Captain James Cook’s Remarkable First Voyage
Few expeditions have left such an enduring legacy
Few have a legacy as expansive as that of Captain James Cook. He can count amongst it the mapping of New Zealand and Australia’s east coast — and, by consequence, the modern nation today. He even has the honour of being the namesake of an island country, the Cook Islands.
That only hints at some of what Cook accomplished during his seafaring career. His contributions to exploration and cartography are priceless.
James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 in the Yorkshire hamlet of Marton. He attended school for five years, before working for his father, who was a farm manager at the time. Despite Cook’s lack of education, he developed a strong capability in mathematics, astronomy and chartering. He married Elizabeth Batts on 21 December 1762 and the couple had six children, none of whom lived to old age. Only Mrs Batts would live a long life — spanning 93 years — and she spent the last 43 years as a widow.
Cook moved to Staithes, a fishing village, at the age of sixteen to work as an apprentice. Here, he would’ve been able to gaze at the seemingly endless sea which he would later criss-cross on his voyages. He moved again after 18 months to become an apprentice in the Merchant Navy, later working on the Baltic Sea. He undertook studying at the same time, gaining valuable skills that would serve him well. He was well on the way to finding his calling.
That calling came when royal approval was granted for a voyage to observe the 1769 transit of Venus in front of the sun to allow for the measurement of the distance of the sun from Earth. A second, confidential mission of the voyage was to discover the theorised southern continent, known by the Latin phrase Terra Australis (South Land).
Cook departed Plymouth at the helm of the HMS Endeavour on 26 August 1768 with 94 persons and with provisions adequate for 18 months. The ship anchored briefly in Madeira before mooring in Rio de Janeiro from 15 November to 2 December and travelling beneath Cape Horn, arriving at Tahiti on 13 April 1769 to observe the transit of Venus on 3 June. Cook opted to explore the nearby islands with the help of a local navigator by the name of Tupaia, naming the Society Islands on 20 July. These form part of French Polynesia.
The Endeavour reached New Zealand on 6 October 1769, landing on shore the following day. Initial encounters with the Maori population led to hostilities resulting in deaths of 4–5 Maoris, with three more being killed on 15 October. Cook expressed regret over these deaths in his journal and was under instructions to ensure any interactions with natives encountered were peaceful. Most subsequent interactions with Maori were friendly, though one was killed in a confrontation following a trading dispute.
Cook put his cartography skills to good use in charting the coastline of New Zealand, producing an accurate and detailed map thereof.
He subsequently intended to head for Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), but wind conditions prevented him from sailing a direct course to it. The Australian mainland was sighted at 6am on 19 April 1770 (nautical time) by Lieutenant Zachary Hicks. The area sighted was named Point Hicks by Lieutenant Cook, after the man who spotted it. Cook theorised that the landmass sighted was not connected to Van Diemen’s Land, and in this regard was correct.
He travelled north for a week, charting the coastline as he went. On 29 April, the Endeavour landed at Botany Bay, which is today in the sprawling metropolitan area of Sydney. It was here that first contact with Australia’s Aboriginals was established. Gifts were offered to two individuals who had approached Cook and his men and were subsequently rejected.
A brief hostile confrontation occurred between Cook & his men and the afore-mentioned Aboriginals, which Cook described in his journal:
“…they again came to oppose us upon which I fired a musket between the two which had no other effect than to make them retire back where bundles of thier darts lay and one of them took up a stone and threw at us which caused my fireing a second Musquet load with small shott and altho’ some of the shott struck the man yet it had no other effect than to make him lay hold of a Shield or target to defend himself emmediatly after this we landed which we had no sooner done than they throw’d two darts at us this obliged me to fire a third shott soon after which they both made off…”
He subsequently found some Aboriginal children in huts, leaving them strings of beads.
Cook first named the bay Stingrays Harbour, then Botanist Bay and finally Botany Bay. The name reflects the unique botanic specimens retrieved there.
The expedition left Botany Bay on 6 May, subsequently sailing past and naming Port Jackson. This is Sydney’s main harbour.
A stop was made at Bustard Bay on 23 May. The town on this location is today known as Seventeen Seventy, reflecting the year that Cook made his landing there. An annual reenactment of Cook’s landing takes place here.
After leaving Bustard Bay, on 11 June, the Endeavour ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef and spent seven weeks being repaired. During this time, the crew interacted with the local Aboriginal population. Interactions were largely peaceful, though a dispute over turtles resulted in shots being fired and one Aboriginal being slightly injured. It was also here that the word “kangaroo” was first recorded.
As Cook headed up and over the Australian mainland, he confirmed Australia and New Guinea were separate. On his homeward journey, he stopped at Savu, then Batavia (Jakarta). It was here that the Tahitian navigator Tupaia, who had helped Cook communicate with the Maoris, died of disease, as did several others among the crew. Cook subsequently Passed under the Cape of Good Hope, before calling at Saint Helena. England was sighted 10 July 1771 by Nicholas Young, who had also sighted New Zealand earlier on the voyage.
By the time the Endeavour returned on 12 July 1771, fears had permeated that the ship had foundered or met its demise at the hands of the French. That such fears rose is understandable. It had indeed been a long time since the expedition left — almost three years. In that time, Cook and his crew had sewn the seeds of a remarkable legacy.
He would go on to conduct two more voyages. The spirit which made him persist throughout his remarkable career is perhaps best summarised in his own words:
“Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go.”
Cook literally and figuratively put Australia and New Zealand on the map. In doing so, and in his other achievements both on his first voyage and those that followed, he contributed to a more holistic understanding of the world and added far more than most to the vast expanse of human knowledge.
Surely, in that spirit of ingenuity and persistence, there is much to learn and take example from.
