What was cook response to australia

Find out more. Essay reproduced from Cook and the Pacific. In raising the British flag on Possession Island in the Torres Strait, Cook unleashed cataclysmic consequences upon Aboriginal people of the Australian continent.

As an Aboriginal historian, one cannot but recognise, in the wake of this single event, the horrific impact and cultural destruction that would explode across the continent in the decades ahead. At its height, the Aboriginal population would teeter on near complete annihilation through disease, warfare and severe government policies. I recognise that it would be completely unrealistic to think that we would have remained immune to outside invasion and its impact even if James Cook had not stepped ashore in In this essay, I will undertake to provide an Aboriginal perspective on Cook that examines the complexities and contradictions of the man and his interactions with Aboriginal Australia, and the impact he has had.

While there has been much written about Aboriginal stories, songs, humour and derision of Cook in remote Australia, this essay will focus on how James Cook has been remembered in south-eastern Australia. Divisions within Australia over differing viewpoints on the navigator James Cook have already begun to erupt over historical memory and its accuracy. In a recent article, Aboriginal journalist Stan Grant noted the divisive fractures within the United States over the commemoration of Southern leaders of the Civil War period and demands that the memorials be pulled down.

He noted the monument dedicated to James Cook and its inaccuracy in stating that Cook had discovered Australia. Grant had no idea that his comment would incite such a backlash of heated opposition.

Grant simply asked for an amendment to be made on the plaque to recognise what is now scientifically recognised as over 65, years of Aboriginal connection to the continent. I am, like Grant, an admirer of James Cook as a skilled navigator and an inspiring leader of his crews. Paul Daley. Read more. When commemorating Captain Cook, we should remember the advice he ignored Paul Daley. Reuse this content.

The accounts given are hardly ever a straightforward recounting of what Cook did. And they rarely tally with what is recorded in the voyage accounts. Rather, they carry those common qualities of remembering: telescoping, conflating, rearranging time, stripping back detail, and upping symbolism and metaphor. Unpicking the threads of these memories is vital for historians wanting to find agreement on details and interpretations, and provenance of items that changed hands during early encounters.

Some oral accounts were written down — either at the time they were heard or later. Records reveal accounts extracted out of curiosity, to assist with commemorations, or simply to pass the time. One account comes from the early s. They asked him "if he had any recollections of the landing of Captain Cook". He was born too late to have witnessed it himself, but he shared a reasonably long story he had inherited from his father, the recollection of which one of the priests later published.

Similarly, in a recent prize-winning essay , historian Grace Karskens reconstructs a tantalising conversation between Aboriginal woman Nah Doongh and her settler friend Sarah Shand. Nah Doongh offered her a story about Cook, whom she presented as big and evil, violent and greedy, in a way that anticipates late 20th-century Aboriginal oral narratives.

Cook emerged as an erstwhile topic in cross-cultural conversations across colonial Sydney, but the substance of what was said and why was less dependent on the details of what Cook and his crew had done in than on the conditions, contexts and purposes of the chats.

As many have noted, discourses about Cook in Australia are never-ending; but their contours and emphases change in relation to — and contribute to change in — broader Australian culture and politics. Sometimes it is not the account given of Cook that is of primary interest, but the identity of the narrator. Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.

Read more: A failure to say hello: how Captain Cook blundered his first impression with Indigenous people. After revisiting Tahiti on his third voyage, he was dismayed to discover that despite a decade of European encounters and exchanges, he nonetheless found. For his first expedition on the Endeavour, Cook received a document called Hints prepared by the Earl of Morton, president of the Royal Society, providing advice on how to deal with Indigenous people.

No European Nation has the right to occupy any part of their country … without their voluntary consent. Exercise the utmost patience and forbearance with respect to the Natives of the several lands where the ship may touch. To check the petulance of the Sailors and restrain the wanton use of Fire Arms. To have it still in view that shedding the blood of these people is a crime of the highest nature.