Terra Australis Incognita: the first Pacific voyage 1768-1771

In May 1768, having secured a naval commission, forty-year old Lieutenant Cook was finally given the command of his own ship. Officially, Cook was sent to the South Pacific to observe the Transit of Venus. An accurate calculation of ‘the distance of the sun from the earth and Venus’, would allow scientists to determine ‘the size of the universe’.¹ Secret orders instructed Cook to search out ‘Terra Australis Incognita’, the Great Unknown Southern Continent,² and explore New Zealand, where he was to survey the coastline, take samples of flora and minerals, and note the soils, beasts, birds and fishes. Friendship with local inhabitants was to be cultivated and trade done fairly. There was to be no ‘wanton use of firearms’ or shedding of blood, even when threatened. Customs were to be observed, and possession of land was to be done only with the locals’ permission.³

First sighted in 1513 by Vasey Nunez de Balboa, the South Pacific was not unknown to eighteenth-century European sailors, although it was more of an ‘imagined space’ than reality as it has never been fully explored.⁴ Cook and his crew were joined by a sea-faring goat who had recently circumnavigated the globe, and a group of scientists and artists led by botanist, Joseph Banks.⁵ The crowded barque left England in late August, sailing across the Atlantic and rounding Cape Horn. Here Cook, and astronomer Charles Green, determined their longitude ‘by cross-checking their solar and lunar observations’.⁶ A stop in southern Tierra del Fuego allowed artist Alexander Buchan to make a series of drawings, Banks to collect specimens of unknown plants, and Cook to survey the coastline.⁷

As the Endeavour headed into the Pacific Ocean it reached a position of 60o 4’ south where Terra Australis Incognita was thought to be located. Nothing was found and Cook, already sceptical about its existence, saw no evidence of ‘currents usually associated with large land masses’.⁸ Cook reached Tahiti on 13th April 1769 and went ashore. Some of the crew had been on the island 2 years before, and their friendships with the Tahitians assisted with trading goods, and relationship-building with leading locals. Constructing an observatory on the edge of the bay, Cook and Green observed the Transit of Venus on 3rd June 1769. Frustratingly, their measurements were inaccurate.⁹

The Europeans left Tahiti with a greater knowledge of the island and its people, although misunderstandings had arisen and relationships deteriorated. This would become the pattern of the Endeavour’s journey across the Pacific. The Tahitians were left with materials and objects, and European diseases, hitherto unknown.¹⁰ Heading south-west, Cook had gained 2 extra passengers: a priest called Tupaia, and his servant. Tupaia proved to be an invaluable interpreter, mediator, and navigator and much of Cook’s success on this voyage can be attributed to him. Tupaia helped Cook produce a chart of the central Pacific Islands and took Cook to his home, Ra ‘iatea, which the latter claimed for Britain.¹¹ Not the vast expanse of land expected back home, but it reminds us that such acquisitions were part of Cook’s agenda. On 6th October Nicholas Young, a twelve-year old cabin boy, sighted land after nearly 4000 miles at sea. This headland, on Aotearoa-New Zealand’s east coast, was named Young Nicks Head. Over the next 6 months Cook explored the country’s coastline, stopping in Queen Charlotte Sound, where he ‘hoisted the Union Jack’ on Motuara Island.¹² He established that Aotearoa was made up of two islands, not one as believed. More importantly, he confirmed Nieuw Zeeland was not part of the Unknown Southern Continent, much to Banks’ disgruntlement.¹³

Aotearoa had been home to Māori for over 400 years by the time of Cook’s visit. His arrival heralded significant changes for iwi, not all of them positive, or immediate. Initial interactions with Māori at Turanganui-a-kiwa (Poverty Bay) were violent. Any peace brokered by Tupaia was fleeting. Trade quickly turned to aggression on both sides. The Europeans took to firing their weapons, against which Māori had no real defence, and a number of iwi were killed including two tribal leaders.¹⁴ Cook had gone against the Royal Society’s advice:

[The local inhabitants] may naturally and justly attempt to repel intruders, whom they may apprehend are come to disturb them in the quiet possession of their country . . . should they in a hostile manner oppose a landing, and kill some men in the attempt, even this would hardly justify firing among them...¹⁵

Cook appears to struggle with justifying the use of arms against those who were defending their home against the sudden appearance of strangers. He wrote:

...had I thought that they would have made the least resistance I would not have come near them, but as they did, I was not to stand still and suffer either myself or those that were with me to be knocked on the head.¹⁶

Nicholas Thomas argues this passage replaced ‘a more elaborate statement in Cook’s rough draft’, demonstrating this was ‘not just a matter of kill or be killed, but more that withdrawal was not an option’. Faced with ‘ambiguity and disorder [Cook] preferred a swift resolution, even a violent one, to an uncertain or unpredictable situation’. To him, it made perfect sense.¹⁷

Having been offered the symbol of peace before leaving Poverty Bay, Cook then travelled up and down the North Island’s east coast, where canoes ventured out to meet the Endeavour. News had travelled quickly about this ship from afar. Many Māori were afraid of the strangers, but a few bravely boarded the British ship. The people of Anaura welcomed Cook’s party ashore, and at Uawa (Tolaga Bay) the artists sketched the scenery before them while Banks took delight in the specimens he found.¹⁸ Hostile exchanges still occurred, often provoked ‘by misunderstandings about reciprocity’, and the failure ‘to follow the appropriate rituals’, which caused resentment and confusion.¹⁹ When things did not go the way the Europeans expected, they readily resorted to firepower or flogging as a way to maintain their authority. Cook’s disappointment in his men’s behaviour regularly appears in his journals, but often conflicts with his own wavering attitude to particular situations.²⁰

Two races, two belief systems and two ways of being, vastly different from each other, were bound to clash. Before Europeans appeared, Māori ‘lived in a world peopled only by their ancestors and themselves’; a world which valued whakapapa and ‘the prestige of warfare’.²¹ They had not encountered these strange, white beings whom they deemed ‘supernatural’. Māori logic saw Europeans as somehow tied to their ancestors.²² Influenced by Tasman’s voyage, Europeans viewed Māori as ‘murderers’, ‘savages and barbarians’.²³ Ideas about each other were formulated ‘out of the same volatile mix of puzzlement, preconception and violence’.²⁴ Cook’s admiration of the ‘brave, war-like people’ who were ‘void of treachery’ is evident in his writings. He reasoned that violent encounters arose from misunderstanding ‘local protocols for meeting strangers’.²⁵ And yet Cook, and his men, misconstrued the challenge directed at their ship, and reacted with gunfire. No matter what Cook wrote, the hierarchical structure that underpinned European life still saw Māori as inferior. As Salmond argues, this is ‘a significant qualification’ as guns guaranteed the superiority of those on the Endeavour.²⁶

The Endeavour’s journey home was not without incident. Cook nearly lost his ship on the Great Barrier Reef, and more than two dozen men died after stopping at Batavia (Jakarta). Cook, and his remaining passengers and crew, finally set foot on British soil after nearly 3 years at sea.²⁷ Cook went home to his family after presenting his papers to the Admiralty and Royal Society. He believed his findings conveyed ‘a Tolerable knowledge of the places they are intended to illustrate, & the discoveries we had made, tho’ not great, will Apologize for the length of the Voyage’.²⁸ Cook’s navigational chart of New Zealand, put together with the help of Tupaia and Green, was published in 1772. Replacing Abel Tasman’s ‘enigmatic squiggle’ on the incomplete world map, it was remarkably accurate, although it had mistaken Banks Peninsula as an island and Stewart Island as a peninsula.²⁹ Cook’s endeavours earned him a promotion to Commander, and a request to find a suitable vessel for a second voyage.³⁰