LECTURE - Captain Cook in the Pacific

One of the greatest explorers ever, in particular. in the South Pacific. Many places in the Pacific are named after him including the Cook Islands (where we will be tomorrow). In the 18th Century, he led 3 voyages to the Pacific over a decade and kept detailed journals about his experiences which includes a lot of his map making details and wind/ship speeds, etc. (it is better to read “The Wide Wide Sea” as well as other books written about him). Born in 1728 in Scotland to a poor family, he fell in love with the sea and joined the Merchant Navy and worked at transporting coal for England. Cook was self-taught about navigation and sailing and decided to join the Royal Navy and work his way up to be a skilled cartographer (mapping) and sailor.

It was a time of Scientific Enlightenment and focus on areas of science and in 1769 King George funded a trip whose purpose was to “time the Venus” transit across the sun from the time it blocked the sun from Earth to help in the measurement of the distance of Earth to the Sun (it only happens twice in 8 years, this was the second time and then not for another 122 years). Note: Two observations at far-apart locations on Earth were timed how long it took Venus to cross the Sun. Because of their different vantage points, the difference in those paths (the "parallax shift") allowed them to calculate the precise angle between the two observers and Venus. Using that angle and the known distance between the observers on Earth, they calculate the absolute distance to Venus and to determine the distance to the Sun. Cook commanded this voyage, The Endeavor, and brought Joseph Bank, the Botanist, as they discover Tahiti. On 6/3/1769 they mapped the “transit of Venus” and their calculation was that the Earth to Sun is 95 million miles (in actuality it is 93, only a 2% error).

Cook had a second set of “sealed orders” which he opened later on this voyage. He made his way back to Tahiti to find the “mystery continent” at 40 degrees South in order to discover, map and to claim it for Great Britian. "Terra Australis Cognita" ("Unknown Southern Land). They did not find a new Continent but some ice (it was the corner of Antarctica).

He decides to go back to England by going West (the direction we are going) and although New Zealand had been previously discovered, in 1770 he was the first to actually be allowed on and to map it as he landed at Botany Bay. Tupaia, a high-ranking Polynesian navigator and arioi priest from Ra'iatea, (we were there) served as a guide, interpreter, and mapmaker for James Cook and made peace with the natives. He found Australia (but not Sydney because it’s a hidden harbor). He found the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, which he unfortunately hit and then he ends up in North Australia at what we now call, Cooks landing. He meets aborigine natives for the first time and writes about it in detail, and then sadly on the way home arrives in SE Asia (currently Jakarta) where he loses many men to disease. On this trip he had mapped 130 Islands (see map which he did not create to scale) with the help of the Tahiti natives (see the book Endeavour). There is a replica of his ship at the Maritime Museum in Sydney.

Cook’s second voyage was with 2 ships, the Resolution and Endeavor, and was given a mission to go back to the Pacific and go South and confirm there was no other Continent to find. He visited Tahiti, Tonga, and the Marquéses Islands on the way. A funny side story was that the Tongians were very nice which is why they are still called The Friendly Islands, but actually they were friendly and feeding them too because they were being and fattened up to be EATEN. Cannibalism is common there and just luckily Cook and his people snuck off the Island early without being eaten. Then they went to 67 degrees South but still could not find another Continent. Sadly, he does lose 10 men to Cannibalism on way back. Back in England Cook is promoted to Commander.

On Cooks third (last) voyage, he is sent to find the NW Passage from Atlantic to Pacific up North., where he runs into Hawaii., Kona, on the Big Island and the Sandwich Islands. He finds that the Polynesians here are interestingly just like the ones in Tahiti. While some interactions were friendly (they thought he was a god), others were not when he comes back after visiting the NW passage as much as he could while it was still too filled with ice (his plan was to wait for Spring in Hawaii) and when he personally goes back to confront them and to get the boat back and the Hawaiians kill him in 1779. The crew doesn’t go back to NW without him and return to England. Cook left his wife and 6 kids back in England, and sadly all died before they were young and thus there are no descendants. As a postscript, to some people he represents Colonialism and taking over Australia, so they do not honor him, while most people do and celebrate him for what he and England brought to the region.Baca selengkapnya