Captain James Cook’s voyages to discoveries

The British naval, navigator, and explorer, Captain James Cook, was the last of the great adventurers of the New World first discoveries era, started by Christopher Columbus. James Cook became the first person to sail almost all the world’s oceans, and when compared to other voyagers, he has sailed the furthest sea route. He explored more areas of the earth than any explorer before him. Captain Cook also contributed greatly to the British empire, as he was the first to claim ownership of the continent of Australia, New Zealand, and several Pacific islands for Britain. During his four years of service in the British Royal Navy, Cook proved himself to be a very skilled ship captain in the field of maritime affairs, and shipping. Not only that, he also became one of the best naval warlords that Britain had.

In 1768, Cook was assigned to lead his first voyage, a joint Admiralty-Royal Society expedition to the Pacific. This was part of the Royal Society’s plan to use the Transit of Venus (the passing of Venus across the face of the Sun) which brought British astronomers to calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Alongside the scientific aims, the Admiralty provided Cook with secret orders instructing him to search for land and commercial opportunities in the Pacific. The journey was aboard the Endeavour and began on 27 May 1768. 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, and on 16 July 1771: The Endeavour anchored in the Thames.

Cook’s second Pacific voyage began on 3 July 1772, aimed to search for the Great Southern Continent, believed by some in Europe to encircle the South Pole and to balance the weight of the landmasses of the northern hemisphere. The two ships HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure which was captained by Tobias Furneaux were fitted out for the expedition. 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, Captain Cook’s ships were the first to cross the Antarctic Circle and the Resolution set a record for the Farthest South that would stand for 49 years. This voyage proved that the southern landmass was neither as large nor as habitable as once thought. Cook also charted the location of several islands and island groups not previously plotted on European maps along the Scotia Arc, initiating the commercial interest that underpinned much of the focus on Antarctica over the next 150 years. The Resolution completed its circumnavigation of the globe and anchored off Portsmouth on 30 July 1775. It was during this voyage Captain Furneaux of the Adventure took aboard a young man named Omai of the island of Huahine near Tahiti. Omai became the first South Sea islander seen in Britain. In his early twenties, Omai became the darling of the London scene. He was introduced to the King and Queen, wined, and dined in high society circles, and painted by the great artists of the time.

Captain Cook’s third and final voyage of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean which would provide a new trade route from Britain. To conceal this strategic goal, the voyage was also publicly presented as a mission to return Omai to his homeland. Again, Cook commanded the HMS Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded the HMS Discovery. Leaving England in 1776, Cook first sailed south to Tahiti to return Omai and further north along the west coast of North America and into the Bering Strait. The voyage, which many had hoped would find the long-sought route, turned out to be fruitless. But it was on this journey that he discovered the Hawaiian Islands. However, this major discovery would lead to Cook’s death.

Cook’s sailing ship was first observed from Hawaii in January 1778. At that time, a native described it as ‘trees floating in the sea’. They were the first Europeans to set foot there. Cook and his crew were welcomed by the Hawaiians who were fascinated by the Europeans’ ships and their use of iron. Cook provisioned his ships by trading the metal, and his sailors traded iron nails for sexual services. The ships then made a brief stop at Ni’ihau and headed north to look for the western end of a northwest passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific. Almost one year later, Cook’s two ships returned to the Hawaiian Islands and found a safe harbour in Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay.

It is suspected that the Hawaiians attached religious significance to the first stay of the Europeans on their islands. In Cook’s second visit, there was no question of this phenomenon. Kealakekua Bay was considered the sacred harbour of Lono, the fertility god of the Hawaiians, and at the time of Cook’s arrival the locals were engaged in a festival dedicated to Lono. The explanation that was considered plausible to the locals at that time, the arrivals were the gods who descended to Earth. And James Cook is Lono, the god of fertility. Native Hawaiians greeted Cook and his crew with cheers. Abundant food and generous gifts were offered to them. However, not long after, one of the crew died from a stroke, exposing the Europeans as mere mortals. The relations became strained as the natives’ figure of the god they worship is mortal.

On February 4, 1779, the two British ships sailed from Kealakekua Bay, but rough seas damaged the foremast of the Resolution, and after only a week at sea the expedition was forced to return to Hawaii. The response given by the Hawaiians was a 180 degree turn. Cook and his men were greeted by hurling rocks; the natives then stole a small boat from the Discovery. Negotiations with King Kalaniopuu (the supreme monarch of the island of Hawaii) for the return of the boat failed miserably after a lesser Hawaiian chief was shot to death. The angry Hawaiians attacked the crew with raised weapons. The captain and his men fired on the Hawaiians, but being outnumbered they were soon overwhelmed, and only a few managed to escape to the safety of the Resolution. On 14 February 1779 Captain Cook died on the beach along with four marines at the hands of the natives. A few days later, Charles Clerke assumed command of the expedition and bombarded the Hawaiian coast and demanded the return of Cook’s remains -these were later buried at sea- retaliated by firing their cannons and muskets at the shore, killing some 30 Hawaiians. The Resolution and Discovery eventually returned to Thames, England on 7 October 1780.

The death of Captain James Cook in Hawaii was a great loss for the British in the era of exploration and colonization. He is remembered for being one of Britain’s most famous explorers of the 18th century. It is noted that the most expensive legacy left by Captain Cook was settlements in Australia and New Zealand, which had begun before he died. Captain Cook is also remembered as the first person to explore almost all the islands within a territorial area of ​​the world’s largest ocean. He became a national hero and still remains one today.