Captain James Cook
1728 - 1779
 

Captain James Cook FRS RN was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer. Ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy, Cook was the first to map Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia, the European discovery of the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

After service in the British merchant navy as a teenager, Cook joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This allowed General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham, and helped to bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This notice came at a crucial moment both in his personal career and in the direction of British overseas discovery, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.

Cook accurately charted many areas and recorded several islands and coastlines on Europeans' maps for the first time. His achievements can be attributed to a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, courage in exploring dangerous locations to confirm the facts (for example dipping into the Antarctic circle repeatedly and exploring around the Great Barrier Reef), an ability to lead men in adverse conditions, and boldness both with regard to the extent of his explorations and his willingness to exceed the instructions given to him by the Admiralty.

Cook died in Hawaii in a fight with Hawaiians during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779.


Early life

Cook was born in relatively humble circumstances in the village of Marton in North Yorkshire, today a suburb belonging to the town of Middlesbrough. He was baptised in the local church of St. Cuthberts where today his name can be seen in the church register. Cook was one of five children of James Cook, a Scottish farm labourer, and his locally-born wife Grace. As a child, Cook moved with his family to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton, where he was educated at the local school (now a museum), his studies financed by his father's employer. At 13 he began work with his father, who managed the farm. Cook's Cottage, his parent's last home and which he may have visited, is now in Melbourne having been moved brick by brick from England.

In 1745, when he was 16, Cook left home to be apprenticed in a grocery/haberdashery in the fishing village of Staithes. According to legend, Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window.

After a year and a half in Staithes, William Sanderson, the shop's owner, found Cook unsuited to the trade. Sanderson took Cook to the nearby port town of Whitby and introduced him to John and Henry Walker. The Walkers were prominent local ship-owners and Quakers, and were in the coal trade. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their small fleet of vessels plying coal along the English coast. His first assignment was aboard the collier Freelove, and he spent several years on this and various other coasters sailing between the Tyne and London.

For this new apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation, astronomy, skills he would need one day to command his own ship.

His three-year apprenticeship completed, Cook began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea. He soon progressed through the merchant navy ranks, starting with his 1752 promotion to Mate (officer in charge of navigation) aboard the collier brig Friendship. In 1755 he was offered command of this vessel, but within the month he volunteered for service in the British Royal Navy.

In 1755, the Kingdom of Great Britain was re-arming for what was to become the Seven Years' War. Cook saw that his career could advance more quickly in military service. However, this required starting again in the naval hierarchy, and on June 17 he began as able seaman aboard HMS Eagle under the command of Captain Hugh Palliser. He was very quickly promoted to Master's Mate. By 1757, within two years of joining the Royal Navy, he passed his master's examination qualifying him to navigate and handle a ship of the King's fleet.


Family life

Cook married Elizabeth Batts (1742-1835), the daughter of Samuel Batts, keeper of the Bell Inn, Wapping and one of his mentors, on December 21, 1762 at St. Margaret's Church, Barking, Essex. The couple had six children: James (1763-1794), Nathaniel (1764-1781), Elizabeth (1767-1771), Joseph (1768-1768), George (1772-1772) and Hugh (1776-1793). When not at sea, Cook lived in the East End of London. He attended St. Paul's Church, Shadwell, where his son James was baptised.

During the Seven Years' War, as master of Pembroke (his second command, after Solebay), Cook participated in the siege of Quebec City before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. He showed a talent for surveying and cartography and was responsible for mapping much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege, allowing General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham.

Cook's surveying skills were put to good use in the 1760s, mapping the jagged coast of Newfoundland. Cook surveyed the northwest stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767. Cook’s five seasons in Newfoundland produced the first large-scale and accurate maps of the island’s coasts; they also gave Cook his mastery of practical surveying, achieved under often adverse conditions, and brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society at a crucial moment both in his personal career and in the direction of British overseas discovery.

In 1766, the Royal Society hired Cook to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. He sailed from England in 1768, rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across the Pacific to arrive at Tahiti on April 13 1769, where the observations were to be made. However, the result of the observations were not as conclusive or accurate as had been hoped. Cook later mapped the complete New Zealand coastline, making only some minor errors. He then sailed west, reaching the south-eastern coast of the Australian continent on 19 April 1770, and in doing so his expedition became the first recorded Europeans to have encountered its eastern coastline. On 23 April he made his first recorded contact with aboriginals at Brush Island near Bawley Point, noting in his journal "four or five ... Indians ... naked and very black". On April 29 Cook and crew made their first landfall on the mainland of the continent at a place now known as Kurnell, which he named Botany Bay after the unique specimens retrieved by the botanists Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander and Herman Spöring. He continued northwards, and a mishap occurred when Endeavour ran aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef, on June 11. The ship was seriously damaged and his voyage was delayed almost seven weeks while repairs were carried out on the beach (near the docks of modern Cooktown, at the mouth of the Endeavour River). Once repairs were complete the voyage continued, sailing through Torres Strait and on 22 August he landed on Possession Island, where he claimed the entire coastline he had just explored. He returned to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena, arriving on 12 July, 1771.


Interlude

Cook's journals were published upon his return, and he became something of a hero among the scientific community. Among the general public, however, the aristocratic botanist Joseph Banks was a bigger hero. Banks even attempted to take command of Cook's second voyage, but removed himself from the voyage before it began, and Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg Forster were taken on as scientists for the voyage.

Shortly after his return, Cook was promoted from Master to Commander. Then once again he was commissioned by the Royal Society to search for the mythical Terra Australis. On his first voyage, Cook had demonstrated by circumnavigating New Zealand that it was not attached to a larger landmass to the south; and although by charting almost the entire eastern coastline of Australia he had shown it to be continental in size, the Terra Australis being sought was supposed to lie further to the south. Despite this evidence to the contrary Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that this massive southern continent should exist.

Cook commanded HMS Resolution on this voyage, while Tobias Furneaux commanded its companion ship, HMS Adventure. Cook's expedition circumnavigated the globe at a very high southern latitude, becoming one of the first to cross the Antarctic Circle on January 17, 1773, reaching 71°10' south. He also surveyed, mapped and took possession for Britain of South Georgia discovered by Anthony de la Roché in 1675, and discovered the South Sandwich Islands. In the Antarctic fog, Resolution and Adventure became separated. Furneaux made his way to New Zealand, where he lost some of his men following a fight with Maori, and eventually sailed back to Britain, while Cook continued to explore the Antarctic.

Cook almost discovered the mainland of Antarctica, but turned back north towards Tahiti to resupply his ship. He then resumed his southward course in a second fruitless attempt to find the supposed continent. On this leg of the voyage he brought with him a young Tahitian named Omai, who proved to be somewhat less knowledgeable about the Pacific than Tupaia had been on the first voyage. On his return voyage, in 1774 he landed at the Friendly Islands, Easter Island, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia and Vanuatu. His reports upon his return home put to rest the popular myth of Terra Australis.

Another accomplishment of the second voyage was the successful employment of the Larcum Kendall K1 chronometer, which enabled Cook to calculate his longitudinal position with much greater accuracy. Cook's log was full of praise for the watch and the charts of the southern Pacific Ocean he made with its use were remarkably accurate - so much so that copies of them were still in use in the mid 20th century.

Upon his return, Cook was promoted to the rank of Captain and given an honorary retirement from the Royal Navy, as an officer in the Greenwich Hospital. His fame now extended beyond the Admiralty and he was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded the Copley Gold Medal, painted by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, dined with James Boswell and described in the House of Lords as "the first navigator in Europe". But he could not be kept away from the sea. A third voyage was planned to find the Northwest Passage. Cook travelled to the Pacific and hoped to travel east to the Atlantic, while a simultaneous voyage travelled the opposite way.


Third voyage (1776–79)

On his last voyage, Cook once again commanded HMS Resolution, while Captain Charles Clerke commanded HMS Discovery. Ostensibly the voyage was planned to return Omai to Tahiti; this is what the general public believed, as he had become a favourite curiosity in London. Principally the purpose of the voyage was an attempt to discover the famed Northwest Passage. After returning Omai, Cook travelled north and in returning from forrays on the Alaskan coast (see below) in 1778 became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands. In passing and after initial landfall in January 1778 at Waimea harbour, Kauai, Cook named the archipelago the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich, the acting First Lord of the Admiralty.

From the South Pacific he travelled north east to explore the west coast of North America, landing near the First Nations village at Yuquot in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, although he unknowingly sailed past the Strait of Juan de Fuca. He explored and mapped the coast from California all the way to the Bering Strait, on the way identifying what came to be known as Cook Inlet in Alaska. It has been said that, in a single visit, Cook charted the majority of the North American North West coastline on world maps for the first time, determined the extent of Alaska and closed the gaps of Russian (from the West) and Spanish (from the South) exploratory probes of the Northern limits of the Pacific.

The Bering Strait proved to be impassable, although he made several attempts to sail through it. He became increasingly frustrated on this voyage, and perhaps began to suffer from a stomach ailment; it is speculated that this led to irrational behaviour towards his crew, such as forcing them to eat walrus meat, which they found inedible. (It has also been suggested that Cook had been exhibiting irrational behavior since early in the voyage).

Cook returned to Hawaii in 1779. After sailing around the archipelago for some eight weeks, he made landfall at Kealakekua Bay, on what is now the 'Big Island' of Hawaii. There is some discussion by recent historians that Cook's arrival coincided by quirk of fate with a season of worship for the Polynesian god Lono, (Makahiki). Indeed the form of Cook's ship HMS Resolution (more particularly the mast formation, sails and rigging) resembled certain significant artifacts that formed part of the season of worship. Similarly, Cook's clockwise route around the islands before making landfall resembled the processions that took place in a clockwise direction around the island during the Lono festivals. For these reasons the arrival, it is thought, led to Cook's (and to a limited extent, his crew's) initial deification by the natives, who treated him with great reverence as possibly an incarnation of Lono himself. This interpretation of the natives' reaction, though, has been called into question.

After a month's stay, Cook got under sail again to resume his exploration of the Northern Pacific. However, shortly after leaving the Big Island, the foremast on the Resolution broke requiring the ships' return to Kealakekua Bay for repairs. The return to the islands by Cook's expedition was unexpected on the part of the Hawaiians and as the season of Lono had recently ended, tensions rose and a number of quarrels broke out between the two camps. On February 14 at Kealakekua Bay, some Hawaiians stole one of Cook's small boats. Normally, as thefts were quite common in Tahiti and the other islands, Cook would have taken hostages until the stolen articles were returned. Indeed, he planned to take hostage the Chief of Hawaii, Kalaniopu'u. However, his stomach ailment and increasingly irrational behaviour led to an altercation with a large crowd of Hawaiians gathered on the beach when he went ashore to retrieve the goods. The villagers, angered by his strict insistence on getting back a pair of tongs, and hearing that another British search party had killed one of their chiefs, began to attack with spears and stones. In the ensuing skirmish, shots were fired at the Hawaiians but their woven war shields protected them, and Cook's men had to retreat to the beach. As Cook turned his back to help launch the boats, he was struck on the head by the villagers and then stabbed to death as he fell on his face in the surf. The Hawaiians dragged his body away. Four of the Marines with Cook were also killed and two wounded in the confrontation.

It has been suggested by some commentators that Cook's return to Hawaii outside the season of worship for Lono, which was synonymous with 'peace', and thus in the season of 'war' (being dedicated to Ku, god of war) may have upset the equilibrium and fostered an atmosphere of resentment and aggression from the local population. Coupled with a jaded grasp of native diplomacy and a burgeoning but limited understanding of local politics, Cook may have inadvertently contributed to the tensions that ultimately conspired in his demise. However, as noted above, the theory linking Cook and Lono has been questioned by historians.

The esteem in which he was nevertheless held by the natives resulted in his body being retained by their chiefs and elders (possibly, as some claim, for partial human consumption, though this remains contentious) and the flesh cut and roasted from his bones. Some of Cook's remains, disclosing some corroborating evidence to this effect, were eventually returned to the British for a formal burial at sea following an appeal by the crew.

Clerke took over the expedition and made a final attempt to pass through the Bering Strait. Resolution and Discovery returned home in 1780. Cook's account of his voyage was completed by Captain James King.


Cook's protégés

Cook's 12 years sailing around the Pacific Ocean contributed much to European knowledge of the area. Several islands such as Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) were encountered for the first time by Europeans, and his more accurate navigational charting of large areas of the Pacific was a major achievement.

To create accurate maps, latitude and longitude need to be known. Navigators had been able to work out latitude accurately for centuries by measuring the angle of the sun or a star above the horizon with a sextant. But longitude was more difficult to measure accurately because it requires precise knowledge of the time difference between points on the surface of the earth. Earth turns a full 360 degrees relative to the sun each day. Thus longitude corresponds to time: 15 degrees every hour, or 1 degree every 4 minutes.

Cook gathered accurate longitude measurements during his first voyage due to his navigational skills, the help of astronomer Charles Green and by using the newly published Nautical Almanac tables, via the lunar distance method — measuring the angular distance from the moon to either the sun during daytime or one of eight bright stars during nighttime to determine the time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and comparing that to his local time determined via the altitude of the sun, moon, or stars. On his second voyage Cook used the K1 chronometer made by Larcum Kendall, which was the shape of a large pocket watch, 13 cm (5 inches) in diameter. It was a copy of the H4 clock made by John Harrison, which proved to be the first to keep accurate time at sea when used on the ship Deptford's journey to Jamaica, 1761-1762.

There were several artists on the first voyage. Sydney Parkinson was involved in many of the drawings, completing 264 drawings before his death near the end of the voyage. They were of immense scientific value to British botanists. Cook's second expedition included the artist William Hodges, who produced notable landscape paintings of Tahiti, Easter Island, and other locations.

Cook was accompanied by many scientists, whose observations and discoveries added to the importance of the voyages. Joseph Banks, a botanist, went on the first voyage along with fellow botanist Daniel Solander from Sweden. Between them they collected over 3,000 plant species. Banks became one of the strongest promoters of the settlement of Australia by the British, based on his own personal observations.

Ever the observer, Cook was the first European to have extensive contact with various people of the Pacific. He sailed to many islands near the Philippines and even to smaller, more remote islands in the South Pacific. He correctly concluded there was a relationship among all the people in the Pacific, despite their being separated by thousands of miles of ocean (see Malayo-Polynesian languages). In New Zealand the coming of Cook is often used to signify the onset of colonisation.

The first tertiary education institution in North Queensland, Australia was named after him, with James Cook University opening in Townsville in 1970. Numerous other institutions, landmarks and place names reflect the importance of Cook's contribution to knowledge of geography.

The site where he was killed in Hawaii is marked by a white obelisk and is chained off. It is about 25 feet-square in area. This land, though in Hawaii, has been given to the United Kingdom. Therefore, the site is officially a part of the UK. With the jurisdictions reversed exactly the same sort of situation exists at Runnymede where the U.S. has extraterritorial jurisdiction over a monument to John F. Kennedy.

Cook appeared on a United States coin, the 1928 Hawaiian Sesquicentennial half dollar. Minted during the celebration marking the 150th anniversary of his discovery of the islands, its low mintage (10,008) has made this example of Early United States commemorative coins both scarce and expensive.

Tributes also abound in post-industrial Middlesbrough, England, and include a primary school, shopping square and Claes Oldenburg public artwork, the Bottle 'O Notes, while the James Cook University Hospital, a teaching hospital in Marton, was also named after him. Marton is also the location of the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum. The Royal Research Ship RRS James Cook was built in 2006 to replace the RRS Charles Darwin in the UK's Royal Research Fleet.

His contributions were recognized during his era. In 1779, when the American colonies were at war with Britain in their war for independence, Benjamin Franklin wrote to captains of American warships at sea, recommending that if they came into contact with Cook's vessel, to:

“...not consider her an enemy, nor suffer any plunder to be made of the effects contained in her, nor obstruct her immediate return to England by detaining her or sending her into any other part of Europe or to America; but that you treat the said Captain Cook and his people with all civility and kindness, . . . as common friends to mankind."

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