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Captain James Cook
James Cook, one of the greatest explorers in History, sailed 3 times to Tahiti in the 18th century and invented the anthropological voyage.
He was the man who really brought Polynesian culture to the world.
The James Cook file
Officially: Venus transit over the sun
Cook was already an experienced sailor when he joined the British Navy at the age of 28. Very gifted, he quickly was promoted and noticed for his great abilty to record topographic maps and extremely accurate marine charts (sent to Quebec, he produced such accurate charts that they were used for a whole century!). In 1768, when 40 years old, he was promoted Lieutenant and put in charge of the ship Endeavour. He never had been in charge of a ship before and had no experience of long distance navigation. His ship's crew was young, most of them volunteers under 30 years old. The officers were very experienced, particularly John Gore, who with two other recruited sailors, had participated in the previous year to the discovery voyage to Tahiti with Captain Wallis. Twelve military men under the command of a sargent were brought on board with the mission to keep order and protect the crew while on land. Since 1660, the " London Royal Society " was dedicated to scientific discoveries and to the promotion of knowledge. At the time, one of its favorite interests was computing the distance between the earth and the sun, which could, in theory, be determined by clocking the passing of the planet Venus in front of the sun. In 1769, to challenge the French who had a head start with their new metric system, the London Royal Society decided to coordinate the 151 observers who were to observe Venus' transit across the sun in 77 different countries. For the occation it decided to charter a ship, the Endeavour, to measure that phenomenon from a South Pacific island. Astronomer Charles Green joined the crew with telescopes, clocks and various atronomy instrument. When the ship arrived in Tahiti in April 1769, the crew built a small fortified tent to house the equipment, that Cook called Fort Venus. This did not prevent the Maohis from stealing some of the astronomy instruments. They returned them after long negotiations. Today, of course, this little fort has disappeared, but the Northern point bordering Matavai Bay is still named Venus Point and was the landing spot for all British ships later on. On June 3, in very clear weather, the observation of Venus transit across the sun was scrupulously timed. But finally, it was found years later that all the times recorded around the world were too different to be meaningful!...
 An anthropological voyage
Aboard the Endeavour, was also a very important person aged only 24: Joseph Banks. Already an eminent botanist, graduated from Eton and Oxford, he came from a very wealthy family and owned land in England. A member of the Royal Society, he asked to bring aboard the ship, and at his own expense, a group of scientists and naturalists. His offer was accepted and the Banks party finally included 9 persons, among whom Dr Solander, a botanists who helped to classify the plants and animals they encountered. Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, both artists. Parkinson, 23 years old, worked very hard during the whole trip: he drew 950 plants and more than 350 animals, before dying during the return trip. Banks brought over 150 books, microscopes, dissection, preservation and drying instruments for the plants, hundred of boxes as well as hundreds of small mirrors for bartering with the natives. So everybody aboard quickly felt like they were entrusted with a chartering and scientific information gathering mission, finding there a new subject of interest that helped them to occupy their time during the long journeys. Banks and his party also recorded for the first time the way of life of the South Seas people: their houses, their food, their clothes, agriculture, weapons, music, arts, etc. They also studied the various languages and created the first island dictionary. Their influence was so strong during the trip that when they returned to England, the voyage took an unprecedented dimension in the history of seafaring. The King in person invited them to admire their collection including no less than 1,500 drawings and paintings, over 1,000 plants, more than 500 fishes and 500 birds, and of course many objects of Maohi culture, among which musical instruments, weapons, clothing, jewelry, etc. We were very far the usual military expeditions. Without being aware of it, Cook had just invented the anthropological voyage! Looking back, it is certainly thanks to Banks' group that this voyage became so famous and that later on Cook was entrusted with two more expeditions in the South Pacific.
While leaving Plymouth in England on August 8, 1768, the Endeavour reached King George Islands (the name given by Wallis to the island of Tahiti when he discovered it) after an 8-month voyage, on April 13, 1769.
 A warm welcome in Tahiti
The welcome was very warm, thanks namely to the officers and sailors who had already sailed with Wallis two years earlier during his discovery voyage to Tahiti. There were however some frictions at first, especially following thefts committed by the Maohis (who had no notion of private property), and a man was killed after stealing a musket. To regain the Tahitians' confidence, Cook ordered to no longer use weapons, to avoid bloodsheds and in the future to handle thefts in a more diplomatic manner: thus when the astronomic quadrant disappeared from the tent where it was kept, negotiations were started with Tahitian chiefs who found it and gave it back to the British a few days later. A far cry from Wallis' methods who fired a canon to the beach and killed many Tahitians. Thefts of course continued, especially for clothes and nails. Reagarding nails, it should be said that they were unknown to the Tahitians, thus very much sought after and that women did not hesitate to sell their charms for one or two nails! During the previous trip, Wallis in fact had to forbid his sailors (although with not much success) to remove nails from the ship so he could preserve the ship's hull. One can therefore understand the reputation given by the sailors to the the unabashed mores of Tahiti compared to those of Puritan England. The Endeavour stayed 3 months in Tahiti, during which many sailors took female companions on land and were initiated to Tahitian rituals and celebrations. In return, the chiefs were often invited to dinner aboard. One of Cook's tricks was to bring along long red feathers, knowing that Tahitian chiefs were very fond of them as these feathers were very rare on the island and symbolized royal ancestry. Cook never forgot to bring some and to distribute then during his trips. During his stay in Tahiti, he used a small boat to sail around the island to chart it with incredible precision given the instruments he had at his disposal. He proved once again his great skills in this area.
 The real mission begins
3 months later, the ship left Venus Point, not without sadness on either side. A young Tahitian named Tupaia left with them and guided them to the islands of Huahine, Raiatea and Tahaa that Cook started to chart and named them Society Islands, because of their proximity characterizing them and as a tribute to the London Royal Society, who sponsored the voyage. Then he sailed straight South in order to complete his " secret mission ". For the British Navy indeed, observation of Venus transit was just an alibi to send a ship to discover unchartered lands in the South Pacific. In those days, they imagined that in order to " balance " the many overwater masses of land discovered in the Northern hemisphere, there had to exist a hidden large continent near the South Pole in the last unexplored zone in the planet. Cook sailed to the island of Rurutu in the Austral Islands and didn't find the expected continent. He then made sail West to New Zealand already charted in the 17th century by Abel Tasman, sailed around it for over six months and discovered that they were actually two islands, and one more time charted them in the most minute details. He was very surprised that their Tahitian guide was able to converse with the New Zealand islanders while they were more than 4,000 km away from Tahiti. A proof that of the Maohi people's migrations and settlements all over the Pacific. At the end of this first voyage, Cook sailed all the way up the East coast of Australia, found a pass through the labyrinth formed by the fearful coral reef along it and was the first to discover the straight separating Australia from New Guinea. In fact, he almost sunk his ship several times after hitting sharp coral. arriving in Batavia in Indonesia (Jakarta today) after 2 years at see, Cook lost only 8 of the 94 men in his crew when they left England. It was a very exceptional achievement a a time when long sea journey usually turned into hecatombs due to scurvy. It should be said that before leaving, Cook followed the precriptions of a Sc ottish naval doctor who observed that another crew kept in shape by eating the lemons in its cargo. So aboard the Endeavour, it was mandatory to drink lemon and orange juice (containing Vitamin C) on a regular basis and that Cook was very cautious that each stop on land was the occasion to stock up on fresh fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately the crew contracted malaria in the port of Batavia, and 23 men died on the way back to England, including Tupaia and his servant and astronomer Charles Green.
 The 2nd and 3rd voyages of Cook to Tahiti
When he returned to England in 1771, that is three years after he left, his voyage was hailed as an immense success, whether for its anthropological information or for the many charts drawn during the trip. Later, the Navy entrusted James Cook with two other voyages to the South Pacific from 1772 to 1775 and from 1776 to 1780 which brought him to Tahiti for long stopover where he was treated as a great chief. During the second voyage, his mission was clearly stated as finding this long sought Southern hemisphere mass of land. He looked actively for it while crossing the polar circle 4 times to Antartica and sailing for months amid icebers and the roaring 40's and sailing twice from New Zealand to Chile along the South Pole. He proved this way that there was no sea route connecting the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean through the South Pole. His third voyage sent him to the North Pacific along the coast of Canada and in the Bering Straight, to find an eventual way from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.
He was very respectful of the Maohi people with whom he cultivated strong relationships, however aware of the negative influence his voyages could possibly bring to these people, and the door he had opened to future European colonisations. Ironically, he was stabbed to death by some Maohi, on a beach in Hawaii during his 3rd trip on February 14, 1779, as he tried to interfere between his sailors and some Maohi who had just stolen a long boat.
Already very respected in his own time, this man who spent over 9 years in the Pacific ocean is recognized today as one of the greatest explorers and navigators in History.
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