CaptainJames Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand, and led the first recorded visit by Europeans to the east coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands.
Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1755. He first saw combat during the Seven Years’ War, when he fought in the Siege of Louisbourg. Later in the war he surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the Siege of Quebec. In the 1760s he mapped the coastline of Newfoundland and made important astronomical observations which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a pivotal moment in British overseas exploration, and it led to his commission in 1768 as commander of HMS Endeavour for the first of his three voyages.
During these voyages he sailed tens of thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas, mapping coastlines, islands, and features across the globe in greater detail than previously charted – including Easter Island, Alaska, and South Georgia Island. He made contact with numerous indigenous peoples, and claimed several territories for the Kingdom of Great Britain. Renowned for exceptional seamanship and courage in times of danger, he was patient, persistent, sober, and competent, but sometimes hot-tempered. His contributions to the prevention of scurvy, a disease common among sailors, led the Royal Society to award him the Copley Gold Medal.
In 1779, during his second visit to Hawaii, Cook was killed when a dispute with Native Hawaiians turned violent. His voyages left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge that influenced his successors well into the 20th century. Numerous memorials have been dedicated to him worldwide.
Early life
James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 in the village of Marton, located in the North Riding of Yorkshire, approximately 8 miles (13 km) from the sea. He was the second of eight children of James Cook, a Scottish farm labourer from Ednam in Roxburghshire, and his wife, Grace Pace, from Thornaby-on-Tees. In 1736, his family moved to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton, where his father’s employer, Thomas Skottowe, paid for Cook to attend a school run by a charitable foundation. In 1741, after five years of schooling, he began work for his father who had been promoted to farm manager.
In 1745, when he was 16, Cook moved 20 miles (32 km) to the fishing village of Staithes to be apprenticed as a shopboy to grocer and haberdasher William Sanderson. After 18 months, Cook, proving not suited for shop work, travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby and was introduced to Sanderson’s friends John and Henry Walker. The Walkers were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade.
Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in the Walkers’ small fleet of vessels, plying coal along the English coast. His first assignment was aboard the collierFreelove, 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 needed to command a ship.
Upon completing his three-year apprenticeship, Cook began working on merchant ships in the Baltic Sea. After obtaining his mariner licence in 1752 he was promoted to the rank of mate and began serving on the collier brigFriendship. He served as mate on the Friendship for two and a half years, visiting ports in Norway and Netherlands, learning to navigate in shallow waters along the east coast of Britain, and traversing the Irish Sea and the English Channel.
Royal Navy
At the age of 26, Cook was offered a promotion to captain of Friendship, but he declined and instead joined the Royal Navy at Wapping on 17 June 1755. He entered the navy when Britain was expanding its naval forces in anticipation of the conflict that became known as the Seven Years’ War. Cook’s first posting was two years aboard HMS Eagle, serving as able seaman and master’s mate under Captain Joseph Hamar and, later, Captain Hugh Palliser. In October and November 1755 he took part in Eagle‘s capture of one French warship and the sinking of another. Following the death of Eagle‘s boatswain, Cook was unofficially promoted to fill that role in January 1756. His first command was in March 1756 when he was briefly in charge of Cruizer, a small cutter attached to Eagle. In June 1757, Cook passed his master’s examinations at Trinity House, Deptford, qualifying him to navigate and handle a ship of the King’s fleet. He then joined the sixth-rate frigate HMS Solebay as ship’s master under Captain Robert Craig.
Seven Years’ War
This hand-drawn chart of Gaspé Bay, Canada, was created by Cook in 1758, soon after he learned surveying skills from Samuel Holland. A year later it became the first chart of Cook’s to be engraved and printed.
During the Seven Years’ War, Cook served in North America as master aboard the fourth-rate Navy vessel HMS Pembroke. With others in Pembroke‘s crew, he took part in the major amphibious assault that captured the Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia from the French in 1758.
The day after the fall of Louisbourg, Cook met an army officer, Samuel Holland, who was using a plane table to survey the area. The two men had an immediate connection through their interest in surveying, and Holland taught Cook the methods he was using. They collaborated on developing preliminary charts of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River, with Cook writing the accompanying sailing directions. Cook’s first map to be engraved and printed was of Gaspé Bay, drawn in 1758 and published in 1759. The integration of Holland’s land-surveying techniques with Cook’s hydrographic expertise enabled Cook, from that point forward, to produce nautical charts of coastal regions that significantly exceeded the accuracy of most contemporary charts.
As Major-General James Wolfe’s advance on Quebec progressed in 1759, Cook and other ships’ masters took soundings, marked shoals, and updated charts – particularly around Quebec. This information enabled Wolfe to mount a stealthy nighttime attack by transporting troops across the river, leading to victory in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
Newfoundland
This 1775 chart of Newfoundland was based on charts prepared by Cook and others.
As the Seven Years’ War came to a close, Cook was tasked with charting the rugged coast of Newfoundland. He was appointed master of HMS Grenville, and spent five seasons producing charts. He surveyed the north-west stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767. Cook employed local pilots to point out the rocks and hidden dangers.
Cook severely injured his right hand in August 1764 when a powder horn he was carrying exploded. In July 1765, Cook experienced the first of several ship groundings he faced during his career: Grenville struck an uncharted rock, and cargo had to be unloaded before she could be refloated.
While in Newfoundland, Cook precisely recorded apparent (or local) time of the start and end of the solar eclipse of 5 August 1766. He sent the results to the English astronomer John Bevis, who compared them with the same data from an observation of the eclipse carried out in Oxford and calculated the difference in longitude between the two locations. The results were communicated to the Royal Society in 1767 and the longitude position obtained was used by Cook in his printed sailing directions for Newfoundland.
At the end of the 1767 surveying season, while HMS Grenville was returning to her home port of Deptford, Cook encountered a storm at the entrance to the Thames. He anchored Grenville off the Nore lighthouse and prepared the ship to ride out the weather. An anchor cable snapped, causing the ship to run aground on a shoal. Despite efforts to refloat her, Cook and his crew were forced to abandon ship. They returned when the storm abated, lightened and rerigged the ship, and continued into Deptford.
Exploration of the Pacific Ocean
This 1764 map of the world, by French hydrographerJacques-Nicolas Bellin, shows the major landmasses known to Europeans in the 1760s. Unknown areas included Alaska, the east coast of Australia, and the west coast of Canada.
Cook’s achievements in North America – hydrographic and astronomical – were noticed by the Admiralty, and came at a pivotal moment in British overseas exploration. Europeans had started exploring the Pacific Ocean in the early 16th century, and by the mid-18th century they had charted much of the ocean’s perimeter, and were actively engaged in trade with the Philippines, Spice Islands, and Mexico. Yet vast regions of the ocean remained largely unexplored by Europeans, including the coastlines of Canada and Alaska, much of the southern Pacific, and the central oceanic expanse. Several major questions persisted: Did a North-West Passage connect the North Pacific with the North Atlantic? Did the hypothesised continent of Terra Australis Incognita (undiscovered southern land) exist? And were there yet-undiscovered cultures or lands in the central Pacific?
The Treaty of Paris – signed when the Seven Years’ War ended in 1763 – enabled the Royal Navy to redirect resources from warfare to exploration. Britain soon dispatched several explorers to the Pacific Ocean, including John Byron, Samuel Wallis, and Philip Carteret. They returned with accounts of Tahiti, and reported sightings of Terra Australis – setting the stage for Cook’s first voyage.
After a month on Hawaiʻi Island, Cook set sail to resume his exploration of the northern Pacific, but shortly after departure a strong gale caused Resolution‘s foremast to break, so the ships returned to Kealakekua Bay for repairs. Relations between the crew and the Hawaiians were already strained before the departure, and they grew worse when the ship returned for repairs. Numerous quarrels broke out and petty thefts were common. On 13 February 1779, a group of Hawaiians stole one of Cook’s cutters.
The following day, Cook attempted to recover the cutter by kidnapping and ransoming the king, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. Cook and a small party marched through the village to retrieve the king. Cook led Kalaniʻōpuʻu away; as they got to the boats, one of Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s favourite wives, Kānekapōlei, and two chiefs approached the group. They pleaded with the king not to go and a large crowd began to form at the shore. News reached the Hawaiians that a high-ranking Hawaiian chief had been shot (on the other side of the bay) while trying to break through a British blockade – this exacerbated the already tense situation. Hawaiian warriors confronted the landing party and threatened them with stones, clubs, and daggers. Cook fired a warning shot, then shot one of the Hawaiians dead. The Hawaiians continued to attack and the British fired more shots before retreating to the boats. Cook and four marines were killed in the affray and left on the shore. Seventeen Hawaiians were killed.
Aftermath
A marker was placed at the shoreline of Kealakekua Bay, near the spot where Captain Cook was slain.
Hawaiians took the bodies of Cook and the marines inland to a village. James King took a boat to the opposite side of the bay, and was approached by a priest who offered to intercede and ask for Cook’s remains to be returned; King consented. Some crewmen returned to the shore to collect water, and skirmishes broke out, resulting in the death of several Hawaiians. On 19 February, a truce was arranged, and some of Cook’s remains were returned to Resolution, including several bones, the skull, some charred flesh, and the hands with the skin still attached. A large scar on the right hand – from his 1764 powder horn injury – confirmed that the remains belonged to Cook. The crew placed the remains in a weighted box, and buried their captain at sea.
Clerke had assumed leadership of the expedition and the ships left the bay on 23 February 1779. They spent five weeks charting the coasts of the islands – in accordance with a plan set out by Cook before his death. They travelled through the archipelago, stopping at Lanai, Molokai, Oahu, and Kauai. On 1 April they departed the Hawaiian islands and sailed north to again try to locate the North-West Passage. Clerke stopped in Kamchatka and entrusted Cook’s journal, with a cover letter describing Cook’s death, to the local military commander, Magnus von Behm. Behm had the package delivered, overland, from Siberia to England. The Admiralty, and all of England, learned of Cook’s death when the package arrived in London – eleven months after he died. The package had arrived in England before the surviving crew.
Continuing north, the expedition returned to the Bering Strait, but was again blocked by pack ice, and they were unable to discover a North-West Passage. Clerke died of tuberculosis on 22 August 1779 and John Gore, a veteran of Cook’s first voyage, took command of Resolution and the expedition. James King replaced Gore in command of Discovery. The ships returned home, reaching England on 4 October 1780.
Legacy
Commemorations
This statue of Cook in Hyde Park, Sydney, bears an inscription that has been the subject of controversy: “Discovered this territory, 1770”.
Important monuments to Cook include one in the church of St Andrew the Great in Cambridge, where his wife and two of his sons are buried, and statues of Cook in Hyde Park in Sydney, and at St Kilda in Melbourne.
The Royal Research Ship RRS James Cook was built in 2006, and serves in the UK’s Royal Research Fleet. NASA named several spacecraft after Cook’s ships. Cook has appeared on many stamps and coins: Over four hundred stamps have been issued in his honour, and dozens of coins have been issued with Cook’s image. Many institutions are named after him, including James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, England.
Since 1959, an annual reenactment of Cook’s 1770 landing has been held near the site of the original event in Cooktown, with the support and participation of many of the local Guugu Yimithirr people. The reenactments celebrate an act of reconciliation when a local elder presented Cook with a broken-tipped spear as a peace offering, after a conflict over sharing green turtles which Cook’s men had taken in violation of local custom.
In the years surrounding the 250th anniversary of Cook’s first voyage of exploration, various memorials to Cook in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Hawaii were vandalised, and there were public calls for their removal or modification due to their perceived association with British colonialism.
Ethnographic collections
The largest collection of artefacts from Cook’s voyages is the Cook-Forster Collection held at the University of Göttingen in Germany. The Australian Museum in Sydney holds over 250 objects associated with Cook’s voyages. The objects are mostly from Polynesia, although there are also artefacts from the Solomon Islands, North America and South America.
Indigenous people have campaigned for the return of indigenous artefacts taken during Cook’s voyages. The art historian Alice Proctor argues that the controversies over public representations of Cook and the display of indigenous artefacts from his voyages are part of a broader debate over resistance to colonialist narratives and the decolonisation of museums and public spaces.
Reputation and influence
When news of Cook’s death reached Britain and continental Europe, obituaries, poems and tributes emphasised his humble birth, technical skills, leadership qualities, contributions to science and trade, and his concern for the well-being of his crew and indigenous people. William Cowper and Goethe wrote tributes, and there were many theatrical and artistic representations of his death.
One of the earliest monuments to Cook in the United Kingdom was erected in 1780 at The Vache by Hugh Palliser, a friend of Cook. In 1780 Joseph Banks, now president of the Royal Society, publicised Cook’s legacy, and he had the society mint a commemorative medal. Praise for Cook was almost universal in England, although Alexander Dalrymple (a rival of Cook for leadership of the first voyage) remarked on the adulation of Cook: “I cannot admit of a Pope in Geography or Navigation”. There were no notable commemorations in England to mark the centenary of Cook’s death in 1879.
Banks used the fame surrounding Cook’s voyages to help promote a new colony in Australia, and in 1788 the First Fleet arrived in what is now Sydney. After Britain established colonies in Australia and New Zealand, the colonists began to consider Cook as a founding father. In 1822, the Philosophical Society of Australia placed a monument at Cook’s supposed landing place in Botany Bay. The treatment, with overtly heroic overtones, of Cook as a founder continued in the early 1900s when the Commonwealth of Australia was established.
European visitors to Hawaii in the decades following Cook’s death found many Hawaiians carrying fond memories of Cook. In the 1830s American missionaries in Hawaii discovered that Cook had been worshiped as a kind of deity, and embarked on a campaign to disparage his memory. An early written history of Hawaii was derived from Hawaiian oral histories by missionary Sheldon Dibble. It portrayed Cook as an idolator and spreader of STDs, and greatly influenced native Hawaiian historians.
The bicentennial of Cook’s voyages in the 1970s brought a resurgence of interest and numerous commemorations. In the late 20th century increasing attention was given to the perspectives of Indigenous peoples and public discourse began to acknowledge the detrimental impacts of European contact on Indigenous communities.
In the 21st century Cook is widely regarded as one of the greatest sea explorers. His voyages greatly expanded geographical knowledge and paved the way for later British engagement in the Pacific. But for many people – particularly indigenous people of the lands he visited – he is a symbol of the adverse consequences of European contact and colonisation. Critics, such as the Native Hawaiian scholar Haunani-Kay Trask, highlight violent encounters, the spread of infectious diseases, and the claiming of indigenous lands without consent. The scholars Robert Tombs, Nicholas Thomas, and Glyndwr Williams – while acknowledging the negative impacts of the expeditions – contend that Cook should not be held responsible for the consequences of colonialist policies that were initiated after his death.
This man lived a life that requires multiple-volume biographies. I definitely encourage a viewing of a video biography, embedded below:
