Nick Squires: Captain Cook's Legacy In The Pacific
Captain Cook: British imperial bully or benevolent explorer? It is a question that historians have been debating for decades, and which is now being tackled by one of Sydney's leading museums.
A new exhibition at the Museum of Sydney, titled "Cook's Sites", consists of a dozen contemporary photographs of places Cook visited during his three voyages of discovery around the Pacific. The photographs are enormous, several metres wide, and are contrasted with sketches and paintings of the same views produced by Cook's official artists more than 200 years ago.
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Cook has long been regarded as the founding father of white settlement in Australia and New Zealand. Australia's national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, originally contained the unashamedly jingoistic verse:
When gallant Cook from Albion sailed,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
'Til he landed on our shore.
But to the many indigenous people he came into contact with, his "discovery" of their lands was a disaster, bringing disease, dispossession and despair. In the eyes of Aborigines, Maoris and Pacific islanders, Cook was a marauder and murderer, responsible for destroying traditional cultures and paving the way for colonialism.
One of the photographs is from Hawaii, where a white obelisk marks the spot where in 1779 Cook was murdered by angry islanders. The memorial is daubed with graffiti - "go home whitey", and "Captain Crook".
It is true that Cook could on occasion be ruthless. He ordered his crew to open fire on Polynesians who pilfered the ship's stores, and had no hesitation in shooting Aborigines dead when they tossed a few spears in his direction. But he was deeply concerned by the spread of venereal disease by his crew, and excused a Maori tribe for killing and eating some of his sailors, judging them "a good sort of people".
So, intrepid explorer or ruthless invader? The truth lies somewhere in between.
A new exhibition at the Museum of Sydney, titled "Cook's Sites", consists of a dozen contemporary photographs of places Cook visited during his three voyages of discovery around the Pacific. The photographs are enormous, several metres wide, and are contrasted with sketches and paintings of the same views produced by Cook's official artists more than 200 years ago.
...
Cook has long been regarded as the founding father of white settlement in Australia and New Zealand. Australia's national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, originally contained the unashamedly jingoistic verse:
When gallant Cook from Albion sailed,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
'Til he landed on our shore.
But to the many indigenous people he came into contact with, his "discovery" of their lands was a disaster, bringing disease, dispossession and despair. In the eyes of Aborigines, Maoris and Pacific islanders, Cook was a marauder and murderer, responsible for destroying traditional cultures and paving the way for colonialism.
One of the photographs is from Hawaii, where a white obelisk marks the spot where in 1779 Cook was murdered by angry islanders. The memorial is daubed with graffiti - "go home whitey", and "Captain Crook".
It is true that Cook could on occasion be ruthless. He ordered his crew to open fire on Polynesians who pilfered the ship's stores, and had no hesitation in shooting Aborigines dead when they tossed a few spears in his direction. But he was deeply concerned by the spread of venereal disease by his crew, and excused a Maori tribe for killing and eating some of his sailors, judging them "a good sort of people".
So, intrepid explorer or ruthless invader? The truth lies somewhere in between.