New Hedes, present day Vanuatu on the 17th of July. He spent the next 6 weeks making a detailed survey of the Yshaped
archipelago. The Europeans were slow to recognize that the Melanesian natives here were a different people from the Polynesians, resulting in poor communication, hostilities, and bloodshed. While Cook attempted to seek understanding with local chiefs, his efforts were undermined by his fellow Europeans with Forester once again the leading culprit. In early September, Kook arrived at the island of Numea, one of the largest in the Pacific, which he called New Calonia. Since it was previously unknown to Europeans, Cook spent the rest of the month surveying the island, but decided against a complete circumnavigation owing to the treacherous shores on the western coast.
By the 19th of October, Cook was back at Queen Charlotte Sound, where the crew found obvious signs of the adventures visit. Cook stayed for a month for repairs before swiftly making for Cape Horn. After entering the South Atlantic in January 1775, Cook discovered an island he called South Georgia in honor of King George and spent 11 days circumnavigating it. By now, as he neared the final stretch of the voyage, Cook had concluded that the fabled southern continent land mass equivalent in size to Eurasia did not exist, but that there was some kind of land around the South Pole nonetheless. The crew was delighted when Cook turned north, though the resolution still had to battle the elements on its way to the
Cape, where Cook was angered by the news that the adventure had returned to England in July 1774. After 5 weeks at the Cape, the resolution headed home and reached Portsmouth on the 30th of July 1775. In contrast to the death toll on his first voyage, Cook lost only four men in his second expedition. His success earned him further promotion and another audience with King George. Cook also received a sinure at the Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich where he prepared his journals for publication while he was also elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in March 1776. He was nevertheless keen to return to sea.
A third voyage followed almost immediately. Cook's primary mission in his final voyage was to search for the Northwest Passage, the route over Canada and Alaska between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which English mariners had been searching for unsuccessfully since the 16th century. Cook continued to command the resolution but was unaware that it was poorly refitted owing to corruption at the Deepford dockyard. He welcomed back John Gore as his first left tenant while his second lieutenant James King was a gifted intellectual recommended by Paliser. The resolution's master William Bllye would later achieve notoriety as the captain of HMS Bounty on which the famous mutiny
occurred. Meanwhile, Charles Clark was to command HMS Discovery, the second ship on the expedition. Owing to his troubles with Banks and Forester, Cook refused to take any professional scientists, and the caliber of his crew was also much lower. The 48-year-old Cook was also in poorer physical and mental health than during his previous expeditions. In June 1776, he bid farewell to his wife Elizabeth for the last time. After leaving Plymouth on the 12th of July, he discovered that the ship was leaking. Nevertheless, Cook pushed on and arrived at the Cape in October for repairs. The discovery arrived 3 weeks later and also put in for serious repairs. After passing the Prince Edward Islands at
Christmas, Cook reached the Kerelin Archipelago, a chain of islands in the South Sea between southern Africa and Australia, named after the French navigator who had found them in 1772. Having replenished the ship's ladder with the fauna on Grant Ter, the main island, Cook surveyed the island before leaving for New Zealand. After a brief stop in Tasmania in late January 1777, Cook continued to Queen Charlotte Sound. While the men who had previously sailed on the adventure expected Cook to avenge their shipmates lost on the earlier voyage, Cook assured the Maris that he had come in peace. Cook's entourage included Omi, a young Polynesian who had
joined the adventure from the island of Rayata and was now heading home after achieving celebrity status in England. As tensions simmered below the surface, the Maries were astonished by the horses, cattle, sheep, and goats the Cook had brought from England and the Cape with the intention of introducing them to New Zealand. As the men of the discovery complained that Cook was treating the Mauies better than Englishmen, Cook left New Zealand and made slow progress towards the Society Islands. In May, he stopped for supplies at the Tongan island of Numuka, where he entertained Fau, the chief of the island of Au on board the resolution. F now then persuaded the Europeans to anchor at the island of
Leifuka where he and the local chiefs presented Cook and Omi with a large supply of food. However, relations deteriorated when Clark punished the son of a Tongan chief for attempting to steal a cat from the discovery. Fenau then secretly conspired with the islanders to attack the Europeans, but they lost courage and took no action. As Feno subtly encouraged Cook to depart, the high chief Po Lahu befriended Cook and led the two ships to Tongatapu. The Europeans remained on the island for a month and the initial goodwill gradually dissipated as the Tongans continued to steal from the Europeans and Cook mercilessly fgged his men for their disproportionate response. Shortly before his departure on the 17th of July, Pauo invited Cook to participate
in a religious ceremony during which the latter unwittingly broke several local customs. The word taboo would subsequently enter into the English language as a way of describing the violation of social norms following this event. The term is derived from the Polynesian word tapu to describe sacred prohibitions. Although Cook heard about the islands of Fiji and Samoa from the Tongans, he made straight for Tahiti. He arrived at Vitaph Bay in mid August and learned that the young Vehiatua had died and was succeeded by a 13-year-old brother of the same name. 10 days later, Cook led his men to Matavai Bay, where he entertained two and his family on board the resolution. Cook hoped to leave Omi with Tu, but the young man insulted the
chief's family by refusing to marry Tu's younger sister because he did not find her attractive. Meanwhile, Tahiti had been at war with Mura with little success and to offer asked Cook to join a renewed assault. Cook declined but was granted permission to observe a religious ceremony that involved human sacrifice and subsequently registered his disgust with to offer. Meanwhile, Tu's reluctance to back up to Offer provoked resentment against the former, forcing Cook to come to Tu's defense. After two made peace with Mura, Cook left a supply of livestock for the Tahesians and visited Mura. Following a dispute with its chief over a stolen goat, Cook launched a punitive expedition. All of this was deeply unsatisfactory.
On his third voyage, Cook was basically being pulled into local squables across Polynesia and achieving little while also struggling to maintain discipline amongst his own men. In December 1777, 10 months behind schedule, Cook finally sailed north to seek the Northwest Passage. On Christmas Eve, Cook cited the large inhabited island of Kirit Mati, which he called Christmas Island. In January 1778, he made his discovery of the Hawaiian Islands, the inhabitants of which were related to the Polynesians. Cook did not linger for long and resumed his northern course to latitude 45 before heading east. He appeared off the coast of present-day Oregon on the 7th of March 1778.
Interestingly, on the other side of the continent, the Patriots were at war with the British crown to establish the United States. By the end of the month, Cook arrived at Nutka Sound on Vancouver Island, later named after the naval officer George Vancouver, who was then a midshipman on the Discovery, but who led a famous voyage to the Pacific Northwest in the early 1790s. While repairing their ships, the men eagerly exchanged iron and brass for prized furs. The shoddy work of the Deepford dockyard struggled to hold up as Cook sailed north into the Gulf of Alaska in May. He struggled to make sense of the accounts of Ghart Fonmula and Jakob Fonstalin, a pair of German scholars who had written about Vitus Bearing's voyages in the northern
Pacific back in the 1720s and 1730s. As he followed the Alaska coast, Cook scouted several inlets, including one that would later bear his name. The spot he anchored the resolution in was named Anchor Point and later became the site of the city of Anchorage. Cook spent 10 days exploring the two rivers that branched out from the inlet, but failed to conclusively prove it was a dead end. By late June, Cook reached the Illusions, a vast chain of islands extending from Alaska towards Russia. He gathered intelligence about the Russian presence here from the local Inouit people. Then in August, Cook finally sailed through the Bearing Strait and
reached a latitude of 70° north, where he encountered thick ice that prevented him from achieving his ambitions of sailing home via the long sought after Northwest Passage. He consoled himself by making surveys of the Siberian and Alaskan coastlines. Cook then befriended a group of Russian fur traders on the island of Unlaska who invited him to spend the winter at Petro Pavlovsk in Kamchchatka, but he opted instead to sail south towards a fatal rendevous in Hawaii. On the 17th of January 1779, Cook's expedition landed at Kaakua Bay in the Hawaiian Islands. Having heard the tale of Cook's arrival at Kawawaii almost exactly a year earlier, the Hawaiians honored him as Lono, a local deity of fertility and agriculture.
However, on this second visit, some of Ko's crew began abusing the natives hospitality. In early February, the chief Khalani Oppo urged Cook to set sail, hoping to be rid of the Europeans. The navigator did so, but he was forced to return to Kakura Bay when his mast was damaged in a storm. Kalani Oppo, whose people used very different kinds of ships, struggled to understand why Cook had returned and feared that he now meant to stay and try to rule over his people. Tensions escalated and on the 14th of February 1779, Cook attempted to abduct the chief to gain leverage over the Hawaiians. In the ensuing clash, the islanders fought back and killed Cook and several of his crew.
Cook's body was then dismembered and parts of it were distributed amongst the Hawaiian chiefs. Although this struck Cook's fellow mariners as an act of savagery, it was actually a sign of respect for an esteemed slain adversary amongst the natives. Cook's demise highlights the tensions between scientific discovery and colonialism in the European voyages of exploration. After his death at the hands of the Hawaiians at the age of 50, Cook's remains were eventually recovered by his deputy Charles Clark, who gave them a dignified burial at sea. Cook's explorations came to a violent end in 1779, but his voyages of exploration and the discoveries he made impacted on world history down to the present day. His
legacy is easily found on the world map with the Cook Strait separating the north and south islands of New Zealand. The Cook Islands in Polynia and the Cook Inlet in Alaska all named after him. As a young man, James Cook can hardly have imagined that he would embark on anything like his three voyages of discovery between 1768 and 1779. He hailed from a very humble family in northern England and the cooks had no real connections to the sea. However, this was an era in which Britain was rapidly emerging onto the world stage as the globe's greatest naval and trading power. A life at sea was a good potential career for many English teenagers from modest backgrounds like Cook, and it is the one he chose to pursue. His talent as a mariner enabled
him to rise from obscurity in the 1750s. During the 7 years war, he was instrumental in Britain's victory over the French in Canada and he came to the attention of the Royal Navy as a skilled surveyor. During his first two voyages, he circumnavigated New Zealand, charted the east coast of Australia, disproved the notion of a great southern continent, and put Vanuatu and New Calonia on the map. Despite the problems associated with his third and final voyage, he put Hawaii on the map in the minds of Europeans, encouraging renewed interest in the Pacific from France, Spain, and Russia. He even voyaged as far north as the bearing straits and charted the coasts of Alaska and Kamchatka.
Cook was also a key figure in the early exploration of the Antarctic Circle. Yet, while Cook's expeditions expanded European knowledge of the world in a way which was only rivaled by the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Muelan between the 1490s and 1520s, they were not without controversy. notably his interactions with the Polynesians and other indigenous peoples. Although Cook himself was reluctant to use lethal force until his last voyage, his men showed less restraint. Ultimately, his voyages opened up a centurylong period in which Britain and France began colonizing Australia, New Zealand, and the many island chains of the South Pacific.
What do you think of Captain Cook? Was he a great explorer who made a major contribution to our understanding of the world? Or did he open the door to the exploitation and colonization of Australia, New Zealand, and the many islands of the South Pacific Ocean? Please let us know in the comments section. And in the meantime, thank you very much for watching.
