First voyage of James Cook
The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun (3–4 June that year), and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land".
See also: Second voyage of James Cook and Third voyage of James Cook
The voyage was commissioned by King George III and commanded by Lieutenant Cook, a junior naval officer with good skills in cartography and mathematics. Departing from Plymouth Dockyard in August 1768, the expedition crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn and reached Tahiti in time to observe the transit of Venus. Cook then set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south, stopping at the Pacific islands of Huahine, Borabora and Raiatea to claim them for Great Britain.[1] In October 1769 the expedition reached New Zealand, being the second Europeans to visit there, following the first European discovery by Abel Tasman 127 years earlier. Cook and his crew spent the following six months charting the New Zealand coast, before resuming their voyage westward across open sea. In April 1770 they became the first known Europeans to reach the east coast of Australia, making landfall near present-day Point Hicks, and then proceeding north to Botany Bay.
The expedition continued northward along the Australian coastline, narrowly avoiding shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef. In October 1770 the badly damaged Endeavour came into the port of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, her crew sworn to secrecy about the lands they had discovered. They resumed their journey on 26 December, rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 13 March 1771, and reached the English port of Deal on 12 July. The voyage lasted almost three years.
The year following his return Cook set out on a second voyage of the Pacific, which lasted from 1772 to 1775. His third and final voyage lasted from 1776 to 1780.
Conception[edit]
On 16 February 1768 the Royal Society petitioned King George III to finance a scientific expedition to the Pacific to study and observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun to enable the measurement of the distance from the Earth to the Sun.[2] Royal approval was granted for the expedition, and the Admiralty elected to combine the scientific voyage with a confidential mission to search the south Pacific for signs of the postulated continent Terra Australis Incognita (or "unknown southern land").[3] The aims of the expedition were revealed in the press: "To-morrow morning Mr. Banks, Dr. Solano [sic], with Mr. Green, the Astronomer, will set out for Deal, to embark on board the Endeavour, Capt. Cook, for the South Seas, under the direction of the Royal Society, to observe the Transit of Venus next summer, and to make discoveries to the South and West of Cape Horn".[4] The London Gazetteer was more explicit when it reported on 18 August 1768: "The gentlemen, who are to sail in a few days for George's Land, the new discovered island in the Pacific ocean, with an intention to observe the Transit of Venus, are likewise, we are credibly informed, to attempt some new discoveries in that vast unknown tract, above the latitude 40".[5] Another article reported that "the principal and almost sole national advantage" of the island discovered by Captain Wallace, that is Tahiti, was "its situation for exploring the Terra Incognita of the Southern Hemisphere", and that, "The Endeavour, a North-Country Cat, is purchased by the Government, and commanded by a Lieutenant of the Navy; she is fitting out at Deptford for the South Sea, thought to be intended for the newly discovered island."[6] The Gazette de France of 20 June 1768 reported that the British Admiralty was outfitting two sloops of war to go to "the newly discovered island", from where they would "essay the discovery of the Southern Continent".
The Royal Society suggested command be given to Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple, who had urged that an expedition be sent to make contact with the estimated 50 million inhabitants of the Southern Continent with whom, he said, there was "at present no trade from Europe thither, though the scraps from this table would be sufficient to maintain the power, dominion, and sovereignty of Britain, by employing all its manufacturers and ships".[7] As a condition of his acceptance, Dalrymple demanded a brevet commission as a captain in the Royal Navy. However, First Lord of the Admiralty Edward Hawke refused, going so far as to say he would rather cut off his right hand than give command of a Navy vessel to someone not educated as a seaman.[8] In refusing Dalrymple's command, Hawke was influenced by previous insubordination aboard the sloop HMS Paramour in 1698, when naval officers had refused to take orders from civilian commander Edmond Halley.[8] The impasse was broken when the Admiralty proposed James Cook, a naval officer with a background in mathematics and cartography.[9] Acceptable to both parties, Cook was promoted to Lieutenant and named as commander of the expedition.[10]
Re-enactment[edit]
In 1959, the Cooktown Re-enactment Association first performed a re-enactment of Cook's 1770 landing at the site of modern Cooktown, Australia, and have continued the tradition each year, with the support and participation of many of the local Guugu Yimithirr people. They celebrate the first act of reconciliation between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous people, based on a particular incident. Cook and his crew had developed a friendly relationship with the local people, recording more than 130 words of their language. However, after the crew refused to share 12 green turtles which they had caught, thus violating local customs, the locals became angry. A Guugu Yimithirr elder stepped in, presenting Cook with a broken-tipped spear as a peace offering, thus preventing an escalation which could have ended in bloodshed.[96][97]
In 1970 Hans Hass shot the documentary television film Unsere Reise mit James Cook (Our Journey with James Cook), in which he retraced Cook's journey through the barrier reef using Cook's journal. Hass dived at various locations.
In 2001, the BBC set about making a documentary series The Ship: Retracing Cook's Endeavour Voyage which involved a film crew, volunteers and historians retracing part of the voyage made by Cook – from Cairns to Jakarta. One of the historians, Alexander Cook, documented the journey in his 2004 article "Sailing on The Ship: Re-enactment and the Quest for Popular History".[98]
