voyages james cook

Cook's First Voyage

First voyage of captain james cook.

(1768 - 1771)

James Cook’s first voyage circumnavigated the globe in the ship Endeavour , giving the botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander the opportunity to collect plants from previously unexplored habitats. Although the Endeavour voyage was officially a journey to Tahiti to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun, it also had a more clandestine mission from the Royal Society to explore the South Pacific in the name of England. The two botanists on the expedition returned with a collection of plant specimens including an estimated 100 new families and 1,000 new species of plants, many of which are currently housed in the U. S. National Herbarium.

Joseph Banks, who would later become Sir Joseph Banks and president of the Royal Society, was a wealthy young scientist. He invited his close friend Daniel Solander, a Swedish student of Linnaeus working in the natural history collections of the British Museum, to join him on the Endeavour expedition. Together they acted as the naturalists on the voyage, commanding several servants and artists, including Sydney Parkinson, and outfitted with an excellent array of scientific equipment. After setting out from London, the expedition stopped briefly at Madeira, a small Portuguese island in the Atlantic Ocean, and then continued on to Rio de Janiero, on the eastern coast of Brazil. Here, the expedition encountered one of its first major setbacks when the Portuguese governor Dom Antonio Rolim de Moura Tavare refused to allow anyone from the Endeavour to come on land except to acquire necessities. This restriction, however, didn’t stop the two determined botanists. Banks and Solander risked being arrested as spies or smugglers in order to sneak onshore to collect specimens around the city. Despite this difficulty, the expedition traveled on to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America, where they collected a large number of specimens despite bitterly cold weather that killed two members of the crew. In April of 1769, the expedition reached Tahiti, where they stayed until July. During this time, Banks and Solander collected over 250 plant species, including the orchids Liparis revoluta and Oberonia equitans (also known as Oberonia disticha ) and the flowering plant Ophiorrhiza solandri , in the first extensive botanical study in Polynesia.

After viewing the transit of Venus on June 3, 1769, the expedition began mapping, exploring, and collecting specimens in the relatively unknown regions of New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia (then called New Holland). Plants collected included the large orchid Dendrobium cunninghamii , also known as Winika cunninghamii , native to the western shore of New Zealand, as well as white-honeysuckle ( Banksia integrifolia ), native to the east coast of Australia. The Endeavour stopped for nine days at a bay on the coast of Australia, where, according to Banks, the expedition’s plant collection became “so immensely large that it was necessary that some extraordinary care should be taken of them least they should spoil.” The botanists were so successful that Cook decided to name the place Botany Bay in honor of their extensive discoveries.

The Endeavour continued its voyage mapping the eastern coast of Australia, narrowly avoiding shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef, until it re-entered known waters near New Guinea in late August, 1770. During the last part of the voyage, the Endeavour stopped at the disease-ridden city of Batavia in Java and at the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, returning to England in July, 1771. Overall, the expedition was very successful, with little strife among the crew and no deaths from scurvy. Although neither Banks nor Solander published their botanical findings, the two naturalists returned to England with a vast wealth of new discoveries.

References:

Adams, Brian. The Flowering of the Pacific . Sydney: William Collins Pty, 1986. Allen, Oliver E. The Pacific Navigators . Canada: Time-Life Books, 1980. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) database, http://gbif.org/ (for information on plant species Dendrobium cunninghamii ; accessed June 15, 2010). Ebes, Hank. The Florilegium of Captain Cook’s First Voyage to Australia: 1768-1771 . Melbourne: Ebes Douwma Antique Prints and Maps, 1988. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) database, http://www.eol.org/ (for information on plant species Oberonia disticha and Dendrobium cunninghamii ; accessed June 15, 2010). Merrill, Elmer Drew. The Botany of Cook’s Voyages and its Unexpected Significance in Relation to Anthropology, Biogeography and History . Waltham, Massachusetts: Chronica Botanica Co., 1954. O’Brian, Patrick. Joseph Banks: A Life . Boston: David R. Gardine, Publisher, 1993. Rauchenberg, Roy A. “Daniel Carl Solander: Naturalist on the ‘Endeavour’,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society , New Series, 58, no. 8 (1968): 1-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1006027 (May 26, 2010). National Library of Australia. “South Seas: Voyaging and Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Pacific.” South Seas , n.d. http://southseas.nla.gov.au/ . Contains maps and text of expedition journals by James Cook and Joseph Banks. USDA PLANTS database. United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. National Plant Data Center. http://plants.usda.gov/ (for information on plant species Banksia integrifolia ; accessed June 15, 2010).

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British navigator James Cook charted New Zealand and Australia's Great Barrier Reef on his ship HMB Endeavour and later disproved the existence of the fabled southern continent Terra Australis.

(1728-1779)

Who Was James Cook?

James Cook was a naval captain, navigator and explorer who, in 1770, charted New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia on his ship HMB Endeavour. He later disproved the existence of Terra Australis, a fabled southern continent. Cook's voyages helped guide generations of explorers and provided the first accurate map of the Pacific.

Early Life and Career

Cook was born in Marton-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire, England, on October 27, 1728, the son of a Scottish farmhand. As a teenager, Cook did farming work alongside his father until the age of 18 when he was offered an apprenticeship by a Quaker shipowner in a small seaside village near Whitby, England. The experience proved to be fortuitous for the future naval officer and explorer, bringing him in contact with both the ocean and ships along the port.

Naval Officer, Navigator and Explorer

After his return to England, Cook was chosen to circumnavigate and explore Antarctica. On this voyage, he charted present-day Tonga, Easter Island, New Caledonia, the South Sandwich Islands and South Georgia, and disproved the existence of Terra Australis, a fabled southern continent. Cook named the Hawaiian Islands the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich, also known as John Montagu.

Later Years, Death and Legacy

During all his voyages, Cook successfully fought scurvy, a deadly disease caused by vitamin deficiency, by feeding his crew a diet that included watercress, sauerkraut and orange extract. He died in a skirmish with islanders during a winter layover in Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, on February 14, 1779.

Today, Cook's voyages are credited with helping to guide generations of explorers and with providing the first accurate map of the Pacific, and many believe that he did more to fill the map of the world than any other explorer in history.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: James Cook
• Birth Year: 1728
• Birth date: October 27, 1728
• Birth City: Marton-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: British navigator James Cook charted New Zealand and Australia's Great Barrier Reef on his ship HMB Endeavour and later disproved the existence of the fabled southern continent Terra Australis.
• War and Militaries
• Astrological Sign: Scorpio
• Death Year: 1779
• Death date: February 14, 1779
• Death State: Hawaii
• Death City: Kealakekua Bay
• Death Country: United States

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June 3 dawned crystal clear, and for six hours, in temperatures rising to 119°F, the men did the best they could, but their astronomical observations of Venus were hindered by a dusky cloud surrounding the planet. For a week at the end of the month, Cook, with a small party, took the ship’s pinnace and circled the island so that he could chart it, a rather daring feat considering his vulnerability. Before leaving Tahiti on July 13, he had to deal with an attempted desertion by two crewmen and the kidnap and counterkidnap of Tahitian chiefs and British crew members to resolve this escalating problem. At the last moment, he reluctantly agreed to the addition of Tupaia, a young Tahitian priest and interpreter who wanted to join Banks’s party.

Bénard, Robert, fl. 1750–1785 . “Baye de Matavai à Otahiti ; Havre d’Ohamaneno à Ulietea ; Havre d’Owharre dans l’isle d’Huaheine : Havre d’Oopoa à Ulietea.” Four copperplate maps on 1 sheet, with added color, 12 × 15 cm. or smaller, on sheet 27 × 40 cm. From Hawkesworth’s Relation des voyages entrepris par ordre de Sa Majesté Britannique . . . (Paris, 1774) [Historic Maps Collection]. Point Venus in Matavai Bay was the site of Cook’s observation of the transit of Venus in June 1769.

Breadfruit. [Hawkesworth, vol. 2, plate 3]

The bread-fruit grows on a tree that is about the size of a middling oak: its leaves are frequently a foot and a half long, of an oblong shape, deeply sinuated like those of a fig-tree, which they resemble in consistence and colour, and in the exuding of a white milkey juice upon being broken. The fruit is about the size and shape of a child’s head, and the surface is reticulated not much unlike a truffle: it is covered with a thin skin, and has a core about as big as the handle of a thin knife: the eatable part lies between the skin and the core; it is as white as snow, and somewhat of the consistence of new bread: it must be roasted before it is eaten. . . . [vol. 2, p. 80]

Hogg, Alexander, fl. 1778–1819. “Chart of the Society Isles Discovered by Captn. Cook, 1769.” Copperplate map, with added color, 22 × 34 cm. From G. W. Anderson’s A New, Authentic and Complete Collection of Voyages Around the World, Undertaken and Performed by Royal Authority . . . (London, 1784). [Historic Maps Collection]

New Zealander Tattoos. [Hawkesworth, vol. 3, plate 13]

The bodies of both sexes are marked with black stains called Amoco, by the same method that is used at Otaheite, and called Tattowing; but the men are more marked, and the women less. . . . [T]he men, on the contrary, seem to add something every year to the ornaments of the last, so that some of them, who appeared to be of an advanced age, were almost covered from head to foot. Besides the Amoco, the have marks impressed by a method unknown to us, of a very extraordinary kind: they are furrows of about a line deep, and a line broad, such as appear on the bark of a tree which has been cut through . . . and being perfectly black, they make a most frightful appearance. . . . [W]e could not but admire the dexterity and art with which they were impressed. The marks upon the face in general are spirals, which are drawn with great nicety, and even elegance, those on one side exactly corresponding with those on the other. . . . [N]o two were, upon a close examination, found to be alike. [vol. 3, pp. 452–53]

“Carte de la Nle. Zelande visitée en 1769 et 1770 par le Lieutenant J. Cook Commandant de l’Endeavour, vaisseau de sa Majesté.” Copperplate map, with added color, 46 × 36 cm. From John Hawkesworth’s Relation des voyages entrepris par ordre de Sa Majesté Britannique . . . (Paris, 1774). French copy of Cook’s foundation map of New Zealand, showing the track of the Endeavour around both islands, from October 6, 1769, to April 1, 1770. [Historic Maps Collection]

Endeavour came within sight of land on April 19, well north of the area charted by Tasman 125 years earlier. The New Holland (Australia) coast was exasperating, however, and Cook could not find a safe place to land until the afternoon of Saturday, April 28, when they entered Botany Bay (part of today’s Sydney Harbor), which Cook later named for the wide variety of plant life found there. The Aborigines that they saw there were unintelligible to Tupaia and kept away, avoiding contact. Through May and into June, Endeavour sailed north, arcing northwest, following the Great Barrier Reef coastline. On the evening of June 10, when most of the men were sleeping, the ship struck coral, stuck fast, and began leaking. Quick thinking and decisive action by Cook and his men—pumping furiously and jettisoning fifty tons of decayed stores, stone ballast, and cannons—kept the ship afloat and allowed a temporary underwater repair. A few days later, the damaged ship was safely beached on a barren shore (near today’s Cooktown, by the EndeavourRiver), and a fury of activity began more permanent work: the expedition had avoided a real disaster. (Henceforth, the British Admiralty would send Cook out with two ships for safety.) During this time, the men enjoyed more favorable interactions with the natives, but not without miscommunications and incidents of distrust. (See the box on Cook’s ultimately positive views on the New Hollanders.) By August 13, the ship was ready to resume its journey.             The labyrinth of treacherous islands and reefs was threaded slowly and carefully, with vigilance and some luck, as the expedition sailed northward through the Great Barrier Reef, westward around the northernmost point of New Holland, and into what Cook called Endeavour Strait. He stopped briefly at Possession Island (his name) where, now knowing he was in territory explored by the Dutch, he claimed the whole coastline he had just charted for King George III. It was a proud moment, essentially marking the end of Cook’s first Pacific voyage’s geographical discoveries.

Bonne, Rigobert, 1727–1794. “Nlle. Galles Mérid.le [i.e. Nouvelle Galles Méridionale], ou, Côte orientale de la Nouvelle Hollande.” Copperplate map, with added color, 34 × 17 cm. Plate 137 from vol. 2 of R. Bonne and N. Desmarest’s Atlas Encyclopédique . . . (Paris, 1788). [Historic Maps Collection]

Places to note include Botany Bay (B. de Bontanique) around 34°, part of today’s Sydney, highlighted in an inset, and Endeavour River (Riv. Endeavour) at the top, between 15° and 16°, where the ship was repaired. The large inset at the bottom left shows the part of Tasmania explored by Captain Tobias Furneaux of the Adventure during Cook’s second voyage.

Beached Endeavour and Examination of Its Damage. [Hawkesworth, vol. 3, plate 19]

In the morning of Monday the 18th [June 1770], a stage was made from the ship to the shore, which was so bold that she floated at twenty feet distance: two tents were also set up, one for the sick, and the other for stores and provisions, which were landed in the course of the day. We also landed all the empty water casks, and part of the stores. . . . At two o’clock in the morning of the 22d, the tide left her, and gave us an opportunity to examine the leak, which we found to be at her floor heads, a little before the starboard fore-chains. In this place the rocks had made their way through four planks, and even into the timbers; three more planks were much damaged, and the appearances of these breaches was very extraordinary: there was not a splinter to be seen, but all was as smooth, as if the whole had been cut away by an instrument: the timbers in this place were happily very close, and if they had not, it would have been absolutely impossible to have saved the ship. But after all, her preservation depended upon a circumstance still more remarkable: in one of the holes, which was big enough to have sunk us, if we had eight pumps instead of four, and been able to keep them incessantly going, was in great measure plugged up by a fragment of the rock, which, after having made the wound, was left sticking in it. . . . By nine o’clock in the morning the carpenters got to work upon her, while the smiths were busy in making bolts and nails. [vol. 3, pp. 557, 559–60]

Kangaroo. [Hawkesworth, vol. 3, plate 20]

As I was walking this morning at a little distance from the one ship, I saw myself one of the animals which had been so often described: it was of a light mouse colour, and in size and shape very much resembling a greyhound; it had a long tail also, which it carried like a greyhound; and I should have taken it for a wild dog, if instead of running, it had not leapt like a hare or deer: its legs were said to be very slender, and the print of its foot to be like that of a goat. . . . [vol. 3, p. 561]

Natives of New Holland

From what I have said of the Natives of New-Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon Earth, but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans; being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary Conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition: The Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life, they covet not Magnificent Houses, Household-stuff &c., they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholesome Air. . . . In short they seem’d to set no Value upon any thing we gave them, nor would they ever part with any thing of their own for any one article we could offer them; this in my opinion argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life and that they have no superfluities. [ Journals , p. 174]

In Batavia (today’s Jakarta, Indonesia), where Endeavour anchored on October 7, 1770, there was English news! American colonists had refused to pay taxes, and the king had dispatched troops to put down the first signs of a rebellion. Because of Cook’s strict insistence on a clean ship, exercise, and a healthy diet (including scurvy-preventing sauerkraut) for his crew, he had, until then, lost no man to sickness. Now, in one of the most diseased foreign cities, malaria, dysentery, and other ills began their work: almost everyone got sick during the months they remained on the island for refit and repair, and many died, including the Tahitian, Tupaia. Even after Cook left for home (December 26), the unfortunate deaths continued—thirty-four in all by the time they reached Cape Town in March—and five more would die there or on the last leg back to England. (Never failing to provide milk for the officers, Wallis’s goat was among the elite, having survived its second circumnavigation.) Endeavour docked in the Downs on July 12, 1771.             The three men—Cook, Banks, and Solander—companions during more than a thousand days at sea, now shared a seven-hour post-chaise trip through Kent to London—riding into history. The botanists had brought back a wealth of scientific data about plant and animal species, including thousands of plants never seen in England as well as the amazing drawings of Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, the expedition’s artists, who had both died on the voyage. Cook had recorded his observations of the life and customs of the Polynesians of Tahiti, the Maori of New Zealand, and the Aborigines of Australia. And he had his accurate charts, which would immediately improve the mapping of the Pacific Ocean.

Zatta, Antonio, fl. 1757–1797. “Nuove scoperte fatte nel 1765, 67, e 69 nel Mare del Sud” (1776). Copperplate map, with added color, 29 × 39 cm. From Zatta’s Atlante novissimo (Venice, 1775–1785). Reference: Perry and Prescott, Guide to Maps of Australia , 1776.01. [Historic Maps Collection]

First decorative map to show Cook’s tracks in the Pacific, recording the discoveries he made in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and the South Pacific during the Endeavour voyage. Also noted are the tracks of Philip Carteret, John Byron, and Samuel Wallis. The chartings of the east coast of Australia and New Zealand’s two islands are shown in detail, drawn from Cook’s own map of the region, “Chart of Part of the South Seas” (1773). The ship depicted is most probably the Endeavour .

Captain Cook’s voyages of exploration

Terra Australis Incognita - the unknown southern land. The existence (or not) of this mysterious, mythical place has intrigued philosophers, explorers and map-makers since it was first hypothesised by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The empire-builders of 18th century Britain were just as obsessed with investigating territories below the Equator.

In 1768, when Captain James Cook set sail on the first of three voyages to the South Seas, he carried with him secret orders from the British Admiralty to seek ‘a Continent or Land of great extent’ and to take possession of that country ‘in the Name of the King of Great Britain’.

While each of Cook's three epic journeys had their own aims and significant achievements, it was this confidential agenda that would transform the way Europeans engaged with the Pacific, its lands and inhabitants. The maps, journals, log books and paintings from Cook’s travels are just some of the State Library’s incredible records of this exciting time.

The first voyage

James Cook's first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the  Endeavour  and began on 27 May 1768. Cook’s voyage had three aims; to establish an observatory at Tahiti in order to record the transit of Venus (when the planet passed between the earth and the sun), on 3 June 1769. The second aim was to record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks. The final secret goal was to continue the search for the Great South Land. 

Cook reached the southern coast of New South Wales in 1770 and sailed north, charting Australia’s eastern coastline and claiming the land for Great Britain on 22nd August 1770.

The second voyage

Cook's second Pacific voyage, (1772-1775), aimed to establish whether there was an inhabited southern continent, and make astronomical observations.

The two ships  Resolution  and  Adventure  were fitted out for the expedition. In 1772, before he set out, Cook created a map which showed the discoveries made in the Southern Ocean up until 1770 and sketched out his proposed route for the upcoming voyage. In 1773, accompanied by naturalists, astronomers and an artist, Cook made his first crossing of the Antarctic Circle, claiming that he had been further south than any person. During a voyage of 100,000 km, Cook sailed south of the Antarctic Circle (at 66˚30’S) on three occasions, proving that the southern landmass was neither as large or as habitable as once thought. Cook also discovered several islands along the Scotia Arc, initiating the commercial interest that underpinned much of the focus on Antarctica over the next 150 years.

The third voyage

Cook’s third and final voyage (1776-1779) of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Again, Cook commanded the  Resolution  while Charles Clerke commanded  Discovery . Leaving England in 1776, Cook first sailed south to Tahiti to return Omai, a Tahitian man, to his home. Omai had been taken on Cook’s second voyage and had been an object of curiosity in London. It was on this, Cook's final voyage, that he discovered the Hawaiian Islands in January 1778. This major discovery would lead to his death – Cook was killed on a return visit to Hawaii at Kealakekua Bay, on 14 February 1779.

This story has been developed with the support of the State Library of NSW Foundation.

We would like to acknowledge the generosity of the Bruce and Joy Reid Foundation.

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Captain James Cook

The Geographic Adventures of Captain Cook, 1728–1779

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• Physical Geography
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• M.A., Geography, California State University - Northridge
• B.A., Geography, University of California - Davis

James Cook was born in 1728 in Marton, England. His father was a Scottish migrant farmworker who allowed James to apprentice on coal-carrying boats at the age of eighteen. While working in the North Sea, Cook spent his free time learning math and navigation. This led to his appointment as mate.

Searching for something more adventurous, in 1755 he volunteered for the British Royal Navy and took part in the Seven Years War and was an instrumental part of the surveying of the St. Lawrence River, which helped in the capture of Quebec from the French.

Cook's First Voyage

Following the war, Cook's skill at navigation and interest in astronomy made him the perfect candidate to lead an expedition planned by the Royal Society and Royal Navy to Tahiti to observe the infrequent passage of Venus across the face of the sun. Precise measurements of this event were needed worldwide to determine the accurate distance between the earth and the sun.

Cook set sail from England in August 1768 on the Endeavor. His first stop was Rio de Janeiro , then the Endeavor proceeded west to Tahiti where camp was established and the transit of Venus was measured. After the stop in Tahiti, Cook had orders to explore and claim possessions for Britain. He charted New Zealand and the east coast of Australia (known as New Holland at the time).

From there he proceeded to the East Indies (Indonesia) and across the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. It was an easy voyage between Africa and home; arriving in July 1771.

Cook's Second Voyage

The Royal Navy promoted James Cook to Captain following his return and had a new mission for him, to find Terra Australis Incognita, the unknown southern land. In the 18th century, it was believed that there was much more land south of the equator than had already been discovered. Cook's first voyage did not disprove claims of a huge landmass near the South Pole between New Zealand and South America.

Two ships, the Resolution and the Adventure left in July 1772 and headed to Cape Town just in time for the southern summer. Captain James Cook proceeded south from Africa and turned around after encountering large amounts of floating pack ice (he came within 75 miles of Antarctica). He then sailed to New Zealand for the winter and in summer proceeded south again past the Antarctic Circle (66.5° South). By circumnavigating the southern waters around Antarctica, he indisputably determined that there was no habitable southern continent. During this voyage, he also discovered several island chains in the Pacific Ocean .

After Captain Cook arrived back in Britain in July 1775, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and received their highest honor for his geographic exploration. Soon Cook's skills would again be put to use.

Cook's Third Voyage

The Navy wanted Cook to determine if there was a Northwest Passage , a mythical waterway that would allow sailing between Europe and Asia across the top of North America. Cook set out in July of 1776 and rounded the southern tip of Africa and headed east across the Indian Ocean . He passed between the North and South islands of New Zealand (through Cook Strait) and towards the coast of North America. He sailed along the coast of what would become Oregon, British Columbia , and Alaska and proceeded through the Bering Strait. His navigation of the Bering Sea was halted by the impassible Arctic ice.

Upon yet again discovering that something did not exist, he continued his voyage. Captain James Cook's last stop was in February 1779 at the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) where he was killed in a fight with islanders over the theft of a boat.

Cook's explorations dramatically increased European knowledge of the world. As a ship captain and skilled cartographer, he filled in many gaps on world maps. His contributions to eighteenth-century science helped propel further exploration and discovery for many generations.

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Voyages of discovery - the Great South Land

• Gallery of maps
• The Spanish Quest
• The Tasman Map
• The Huijdecoper journal
• Monsters of the southern world
• The case for a Great Southern Continent
• Criticising the Endeavour voyage
• Against the 'thief colony'
• Hydrographic Office
• Dalrymple's Charts
• Coastal views
• Voyage round the world
• James Cook's log
• Cook's discoveries on the map
• Joseph Banks' Endeavour Journal
• James Roberts' journal
• Endeavour artist Sydney Parkinson
• New South Wales on the map
• Discoveries in the Pacific
• Mapping the route
• Images of Cook's second expedition
• Wales & Bayly, astronomers
• Method for preserving health
• James Burney journal
• A Narrative of the death
• James King journal
• Cook's mementos
• Navigational instruments
• Arithmetic for sailors
• Discover more

Captain James Cook's voyages of discovery

Captain James Cook, ca. 1780-1784 Watercolour on ivory miniature MIN 85

Captain James Cook (1728-1779) was born in Yorkshire. At the age of about 17, Cook joined the merchant navy in the coastal town of Whitby and spent his apprenticeship and early career working on trading ships along the English coast and in the Baltic. After 10 years in the merchant navy, Cook entered the Royal Navy, and showed an aptitude for surveying, mapping and navigation. He honed these skills in military conflicts against France but his talents had been noticed by the Royal Society, which was keen to send British ships to the Pacific for research and exploration purposes.   

Captain James Cook's three epic voyages to the South Seas, between 1768-1779, transformed the way Europeans viewed the Great South Land and the Pacific Ocean.

James Cook's first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on 27 May 1768. Cook's first goal was to establish an observatory at Tahiti to record the transit of Venus, when that planet passed between the earth and the sun, on 3 June 1769. The second aim of the expedition was to record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks. The final secret goal was to continue the search for the Great South Land. 

  > Find out more about James Cook and Joseph Banks and their discovery of New South Wales in Endeavour in 1770

The continued search for the legendary Great South Land also motivated Cook's second Pacific voyage (1772-1775). This voyage aimed to establish whether there was an inhabited southern continent in what we now know as Antarctica, as well as making astronomical observations.

  > Find out more about Cook’s second Pacific voyage

Cook's third and final Pacific voyage, (1776-1779), was as important for exploration of the North Pacific as the earlier two had been for the South. The voyage aimed to find a north west passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In the process, Cook made the major discovery of the Hawaiian Islands in January 1778. During the same voyage Cook was killed on a return visit to Hawaii at Kealakekua Bay, on 14 February 1779.

  > Find out about the death of the Captain Cook in Hawaii during his third voyage of exploration

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'The Wide Wide Sea' revisits Capt. James Cook's fateful final voyage

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies.

You may remember the story of the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, when an explosion in the spacecraft of three astronauts forced them to summon the courage, focus and ingenuity to rescue the situation and return home safely. That story came to me often as I read the latest book by our guest, historian Hampton Sides. It's about an 18th-century sea voyage around the world, led by Captain James Cook, an explorer so accomplished that in the 1770s his was a household name in England.

Sides' book is an account of what it took for a ship full of men to sail for months in uncharted waters with only what they had on board to survive, how they coped with hunger, thirst, disease and weather so fierce it could snap a ship's mast in two and still found ways to keep going. It's a tale of fearless exploration, which greatly expanded our understanding of the world's geography. And it's a story of remarkable encounters with Indigenous people, some of whom had never seen Europeans before. All such encounters were unique and most friendly, but one rooted in deep cultural gaps and misunderstandings would lead to a tragic outcome remembered for centuries.

Hampton Sides is a contributing editor to Outside magazine and a historian who's written five previous books on subjects ranging from the exploration of the American West to the Korean War. His latest is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook."

Hampton Sides, welcome back to FRESH AIR.

HAMPTON SIDES: Yeah, it's a real pleasure to be back with you.

DAVIES: Let's just begin by giving you a bit of a thumbnail profile of James Cook. What was he known for back in the 1770s?

SIDES: Captain Cook was arguably one of the greatest explorers of all time - you know, the quality of his observations, the sheer number of nautical miles that he traveled, the incredible volumes that emanated from his voyages with beautiful art and descriptions of flora and fauna never before seen by Europeans. He had three voyages around the world, any one of which would have put him on the map and put him in the pantheon of great explorers like Magellan. But there was just a kind of a probity and a kind of almost scientific approach that he applied to his voyages that was unusual for his time.

And, you know, I think you would describe him as a product of the Enlightenment, someone who - yes, of course he understood he was working for the empire. He was working to advance the aims of the crown of England and the admiralty. But he also was a citizen of the world who knew that he was supposed to publish. He was supposed to describe objectively what he saw. And he was supposed to contribute to the global knowledge of the makeup of the planet - what does it look like? How does it look on a map? Who are these people that he was encountering? - and to try to describe them fairly and fully and without a lot of, you know, the typical stuff that you would see prior to his generation where it's like, they're savages. They're heathens. He was - he really approached it in a very different manner.

DAVIES: And what was his style as a commander?

SIDES: His style?

DAVIES: His personality...

SIDES: OK. So this was an age...

DAVIES: ....His approach - you know, we think of these...

SIDES: Yeah.

DAVIES: ...You know, commanding a ship - tough guys, right?

SIDES: Especially in his age. I mean, they were tyrants. They were - it was master and commander. They were absolutely in control of their ships. And so many of the British captains - and, for that matter, almost all the other European captains - were brutal tyrants. Cook, in that context, was quite - at least during his first two voyages, quite lenient, quite tolerant, quite concerned about ship conditions and hygiene and diet, very worried about scurvy and other diseases and had a kind of scientific approach to how to deal with diseases. He seemed to kind of have an almost intuitive understanding of germ theory, cleanliness, all these kinds of things.

Now, I'm not trying to say that he was a soft guy. He was stern and dour and tough and, you know, it was not - you know, he would dole out the discipline. But he was also mindful of the morale of his men. And for those first two voyages, you see a very different captain from his generation.

The third voyage, he begins to change, and you start to see a temper come out and a - just an absolute inflexibility. He starts to apply the lash to his own men and to treat some of the Native folks that he encounters along the way with increasing severity and cruelty. And so it's caused a lot of people to wonder, well, what's up with Cook in this third voyage? What - does he have a parasite? Is there some kind of mental or even spiritual problem that he's dealing with? Is he just simply exhausted from all the hundreds of thousands of miles he's traveled? It's one of the kind of forensic questions that comes up repeatedly in my book - is what's ailing the captain?

DAVIES: You mentioned scurvy. You know, scurvy was a disease, which is caused by a lack of vitamin C, I guess, which could kill up to half of - you know, a half of a crew on many voyages. He had a remarkable record on this - right? - by - I think on his last voyage, which was more than four years, not a single sailor died from scurvy.

SIDES: Yeah, and this was unheard of. Any voyage over a couple of hundred days, men started to drop like flies from scurvy. It was just kind of considered an occupational hazard of long-distance voyaging that most European navies seemed to be willing to tolerate, even though it was so horrendous, such a horrific way to die. Cook seemed to have figured it out, but he didn't really know precisely what was doing the trick. He had all kinds of weird things on board his ship that were supposed to be anti-scorbutic, meaning, you know, combating scurvy.

But what he fundamentally did understand was that eating fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and even fresh meat as opposed to just the constant typical diet of salt, pork and hardtack biscuits - that something in that was the trick, you know, that fresh stuff that he always had his men out hunting and fishing and gathering vegetables and berries and things like that. And that was a major factor. You know, it was only - you know, it was, what, a couple hundred years later before we definitively understood that it was actually vitamin C - a lack of vitamin C.

So when he comes back from his first and then his second voyage without anyone dying of scurvy, people at the admiralty - people at the Royal Society in London - think he's conquered this horrible malady. He hasn't exactly conquered it. He has figured something out. It will take generations before they absolutely figure it out. But - so he's hailed as a hero for this accomplishment.

DAVIES: There are so many writings from not just Captain Cook - he kept journals - but from other members of the crew. Some of them were quite literate. It's sort of remarkable that was - they wrote - a lot to draw on here, wasn't there?

SIDES: Yeah. You know, I think that by the time Cook went out on his third voyage, you know, so many people wanted to be a part of these voyages. They understood that this was a great captain and something interesting was going to happen. And so a lot of really interesting officers came aboard the ship, and they all kept journals. They wrote very well. Captain Cook wrote well but in a kind of stodgy, very emotionless way. But there were some other officers on board who just wrote beautiful, beautiful accounts of things, like, you know, our first detailed description of tattooing, of surfing, of a human sacrifice that was performed on Tahiti - these sorts of things. And I definitely view this story as an ensemble story, not just Cook's account but all these officers on board who wrote their own journals. Sometimes they were approved journals. Other times they were kind of done under the table and published without the approval of the admiralty. But it's a kind of an embarrassment of riches, all the different accounts that I had to draw from and to sort of triangulate them and to come up with this three-dimensional account.

DAVIES: You know, it's interesting - Cook's third voyage, which is the subject of your book, begins in July of 1776, which, you know, Americans will note coincides with another big moment on this side of the Atlantic, right? That's when the colonies declared independence from Great Britain. And a lot of attention was focused on the war in America, which, as you write it, meant that his ship didn't get quite the care it should have when they were preparing it for the voyage. The kind of caulking and reinforcing of the ship was done poorly. What impact did that have?

SIDES: It had a huge impact, because the Resolution was leaking like a sieve much of the voyage. It seemed like - this is a ship that had just returned from Cook's second voyage, so it was a tired ship, captained by a tired captain, and it seemed like a lot of things started going wrong from the very beginning because of - the shipwrights at Deptford had been focused much more on this war that's brewing in the colonies. And they leave.

And as you mentioned, in July of 1776, just as the American Revolution is getting started, it's interesting that, although this is very much a British story with a British captain, it's also very much an American tale, because so much of the action ends up in the present-day United States, whether you're talking about Hawaii or Oregon, Washington, Alaska. They're exploring the Northwest coast of North America just as the revolution is getting started. And by the time they return to England, the revolution is basically over, and it's a whole new world.

DAVIES: So Cook was a famous mapmaker and seaman. He'd done two around-the-world voyages. He didn't want to do another one, but he was kind of talked into it. King George III wanted it. And the Earl of Sandwich - the guy known for inventing the sandwich, who was...

DAVIES: ...In the Admiralty, wanted him to - Cook to command another expedition. What were the goals? What did they want him to do in this round-the-world trek?

SIDES: Well, the British had been obsessed for a long time with the idea of finding the - what they called the Northwest Passage - a shortcut over North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean - for trade reasons, for reasons of commerce. But at a certain point, it had become kind of a geographical obsession. And every time they poked into the pinched geography of Canada, they found ice, right?

So this time, the idea was go around to the other side, to the Pacific side, go up through the Bering Strait - which we had some very vague ideas about because of Bering's voyages - and to try to find that Northwest Passage from the Pacific side - the backside of America, as the English called it. It was one of the holy grails of British geography and exploration. And if Cook could have found this elusive Northwest Passage, it would have been the crowning achievement of his career. This was such a tantalizing voyage, with such huge ambitions and rewards behind it, that he decided, oh, I'll go back out.

DAVIES: Let's take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF GOGOL BORDELLO SONG, “NOT A CRIME”)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with historian Hampton Sides, whose new book is a gripping account of an 18th-century round-the-world sea voyage led by British Captain James Cook. You know, many of the fascinating stories in this book - and there are a lot of them - involve these two ships in Cook's expedition, you know, dropping anchor on an island and interacting with Indigenous people. You open the book with one of them. This was in January 1778, where he visits Kauai, which is in the Hawaiian Island chain. And there's some - you know, some accounts from Hawaiian historians about what the people ashore thought when these two, you know, tall, masted ships showed up. How did they react? What did they think when they saw this?

SIDES: They worried that their world was forever changed. There was a sense of exhilaration and terror and rapture. They talked about maybe these are manta rays that have emerged from the sea. Maybe they are gods. That does come up, even at Kauai, that idea that these may be manifestations of the god Lono, which will come up later in the story. They could tell instantly that these were very different people.

And what they most were fascinated by was all the metal that was on board the ship. They could see it gleaming in the sunlight. It was a substance that they had a very, very faint knowledge of only because some pieces of driftwood had landed on Kauai with - you know, sometimes with nails in it. And they understood this was a magical substance. And they wanted a piece of it and very quickly started to tear the ship apart, trying to get at the nails and any other piece of metal they could find. But they understood this was a new world. This was a new people. And it was very - the initial greeting was quite peaceful, but things escalated in a hurry. A hothead officer fired a musket and killed a Hawaiian man. And things went downhill very quickly.

DAVIES: Now, you write in that case that these were not people who had seen Europeans before, and they mistook their garments for their skin and the tricorn hats for their - for the shape of their heads.

SIDES: Yeah. They thought they had deformed heads that - you know, three-point heads. And they had never seen pockets before and thought, you know, look, they stick their hands into their bodies and they come out with treasure. And there's a lot of really bizarre and wonderful oral history that was done by some Hawaiian - Native Hawaiian historians about these reactions. They didn't understand smoking, and when they saw these white men smoking, they thought they were - they called them the volcano people because they seemed to just be constantly seething smoke.

DAVIES: Yeah. You know, it's kind of as close as you could get to imagining what it would be like for Martians landing on Earth, I guess, if you see someone that - with no preparation...

DAVIES: ...And no context, to see something in these vessels with those garments and all that. You know, you write that Cook's attitude towards and descriptions of the Indigenous folks he encountered was very different from other European explorers, right? More tolerant...

SIDES: I think, you know...

DAVIES: ...More curious?

SIDES: ...I call him a proto-anthropologist. He certainly had no training in that regard, but he was interested in getting it down in a very level and kind of agnostic treatment of just, like, this is what they wear. This is how they converse. This is what the rituals look like. He never tries to convert them to Christian faith, never uses the word heathen or savage, to my recollection, so yeah, he's unique in that regard, and some of that he had learned from his first voyage. A famous scientist, Joseph Banks, was on that ship, and he had learned a little of the language of, you know, science, I guess you would say, and language of the enlightenment. But he was quite fair in his assessment of these people, I think.

DAVIES: And what would be his approach when first going ashore? I mean, you know, one might think, I better bring, you know, he had a platoon of marines onboard with - who were armed with muskets. Do you bring them? Do you bring one or two? Do you go by yourself? Did he have a standard approach?

SIDES: Most of the time, he would march ashore unarmed. He liked to be the first one ashore. He had this kind of, what I call, a minuet of first contact, this sort of dance that he did with the locals, where he, you know, yes, it's probably dangerous, but if I look them in the eye and, you know, present myself in - as a peaceful person, maybe they won't kill me. And it was a dangerous and, some people thought, reckless way of going about things, but he would - yes, there would be marines waiting in the wings, but he would usually be the first one ashore. And so I guess you could say that's very brave, or you could say it's perhaps hubristic and reckless.

DAVIES: Right. And he would sometimes have someone who spoke some Polynesian languages onboard, so there might be some basis for communication. It seems, You know, and it's interesting, because there are so many of these accounts in the books, including tribes that are up in the Arctic. There's the Hawaiian islands, there's, you know, around Tahiti and Tasmania and New Zealand, and it seems that in every case, the Indigenous folks are quickly ready to engage in commerce, barter, trade. They want some things, and not always the same things.

SIDES: Not always the same things, but, there's, you know, that was always the first question was what Cook was interested in when he landed on an island was, can I get some water? Can I get some timber? Can I get some food? And so what am I going to trade with? And one of the things they would trade with, the blacksmiths would generate crude tools and chisels and knives, and they would give these as gifts. Another time, they accumulated a bunch of red feathers on Tonga, the island of Tonga, and found that in some of the islands, red feathers were like gold, considered as valuable as gold. So - but, you know, the native people were also very intrigued by Cook's instruments, partly 'cause they were made out of metal, but things like sextants and quadrants and astronomical gear, and would often be tempted to steal this stuff, not knowing precisely what it did, but perhaps thinking that it had something to do with the heavens and perhaps the gods. So every island, the economy, the barter trade was a little bit different from the next one.

DAVIES: Let's take another break here and we'll talk some more.

We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His new book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, The First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook" (ph). He'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL")

SHANE MACGOWAN: (Singing) Fare thee well to Prince's Landing Stage. There were many fare thee wells. I am bound for California, a place I know right well. So fare thee well, my own true love. When I return, united we will be. It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but, my darling, when I think of thee. Oh, and I have shipped upon it once before. I think I know it well. The captain's name is Burgess, and I've...

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. We're speaking with historian Hampton Sides, whose new book is a gripping account of an 18th century round-the-world sea voyage led by British captain James Cook. The journey took him and his crew above the Arctic Circle north of Alaska looking for a water passage through North America, and they explored many islands in Hawaii in the South Pacific, having memorable encounters with Indigenous people, including one that would prove deadly for the explorers. Sides' book is "The Wide, Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook."

So let's talk a bit about what an overseas voyage was like in the, you know, 1750s or 1770s when this happened. The main ship he was on was called the Resolution. There was a companionship, the Discovery. The Resolution was 110ft long. That's 37 yards long. About, you know, a middling pass in the NFL. That's the distance. And roughly a hundred men aboard. They might go months without landfall. They had to carry all the water. I mean, well, what kinds of supplies would you have to pack to know that you could go exploring uncharted waters and stay alive?

SIDES: Yeah. It certainly wasn't a Carnival cruise. People were suffering and, you know, living in cramped quarters and swinging in hammocks and dealing with bad food, dealing with the discipline of the ship, obviously and the closeness, the claustrophobic closeness of being with the same group of guys for so long.

DAVIES: How did cook, and his sailors, for that matter, communicate with the locals?

SIDES: A lot of grunting. A lot of gesticulating. A lot of pidgin Polynesian, which many of the men did learn along the way because the language, although it varied from island to island, was largely the same throughout the South Seas, at least. And they communicated mainly through bartering and expressions on their face. It was, you know, certainly true that whatever the men were understanding was only a fraction of what was really going on. And that's a big part of when you're dealing with the documents, you're trying to sift through all this and try to realize well, only getting, you know, sort of the unreliable narrator thing. We're only getting a part of the real story. But, you know, you just try to do the best you can with the documents that you have to work with.

DAVIES: You know, there's one fascinating figure here who was on Cook's voyage, or much of it, who was not an Englishman. He was a Polynesian man named Mai, who had joined Cook's second voyage, was interested in joining the Navy, did so, became a seaman, and then goes to England, where he becomes kind of a celebrity, this Polynesian guy. Tells us something about his experience.

SIDES: Mai was amazing. He was the first Polynesian man to set foot on English soil, and he very quickly became a celebrity. He learned English. He hung out at the estates of the aristocracy. He learned to hunt and, you know, he learned to play backgammon and chess. And he met with the Royal Society. He met with King George. He met with Samuel Johnson and all the sort of intelligentsia of the times. And England just fell in love with this guy. He was the personification of, as they put it, the noble savage. He had a wonderful smile. He had a wonderful - he was a very handsome guy that - quite popular with the ladies. And he had a two-year period of London where they really rolled out the red carpet for him.

And - but then the king, King George, said, we're going to take you home. We've got to find a way to get you home. And that ended up being errand number one on Captain Cook's third voyage, which is to bring him home, bring Mai home to Tahiti with his belongings and with a bunch of animals, and ensconce him back in his home island, partly for his own good, but also because they wanted to sort of show Tahitian society how great England was and all these belongings that they had given him. They wanted to impress the Tahitian society that, you know, England was the best, better than Spain, better than France. So that's a big part of the voyage and a big part of the - really, a big part of the book.

DAVIES: Yeah. Like infusing stem cells of British culture in Tahiti.

SIDES: That's a great way to put it. Yeah.

DAVIES: You know, it is interesting because Mai spent two years in England and was a big hit and learned to speak English pretty well and met all these notables. When he left to go on the voyage, he wasn't traveling light, was he? I mean, tell us some of the stuff he brought with him to impress his Tahitian friends when he got back.

SIDES: Well, they - he had been given lots of muskets. He had been given, like, all kinds of trinkets and completely, for the most part, useless things, toys and all kinds of things that, you know, were really kind of meant to impress people but weren't exactly useful.

DAVIES: Well, and also a full suit of armor, right?

SIDES: Oh, he was given also - he was also given - yeah, a full suit of armor. What are you going to do with chainmail and a, you know, full suit of armor in a tropical Tahiti? I'm not really sure. But there was an ulterior motive going on the whole time, which was that he wanted guns. He wanted ammunition because he - his father had been murdered by the warriors from Bora Bora, and he wanted to reclaim his home island from the Bora Bora. And so he wanted - he ventured to England, really, to get guns. And he did get guns. And that's a whole nother part of after Cook leaves and deposits Mai in the Society Islands. Unfortunately, Mai's story is sad and tragic and, you know, kind of an example of what happens, I think, when you cross-pollinate cultures, you know, it was like he was a man without a country.

He wasn't really English and he wasn't really Tahitian anymore. He was something else. He had all these belongings, but he didn't really know what to do with them. And he immediately started using his guns to cook up a battle with the Bora Borans. And things do not go well for him, tragically, in the end.

DAVIES: It was interesting because they, you know, Cook wanted to integrate him into Tahitian society. But he goes and he meets with the chief and, you know, he was a little station when he left. Now he thinks he's big stuff. He goes riding on the beach on a horse in a full suit of armor. They are less than impressed. They kind of just did not ingratiate him with Tahitian culture. The British end up building him a house with a lock on it, which was a new thing. Just didn't...

SIDES: Right.

DAVIES: ...Work at all, did it?

SIDES: It's just like a completely grafted from England trying to make it work in a completely different society. The thing is, Mai came from basically nothing. He was a commoner, and apparently, no amount of possessions or guns or suit of armor could change that. You know, Tahitian society was very stratified. The kings and chiefs were all powerful. And here comes this impostor - this poser - trying to now say, oh, I'm powerful, and I'm well-connected, so you should treat me differently. Well, they didn't treat him differently. They're just like, you're still Mai.

DAVIES: We're going to take another break here.

We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His new book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." We'll talk more after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAN AUERBACH SONG, "HEARTBROKEN, IN DISREPAIR")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with historian Hampton Sides. His new book is a gripping account of an 18th-century, round-the-world sea voyage led by British Captain James Cook.

After he spent time in the South Pacific with - near islands around Tahiti, he actually "discovers," quote-unquote, I mean, the islands in the chain that includes Hawaii, that we now know as our - the state of Hawaii. I mean, I say discovered, because obviously people had been living there for centuries, but Europeans somehow didn't know about this. But then he goes on to explore the west coast of North America, looking for this long-sought water passage that would allow, you know, Europeans to go through North America to the Pacific Ocean. So he's trying to do it from the backside - plenty of encounters with local communities, plenty of times he had to stop and repair his ship, explores all kinds of inlets and rivers and estuaries, does not find this passage.

So he does try to go north up to the Arctic Circle to see if - is there a chance you can sail, you know, over the north - over the top of the world, bypass Greenland and go to Great Britain. This was in the summer. And there were some thinking that this might be possible. A guy named Daines Barrington you write about had opinions about Arctic sea travel. Tell us - what were the expectations here?

SIDES: There was a lot of weird ideas back then and pieces of kind of pseudoscience and rumor that - for example, one of the ideas was that sea ice cannot freeze. And so if you can get far enough from land, the only ice is along the shore coming from rivers. So the idea was, you know, if you can find a big, wide passage somewhere up there that's just in the broad ocean, it will not freeze, and you'll find your way over Canada. This is obviously very flawed science. And a lot of science - a lot of explorers had to suffer and die to try to disprove it. But Cook was willing to give it a try. And he also understood that this whole part of the world was - it was not known at all. It was terra incognita. Yeah, it was a mystery what was up there. The Russians had been there, but they didn't really share their information.

And we do see Cook, during this phase of the voyage, at his very best. He's back to what he does best, which is mapping and charting and exploring something entirely new and trying to understand the lay of the land. He was a brilliant cartographer. And he was an amazing captain in these kinds of dicey sailing situations. So he goes, I mean, he basically gives us the outline of the entire northwest part of the continent, you know, Oregon to Alaska. And he goes up and over Alaska. And he's heading toward what we now call Point Barrow, Alaska, when he finally encounters an impenetrable wall of ice. And he understands immediately, not only is this not going to lead to the Atlantic but we've got to get the hell out of here, because we're going to get trapped in this ice. And he nearly does get trapped. And if that had happened, we'd never hear - heard from him again.

And so most people, at that point, would have said, well, time to go home. But he decided, no, we're going to try it one more season. We're going to come back during the next summer in the hope that we'll - maybe the ice will have shifted, and we can find that way through. But in the meantime, winter's coming. I got to go somewhere to replenish the ships and let the men have some R&R. So why don't we go back to that amazing archipelago we stumbled upon, Hawaii - the Hawaiian chain. And so that's what they do. They head back to Hawaii to thaw out and relax for a short while.

DAVIES: Yeah. This is just an amazing moment in the book. Like, OK, you've, like, you've given it a shot. There is no northwest passage. The Arctic is frozen. Go home. But no, no. And he's going to extend the voyage by another full year. He's going to wait and go back the next summer. Captain Cook would not make it home from this voyage. He would be killed on the island of Hawaii. The circumstances are a little too intricate for us to cover here, and it's frankly a fascinating story that I think folks, along with other great stories, will get when they read the book.

You know, Cook is revered by many as, you know, one of the greatest explorers and sailors ever. And, you know, a man of the enlightenment who cared about expanding knowledge and being precise. He's also reviled as, you know, an agent of European imperialism. I mean, his - monuments to him in the islands have been, you know, desecrated. And I noticed that the copy in the jacket to your book says Cook's scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword. From his writings, did he care deeply about colonial conquest and rivalries with, you know, Spain, which was really active in the Pacific?

SIDES: Yes. He - you know, he wasn't naive. He knew that he was doing the work of Empire. He certainly was a devoted, you know, follower of the Crown and was a dutiful employee, if you want to call it, of the Admiralty. And he understood that this enormous chess game that was going on between the European powers, particularly the Spanish and the French and the English and the Dutch, was happening all around, and that he was working in the service of all that. He wasn't naive. But you get the feeling when you read his journals that the places places where he's most animated, when he's most excited, when he's most interested is when he's describing something totally new, when he's playing the role of even an anthropologist or a, you know, ethnographer or when he's mapping something that's never been seen by Europeans before.

I say in the book that he's more empirical than imperial and that he's more inquisitive than acquisitive, and I think that's true. I do think that he was operating in a very, very unique time when there was still this kind of ethic of the Enlightenment. But there's no question that exploration is the first phase of colonial conquest. You know, these explorers come, they describe the bays and places where you can anchor and where the food is, and then here come the occupiers, and here comes the alcohol and the diseases and, you know, just the entire dismantling of these fragile island communities. So that's why he's hated so much, I think. He was - it's not really so much what he did. It's what came immediately after him as a consequence of his voyages.

DAVIES: Yeah. It's interesting. You know, he didn't claim lands for the crown, and he didn't conquer and subjugate and exploit the locals. I mean, he made a point of not getting into local wars with them. They would want him to kind of help them. He wouldn't get involved in that. But the interactions in some way undermined the traditional societies in ways that were not helpful.

SIDES: You know, he did claim some lands for England occasionally, especially in his first two voyages, because it was required by the admiralty, but by the third voyage, you can tell he's rolling his eyes at the whole thing. In fact, he would have his younger officers, junior officers, go out and raise the flag and, you know, have a little ceremony 'cause he thought it was absurd. But, you know, he understood that these were new lands that probably one of the European powers was going to try to take over, and he was consciously writing notes to the admiralty saying, you know, the Spanish are probably going to come here next, or, you know, what are the French going to do? So, you know, this imperial game is still going on in the background, and it still has reverberations to this day.

DAVIES: Hampton Sides, thanks so much for speaking with us.

SIDES: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

DAVIES: Hampton Sides' book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews Beyonce's new album, "Cowboy Carter." This is FRESH AIR.

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Voyages of James Cook

• 1.2 Royal Navy and First Voyage
• 1.3 Second Voyage
• 1.4 Third Voyage
• 2.1 England
• 2.2 Australia
• 2.3 New Zealand

Captain James Cook was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy.

Born in 1728 in the village of Marton in North Yorkshire, when he was 16 (1745) Cook moved to the fishing village of Staithes, to be apprenticed as a shop boy. After 18 months, not proving suited for shop work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby and was introduced to John and Henry Walker, who were Quakers, and prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade. Their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. 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 . As part of his apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and astronomy—all skills he would need one day to command his own ship.

Royal Navy and First Voyage

He joined the Royal Navy in 1755, and saw action in the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763), surveying and mapping much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec City , which fell to the British on 13 September 1759. This brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society, which led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for a scientific expedition, his first voyage (1768–1771) to the Pacific Ocean, to observe and record the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun from Tahiti . This data, when combined with observations from other places, would help to determine the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Cook, at age 39, was promoted to lieutenant to grant him sufficient status to take the command. For its part, the Royal Society agreed that Cook would receive a one hundred guinea gratuity (£105) in addition to his Naval pay.

The expedition departed England on 26 August 1768, rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across the Pacific, arriving at Tahiti on 13 April 1769, where the observations of the Venus Transit were made, proving not as conclusive or accurate as had been hoped. Once these were completed, Cook opened the sealed orders from the Admiralty for the second part of his voyage: to search the south Pacific for signs of the postulated rich southern continent of Terra Australis . Cook then made the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand . Having aboard Tupaia, an exceptionally accomplished Tahitian aristocrat and priest, who helped guide him through the Polynesian islands, he mapped the complete coastline, making only some minor errors. Next, he sailed west for the first recorded European contact and waypoint naming on the eastern coastline of Australia, famously starting on 29 April 1770 with Botany Bay , named after the many first unique specimens retrieved by the botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander.

On 22 August 1770, Endeavour reached the northernmost tip of the coast and, without disembarking, Cook named it Cape York . Leaving the east coast, Endeavour turned west and nursed her way through the dangerously shallow waters of Torres Strait. Searching for a vantage point, Cook saw a steep hill on a nearby island, from the top of which he hoped to see "a passage into the Indian Seas". He disembarked, named the island "Possession Island", and claimed the entire coastline that he had just explored for the British crown , naming it New South Wales . He returned to England via Batavia , where many in his crew succumbed to malaria, the Cape of Good Hope , the island of Saint Helena on 30 April 1771, and anchored at The Downs on 12 July 1771. Cook's journals were published upon his return, and he became something of a hero among the scientific community. However, the aristocratic botanist Joseph Banks was a greater hero among the general public, and even attempted to take command of Cook's second voyage, but removed himself from it before it began.

Second Voyage

From 1772 to 1775, on the ships HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure , commissioned by the British government with advice from the Royal Society, he went to circumnavigate the globe as far south as possible to finally determine whether there was any great Terra Australis. On 17 January 1773, Resolution was the first ship to venture south of the Antarctic Circle, which she did twice more on this voyage. The final such crossing, on 3 February 1774, was to be the most southerly penetration, reaching latitude 71°10′ S at longitude 106°54′ W. Cook almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica, but turned 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 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 to New Zealand in 1774, Cook landed at the Friendly Islands , Easter Island , Norfolk Island , New Caledonia , and Vanuatu . Before returning to England, Cook made a final sweep across the South Atlantic from Cape Horn and surveyed, mapped, and took possession for Britain of South Georgia , which had been explored by the English merchant Anthony de la Roché in 1675. Cook also discovered and named Clerke Rocks and the South Sandwich Islands ("Sandwich Land"). He then turned north to South Africa , and from there continued back to England. His reports upon his return home put to rest the popular myth of Terra Australis. Cook's second voyage marked a successful employment of Larcum Kendall's K1 copy of John Harrison's H4 marine chronometer, which enabled Cook to calculate his longitude with much greater accuracy. Cook's log was full of praise for this chronometer, which he used to make charts of the southern Pacific Ocean that were so remarkably accurate that copies of them were still in use in the mid-20th century.

Third Voyage

His third and final voyage (12 July 1776 – 4 October 1780)'s ostensible purpose was to return his second voyage's young Tahitian passenger Omai to his homeland, but this was but a cover for the Admiralty's plan to send Cook on a voyage to discover the Northwest Passage. HMS Resolution , to be commanded by Cook, and HMS Discovery , commanded by Charles Clerke, were prepared for the voyage which started from Plymouth in 1776. After dropping Omai at Tahiti, Cook travelled north and in 1778 became the first European to begin formal contact with the Hawaiian Islands, making landfall in January 1778 at Waimea harbour and Kauai afterwards. Cook named the archipelago the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich, the acting First Lord of the Admiralty.

The expedition then sailed west to the Siberian coast, and then southeast, back through the Bering Strait. He made a few other attempts to sail through it, and became increasingly frustrated on this voyage, perhaps suffering from a stomach ailment; it has been speculated that this led to irrational behaviour towards his crew, such as forcing them to eat walrus meat, which they found inedible. From the Bering Strait, the crews went south to Unalaska in the Aleutians, where Cook put in on 2 October to again re-caulk the ship's leaking timbers. They then headed back to the Sandwich Islands. Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay on 14 February 1779, in a conflict with locals. The expedition returned home, reaching England in October 1780.

Some ascribe Cook's success to his observation that certain foods — among them lime — prevented scurvy. The term "limey" for an Englishman dates to that era. However, the discovery of the connection between certain foods and the prevention of scurvy was made multiple times by multiple people and forgotten almost as often as discovered. He surely mapped lands and oceans in greater detail and on a scale not previously charted by Western explorers, surveying and naming features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.

There are over 100 memorials to Cook around the world. We only list some of these here, the Captain Cook Society have longer lists .

• HM Bark Endeavour in Whitby is a 40%-sized replica of the Endeavour used by Cook on his first expedition of 1768-71. In summer they potter round the bay for 30 min.

New Zealand

• Look at the change in your pocket, as HM Bark Endeavour is shown on most 50c coins.
• -41.28 174.51 18 Cook Strait . Separating the North and South islands, overland travel between them can be made onboard frequent Cook Strait ferries . The first European to sail here was Abel Tasman, but James Cook established for Europeans that this was a strait enabling ships to sail between the Tasman Sea and the main Pacific Ocean. ( updated Apr 2024 )
• 19.481306 -155.933444 21 Monument to Cook's Death , Kealakekua Bay in Big Island . The attempted kidnapping of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the ruling chief of the island of Hawaii, to hold him hostage for a stolen lifeboat was the fatal error of Cook's final voyage, and ultimately led to his death. A large white stone monument was commissioned by a local princess on the north shore of the bay in 1874, enclosed by a chain supported by four cannon from the ship HMS Fantome with their breaches embedded in the rock in 1876, and was deeded to the United Kingdom in 1877. It marks the approximate location of Cook's death. The Cook monument is unreachable by road; this remote location is accessible only by water or an hour-long hike along a moderately steep trail. Many visitors have rented kayaks in the town of Captain Cook and paddled across the bay, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from its southern end. State conservation regulations prohibit kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, surfboards, and bodyboards from entering the bay unless part of a tour with a licensed local operator. ( updated May 2020 )
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The voyages of Captain James Cook

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10 Things You May Not Know About Captain James Cook

By: Evan Andrews

Updated: February 22, 2024 | Original: April 29, 2015

1. Cook joined the Royal Navy relatively late in life.

Cook worked on a Yorkshire farm in his youth before winning an apprenticeship with a merchant sailing company at age 17. He cut his teeth as a mariner on shipping voyages in the choppy waters of the North and Baltic Seas and spent the next decade rising through the ranks and mastering the art of navigation. He was being groomed to become a captain, but in 1755, he shocked his superiors by quitting his merchant sailing career and enlisting in the British Royal Navy as a common seaman. Cook was 26—far older than most new recruits—yet it didn’t take long for the Navy to recognize his talent. He was promoted to ship’s master in only two years, and later became one of the first men in British naval history to rise through the enlisted ranks and take command of his own vessel.

2. He was an expert mapmaker.

Cook first rose to prominence as a cartographer during the Seven Years’ War, when his detailed charts of the Saint Lawrence River helped the British pull off a surprise attack against French-held Quebec. In the early 1760s, he was given a ship and tasked with charting the island of Newfoundland off the coast of Canada. The map he produced was so accurate that it was still in use in the 20th century. Cook’s skill at charting the seas would later become a crucial tool in his explorer’s arsenal. He won command of his first round-the-world voyage in part because he could be trusted to navigate in uncharted territory and bring home precise maps of the lands he discovered.

3. Cook’s first voyage included a secret mission from the British government.

Cook’s career as an explorer began in August 1768, when he left England on HM Bark Endeavour with nearly 100 crewmen in tow. Their journey was ostensibly a scientific expedition—they were charged with sailing to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the sun—but it also had a hidden military agenda. Cook carried sealed orders instructing him to seek out the “Great Southern Continent,” an undiscovered landmass that was believed to lurk somewhere near the bottom of the globe.

The explorer followed orders and sailed south to the 40th parallel, but found no evidence of the fabled continent. He then turned west and circled New Zealand, proving it was a pair of islands and not connected to a larger landmass. Cook would later resume his search for the Southern Continent during his second circumnavigation of the globe in the early 1770s and came tantalizingly close to sighting Antarctica before pack ice forced him to turn back.

4. His ship Endeavour nearly sank on the Great Barrier Reef.

After landing in Australia during his first voyage, Cook pointed his ship north and headed for the Dutch seaport of Batavia. Because he was in unmapped territory, he had no idea he was sailing directly into the razor-sharp coral formations of the Great Barrier Reef.

On June 11, 1770, his ship Endeavour slammed into a coral reef and began taking on water, endangering both his crew and his priceless charts of his Pacific discoveries. Cook’s men frantically pumped water out of the holds and threw cannons and other equipment overboard to lighten the ship’s weight. They even used an old sail to try and plug a hole in their hull. After more than 20 desperate hours, they finally stopped the leak and limped toward the Australian coast. It would take Cook nearly two months of repairs to make his ship seaworthy again.

5. Cook helped pioneer new methods for warding off scurvy.

In the 18th century, the specter of scurvy—a disease caused by a lack of vitamin C—loomed over every long-distance sea voyage. Cook, however, managed to keep all three of his expeditions nearly scurvy-free. This was partially because of his obsession with procuring fresh food at each of his stops, but many have also credited his good fortune to an unlikely source: sauerkraut.

While Cook didn’t know the cure or cause of scurvy, he did know that the nutrient-rich pickled cabbage seemed to keep the disease at bay, so he brought several tons of it on his voyages. His only problem was getting his crew to eat it. To trick them, Cook simply had sauerkraut “dressed every day” for the officers’ table. When the enlisted men saw their superiors eating it, they assumed it was a delicacy and requested some for themselves.

6. Even Britain’s enemies respected Cook.

While Cook’s journeys took place during a time when Britain was variously at war with the United States, Spain and France, his reputation as a pioneering explorer allowed him to travel the seas with relative impunity. In July 1772, a squadron of Spanish vessels briefly detained his ships, only to release them after they realized Cook wa in command. Likewise, when Cook’s third voyage set sail during the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin wrote a memo to colonial ship captains instructing them to treat the British vessels as “common friends to mankind” if they encountered them at sea.

7. He searched for the Northwest Passage.

In 1776, a 47-year-old Cook set sail on his third voyage of discovery—this time a search for the elusive Northwest Passage in the Arctic. After traveling halfway around the world, he led the ships HMS Resolution and Discovery on a perilous survey of the upper coasts of western Canada and Alaska. Cook came within 50 miles of the western entrance to the passage, but his attempts to locate it were ultimately thwarted by freezing weather, violent currents and heavy ice floes in the Bering Sea. When the extreme conditions drove his crew to the brink of mutiny, Cook reluctantly turned south for the summer. He would die before he had a chance to resume his search.

8. Natives mistook him for a god when he landed in the Hawaiian Islands.

During Cook’s third voyage, he became the first European to set foot on Hawaii, which he called the “Sandwich Islands” after his patron the Earl of Sandwich. Hawaiians at Kealakekua Bay celebrated Cook’s January 1779 landing with joyous celebrations, and for good reason: by some strange coincidence, the explorer’s arrival coincided with an annual festival honoring the Hawaiian fertility god Lono. Since the natives had never seen white men or massive sailing ships like Cook’s, they assumed he was their deity and lavished him with feasts and gifts. The Europeans responded by greedily stripping Kealakekua of food and supplies, but when one of Cook’s sailors died from a stroke, the natives realized the strangely dressed Europeans weren’t immortals after all. From then on, Cook’s relationship with the Hawaiians became increasingly strained.

9. He suffered a grisly death.

While docked for repairs in Hawaii in February 1779, Cook became enraged after a group of natives stole a cutter ship from one of his boats. He went ashore and tried to take King Kalani‘ōpu‘u hostage, but the Hawaiians feared their leader would be killed and swarmed to his aid. When Cook’s ship Discovery fired its cannons at another group of Hawaiians, the explorer panicked and discharged a rifle before fleeing to a waiting boat. He didn’t get far before he was pelted by stones and struck by a club. A Hawaiian warrior then brandished a knife—a gift from Cook—and plunged it into his back. Cook fell into the surf and was repeatedly stabbed and bashed with rocks. After he perished, the Hawaiians ritualistically prepared his corpse as they would that of a king. They preserved his hands in sea salt, then roasted the rest of his body in a pit before cleaning his bones.

10. NASA named spacecraft after his ships.

Cook explored and mapped more territory than any navigator of his era, and his achievements later saw him honored by NASA. Cook’s HMS Discovery was one of several historical vessels that inspired the name of the third space shuttle, and NASA later named their final shuttle “Endeavour” after the ship he commanded on his first circumnavigation of the globe. When the shuttle Discovery made its final space flight in 2011, its crew carried a special medallion made by the Royal Society in honor of Cook.

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The Ages of Exploration

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James Cook explored much of the Pacific Ocean, and became the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, already inhabited by Polynesians

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Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook Paperback – September 1, 2004

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Commonly regarded as the greatest sea explorer of all time, James Cook made his three world-changing voyages during the 1770s, at a time when ships were routinely lost around the English coast. He made history by making geography-- sailing through previously unknown southern seas, charting the eastern Australian coast and circumnavigating New Zealand, putting many Pacific islands on the map, and exploring both the Arctic and Antarctic. His men suffered near shipwreck, were ravaged by tropical diseases, and survived frozen oceans; his lieutenants-- including George Vancouver and William Bligh-- became celebrated captains in their own right. Exploits among native peoples combined to make Cook a celebrity and a legend.

Cook is not, however, viewed by all as a heroic figure. Some Hawaiians demonize him as a syphilitic rascist who had a catastrophic effect on local health. Indigenous Australians often see him as the violent dispossessor of their lands. Nicholas Thomas explores Cook's contradictory character as never before, by reconstructing the many sides of encounters that were curious and unusual for Europeans and natives alike. The result of twenty years' research, Thomas's magnificently rich portrait overturns the familiar images of Cook and reveals the fascinating and far more ambiguous figure beneath.

• Print length 506 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Walker Books
• Publication date September 1, 2004
• Dimensions 6 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
• ISBN-10 0802777112
• ISBN-13 978-0802777119
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

“Deep in its research, broad in its sympathies, imaginative in its reconstruction of events and thought processes and graceful in its prose style, Cook presents a winning combination of qualities.” ― The New York Times Book Review

“The definitive volume for this moment in our history.” ― Simon Winchester, The Globe and Mail

“Thomas helps to bring this most enigmatic of men to life.” ― Chicago Tribune

“[Thomas] offers a different and compelling look at the naval captain.” ― The Dallas Morning News

“Rich, vivid and deeply provocative, Thomas's work combines premiere adventure story with thorough history and intensive sociology .... Thomas displays sure, careful research and thoughtful interpretations, with a style matching the adventures detailed. He spent two decades on this work, and it shows.” ― Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This is a definitive book on a mythic character.” ― Science News

“An extraordinary biography .... Brave, stubborn, eaten by curiosity, occasionally the victim of his own inner furies, Cook emerges from this splendidly written volume as a greater hero than we thought, though with larger flaws.” ― Islands

From the Back Cover

"Deep in its research, broad in its sympathies, imaginative in its reconstruction of events and thought processes and graceful in its prose style, Cook presents a winning combination of qualities."-- The New York Times Book Review

Nicholas Thomas is a professor of anthropology at the University of London. A native of Sydney, Australia, he has traveled extensively in the course of his Pacific research and has curated several exhibitions on the history, art, and culture of Oceania.

"The definitive volume for this moment in our history."-- Simon Winchester, The Globe and Mail

"Thomas helps to bring this most enigmatic of men to life."-- Chicago Tribune

"[Thomas] offers a different and compelling look at the naval captain."-- The Dallas Morning News

"Rich, vivid and deeply provocative, Thomas's work combines premiere adventure story with thorough history and intensive sociology .... Thomas displays sure, careful research and thoughtful interpretations, with a style matching the adventures detailed. He spent two decades on this work, and it shows."-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This is a definitive book on a mythic character."-- Science News

"An extraordinary biography .... Brave, stubborn, eaten by curiosity, occasionally the victim of his own inner furies, Cook emerges from this splendidly written volume as a greater hero than we thought, though with larger flaws."-- Islands

About the Author

Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Walker Books (September 1, 2004)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 506 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802777112
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802777119
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
• #1,802 in Culinary Biographies & Memoirs
• #2,199 in Historical British Biographies
• #7,595 in Traveler & Explorer Biographies

About the author

Nicholas thomas.

Nicholas Thomas, who grew up in Sydney, visited the Pacific Islands first in 1984. He has written many acclaimed books about art, history and cross-cultural encounter, and collaborated in exhibition and book experiments with artists including John Pule and Mark Adams.

His books include Entangled Objects (1991), a celebrated exploration of the changing lives of things in the Pacific; Discoveries: the voyages of Captain Cook (2003); Islanders: the Pacific in the Age of Empire (2010) which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize; The Return of Curiosity (2016), about what museums offer today, and most recently Voyagers: the settlement of the Pacific (2021).

Thomas co-curated, with Peter Brunt and Adrian Locke, the landmark exhibition Oceania, shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris over 2018-19.

Nicholas Thomas lives in the Corbières, in the south of France and in London with his partner Annie Coombes, and their son.

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Literate Matters: Captain Cook mystery resurfaces in 'The Wide Wide Sea'

I recall a few years ago when friends explained they were planning a vacation to the Cook Islands. This faraway location sounded inviting if mysterious.

While it still sounds inviting, there’s less mystery since then, and less again thanks to “The Wide, Wide Sea,” the new James Cook history from Hampton Sides.

Subtitled “Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook,” this new look catches up with Cook on his third and final voyage, started in July 1776, after he’d been welcomed home to England a hero twice already.

In the service of the Admiralty, at the urging of King George, Cook was lured back to sea for this last time primarily to “explore the so-called backside of North America, to chart the continent’s icy northwest extremities, probe its scalloped coastlines, and hunt for a passage leading all the way across Canada, eastward, toward the Atlantic Ocean.” This was a search for the mythical Northwest Passage, but done in reverse.

There was a secondary purpose, however, which came first. Cook was to return to Raiatea, near Bora Bora, to repatriate Mai, “a young man in his early twenties, with copper skin and a winsome smile” who had been spirited away from home in the south Pacific on Cook’s second voyage. Mai had been living in London, where though a celebrity because he was exotic, “his life story offered a poignant allegory of first contact between England and the people of Oceania.”

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As part of Mai’s return, King George also wished Cook to introduce a menagerie of English flora and fauna to Oceania. So it is that Cook took on board his vessels a veritable Noah’s Ark of animals, including peacocks, pigs, horses, and many many more. He had plants too and all were to be left behind after Cook once again retreated from what Europeans had taken to calling “the Society Islands.”

Once at sea, captaining again “The Resolution,” sailing alongside Charles Clerke at the helm of “The Discovery,” Cook is driven and compassionate, but also peripatetic, inscrutable, explosive. Sailors are lashed for simple transgressions. He sails nearby but right past Tahiti, as well as several of the Hawaiian islands, consumed it seems by his orders to a degree that mutes his earlier curiosity. On this voyage he “was a taciturn man” who still “drank sparingly,” but with “a thunderous temper.” He also remained chaste, something his crew were unable — or unwilling — to do in the intoxicating spots they anchored.

1776 was certainly a tremulous time for England. And while “(Cook’s) voyage was the exploratory offshoot of an empire that looked restlessly outward in quest of new lands, markets, resources, and trade routes,” everyone also understood, “The troubles in America created an undertow of doubt within London society. Was Great Britain expanding, or was she in decline? Or more likely, were both things happening at the same time?”

It was into this divide that Cook steered toward Raiatea first, then New Zealand, Tonga, and later Hawaii on their way to Alaska and the American West coast. Nearly everywhere they stopped, the indigenous populations indulged Cook even if they didn’t always appreciate his presence, or what it foretold for their future. Meanwhile, Cook’s men, whether they revered or reviled him, left an unerasable mark on the islands, typically introducing syphilis along with suspicion in their wake.

Cook eventually landed in Hawaii, but soon after left, before traversing the coast of North America, though here too he missed out on remarkable but not unreachable locales, like Puget Sound as well as the mouth of the Columbia River.

Leaving North America, Cook went back to Hawaii, and Sides lays out plausible explanations for what happened next, though even with a lens that extends almost 250 years, the images remain blurred.

It’s easy to see Cook as a conduit of the bad behavior of imperialists, and this is not likely wrong. Still, in “The Wide Wide Sea” we meet a sailor driven by ambition and ambiguity, always a captivating combination.

Good reading.

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook (Unabridged‪)‬

• 4.5 • 57 Ratings

Publisher Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR FOR 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • A “thrilling and superbly crafted” ( The Wall Street Journal ) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day. “Hampton Sides, an acclaimed master of the nonfiction narrative, has taken on Cook’s story and retells it for the 21st century.”— Los Angeles Times On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution . Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment. Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter. At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

Historian Hampton Sides charts a course through the final, fateful days of Captain James Cook’s life in this enthralling historical account. Through exhaustive research, Sides details Cook’s last voyage aboard the HMS Resolution in 1776 with a multidimensional approach that examines everything from the legendary explorer’s deteriorating engagements with the indigenous people of Hawaii to his role in the treacherous global ambitions of the British Empire. Blending thrills and intrigue with meticulous historical analysis, Sides dissects Cook’s role in the Age of Exploration as a whole, analyzing how key elements like first contact and imperialism have reverberated throughout the modern era. Peter Noble’s narration complements Sides’ prose, capturing the book’s adventurous spirit with a clarity and passion that will have you feeling the bracing sea breeze. A masterwork of narrative nonfiction, The Wide Wide Sea delivers high seas adventure, a mysterious murder, and a nuanced reexamination of one of history’s most complicated figures.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book, read it.

You will not only learn a lot but it is a fascinating true story too. Well written so you feel like you’re traveling with Captain Cook.

Almost an unbelievable adventure. I’m 3/4 of the way through and I don’t want it to end. Heard about it on the Meateater podcast

Detailed, very well read, informative, educational, and engaging; but lacks maps showing the voyage progress. I don’t know if the ebook includes maps. I would expect there to be maps. If maps were included, I would rate this Five Stars. I tried to find the voyage progress on both Pocket Earth and What3Words app maps and mark them. It was challenging, at times, not fully getting the name correct from the pronunciation.

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