An outline, era by era

European exploration (Tasman, Cook)

Early Modern Era · ~1500 – ~1800

European exploration of the Pacific and Oceania was the series of voyages by which European sailors, from the early 1500s to the late 1700s, found, charted and described the islands and coasts of the southern and Pacific oceans. It began with Portuguese and Spanish expeditions and was later led by the Dutch, French and British. Two figures stand out in the outline. Abel Tasman, a Dutch captain, sailed for the Dutch East India Company in 1642 to 1644 and was the first European known to reach Tasmania and New Zealand, and is generally credited with the first European sighting of Fiji. James Cook, a British naval officer, made three voyages between 1768 and 1780.

Cook charted the east coast of Australia and both main islands of New Zealand, crossed the Antarctic Circle, and visited many Pacific islands, including Hawaii. These voyages filled in the map of the Pacific and ended old European hopes of a great temperate southern continent. They also brought Pacific peoples into lasting contact with Europe, with consequences that included new diseases, trade and, in Australia and New Zealand, colonization.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Magellan crosses the Pacific

    Event

    What happened

    In 1519 Ferdinand Magellan leaves Spain with five ships to find a western route to the Spice Islands. In late 1520 he passes through the strait now named after him and enters the ocean he finds calm. He crosses it, reaching Guam and then the Philippines in 1521, where he is killed. One ship, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano, returns to Spain in 1522.

    The rest is history

    This was the first voyage to sail around the world, and it showed how vast the Pacific was. Spain went on to cross it regularly, and from 1565 the Manila galleons linked the Philippines to Mexico. Spanish expeditions later reached the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The Pacific remained thinly charted for two more centuries.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPigafetta, Antonio. Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo. Account of Magellan's voyage by a survivor, compiled after his return; surviving manuscript versions date from the mid-1520s.
    2. BookBergreen, Laurence. Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. New York: William Morrow, 2003.

  2. Dutch ships reach the Australian coast

    Event

    What happened

    In 1606 the Dutch ship Duyfken, under Willem Janszoon, sails along the west coast of Cape York in northern Australia. In 1616 Dirk Hartog lands at Shark Bay on the west coast and leaves an inscribed pewter plate. From 1611 Dutch ships bound for Java use a fast route across the Indian Ocean, and several are wrecked on the western coast.

    The rest is history

    These landings gave the Dutch a rough outline of the northern and western coasts, which they called New Holland. They found little to trade and did not settle. The Dutch East India Company's interest in the unknown south remained, and in 1642 it sent Tasman to learn more. Hartog's plate is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

    Sources

    1. BookSchilder, Günter. Australia Unveiled: The Share of the Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976.

  3. Tasman's voyage of 1642 to 1644

    Event

    What happened

    In August 1642 Abel Tasman leaves Batavia with two ships, the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen, on the orders of Governor Anthony van Diemen. In November he sights Tasmania, which he names Van Diemen's Land. In December he reaches the west coast of New Zealand, where a clash with Māori at Golden Bay kills four of his men. He then visits Tonga and Fiji and returns to Batavia in 1643. A second voyage in 1644 charts the northern Australian coast.

    The rest is history

    Tasman showed that the lands he found were not joined to any southern continent he had reached, but he found nothing the Company wanted to trade for. His journals and charts were kept as Company secrets. The Dutch made no attempt to settle. New Zealand was not visited again by Europeans until Cook in 1769, although others such as Dampier reached Australian coasts in the meantime. Tasmania took its present name in the 1850s.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTasman, Abel. Journal of his voyage to the South Land, 1642 to 1643. Manuscript held in the Dutch national archives, The Hague.
    2. BookSharp, Andrew. The Voyages of Abel Janszoon Tasman. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

  4. Dampier and Roggeveen

    Event

    What happened

    In 1688 the English buccaneer William Dampier lands on the northwest coast of Australia, and in 1699 he returns in the Roebuck, charting parts of the coast and publishing accounts of his travels. In 1722 the Dutch captain Jacob Roggeveen, searching for a southern continent, reaches Easter Island on Easter Sunday and later visits Samoa.

    The rest is history

    Dampier's books were widely read in Britain and drew the Admiralty's attention to the Pacific. His low opinion of the Australian land and its people did not encourage settlement. Roggeveen found no continent, and Easter Island was recorded for the first time by Europeans. Such voyages kept alive the question of what lay in the south, which the British government took up in the 1760s.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryDampier, William. A New Voyage Round the World. London: James Knapton, 1697.
    2. BookPreston, Diana, and Michael Preston. A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier. London: Doubleday, 2004.

  5. British and French voyages of the 1760s

    Event

    What happened

    In 1767 Samuel Wallis reaches Tahiti in HMS Dolphin. In 1768 the French navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville visits it too, and sails on to the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. Their reports describe fertile islands and welcoming people, and both voyages carry scientific interests as well as national ones.

    The rest is history

    The Tahiti visits set the stage for Cook. The Royal Society wanted observers in the Pacific for the transit of Venus in June 1769, and the Admiralty chose Tahiti, using Wallis's reports. The same expedition carried secret orders to look for the southern continent. Bougainville's account, published in 1771, helped shape European ideas of Pacific life.

    Sources

    1. BookSalmond, Anne. Aphrodite's Island: The European Discovery of Tahiti. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

  6. Cook's first voyage, 1768 to 1771

    Event

    What happened

    James Cook sails from Plymouth in August 1768 in HMS Endeavour. He observes the transit of Venus at Tahiti in June 1769, then sails south and west. He circumnavigates and charts New Zealand in 1769 to 1770, and in April 1770 reaches the southeast coast of Australia, landing at Botany Bay. He sails north along the coast and returns to England in July 1771.

    The rest is history

    Cook proved New Zealand was two main islands and not part of a southern continent, and he charted much of the eastern Australian coast, which he claimed for Britain as New South Wales. The expedition's botanist Joseph Banks collected thousands of plant specimens, and later advised the government on settlement. Botany Bay was proposed as the site for a penal colony. The First Fleet reached it in January 1788 but moved to Sydney Cove, where the colony was founded.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCook, James. Journal of the Endeavour voyage, 1768 to 1771. Manuscript, National Library of Australia and British Library. Ed. J. C. Beaglehole, Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1955.
    2. BookBeaglehole, J. C. The Life of Captain James Cook. London: A. and C. Black, 1974.

  7. Cook's second voyage and the southern continent

    Event

    What happened

    From 1772 to 1775 Cook leads two ships, Resolution and Adventure, on a voyage deep into the southern ocean. In January 1773 he crosses the Antarctic Circle, the first known ship to do so. He sails around the globe at high southern latitudes, and visits Tahiti, Tonga, Easter Island, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Using Harrison-type chronometers, he tests accurate longitude at sea.

    The rest is history

    Cook found no habitable southern continent, which undermined a belief that had lasted since antiquity, although he judged that ice lay beyond. The chronometer trial showed that longitude could be measured reliably at sea, making charts far more exact. His crews also had few cases of scurvy, which owed much to attention to diet and cleanliness. The voyage disproved a large temperate Terra Australis in the regions he explored, though Antarctica itself remained unknown.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCook, James. A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1777.
    2. BookThomas, Nicholas. Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook. London: Allen Lane, 2003.

  8. Cook's third voyage and his death

    Event

    What happened

    In 1776 Cook sails again in Resolution, with Discovery, to look for a northern passage between the Pacific and Atlantic. In January 1778 he reaches Hawaii, the first recorded European visit. He then charts the northwest coast of North America and passes through the Bering Strait. He returns to Hawaii and on 14 February 1779 is killed in a clash with islanders at Kealakekua Bay.

    The rest is history

    The expedition found no navigable passage, but it mapped much of the Pacific northwest. After Cook's death his officers completed the voyage, and the ships returned to England in 1780. Sea otter furs bought on the coast sold at high prices in China, which started a fur trade across the north Pacific. Hawaii soon became a regular stop for European and American ships.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCook, James, and James King. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. London: G. Nicol and T. Cadell, 1784.
    2. BookObeyesekere, Gananath. The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

  9. Cook discovered Australia

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that Captain Cook discovered Australia in 1770, and that he found an empty land that no one had visited before.

    The rest is history

    Aboriginal peoples had lived on the continent for at least 50,000 years. Torres Strait Islanders and Macassan trepangers from Sulawesi had also visited the north. Dutch ships had charted the northern and western coasts from 1606, and Tasman had found Tasmania in 1642. Cook was the first European known to chart the east coast, and he claimed it for Britain at Possession Island in August 1770. The notion of an empty land was later written into British policy as terra nullius, a doctrine overturned by the High Court of Australia in the Mabo decision of 1992.

    Sources

    1. BookClendinnen, Inga. Dancing with Strangers. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2003.
    2. PrimaryMabo v Queensland (No 2). Judgment of the High Court of Australia, 3 June 1992.

  10. The Terra Australis myth

    Popular belief

    The legend

    For centuries Europeans believed that a vast, rich southern continent, Terra Australis, must exist to balance the landmasses of the north. Some maps drew it stretching across the bottom of the world, and explorers set out to find it.

    The rest is history

    The idea goes back to Greek thinkers, and Ptolemy's world picture was revived in the 1400s and 1500s. Mapmakers such as Abraham Ortelius and Gerardus Mercator drew a huge southern land in the 1500s. Tasman's voyage showed that the lands he found were not a continent joined to it, and Cook's second voyage showed that no large temperate one existed in the regions he explored. What remained was Antarctica, first sighted around 1820 (credit is disputed among Bellingshausen, Bransfield and others), and Australia, a continent much smaller than the myth.

    Sources

    1. BookWilliams, Glyndwr, and Alan Frost. Terra Australis to Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  11. Cook was taken for a god in Hawaii

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A popular story says that Hawaiians believed Cook was their god Lono returned, welcomed him as divine, and killed him only when he returned and shattered the illusion.

    The rest is history

    Some early European accounts and the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins argued that Cook's arrival matched the festival of Lono. Gananath Obeyesekere has argued the opposite: that the idea of a god-Cook was a European invention. Scholars still debate how far Hawaiians saw him as Lono. What is well documented is that on 14 February 1779 a dispute over a stolen boat and an attempt to take a chief hostage led to the fight in which Cook died. Four marines were also killed.

    Sources

    1. BookSahlins, Marshall. How "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, For Example. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
    2. BookObeyesekere, Gananath. The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

  12. Aboriginal people could not see Cook's ship

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A widely repeated tale says that the Aboriginal people of Botany Bay could not see the Endeavour because they had no concept of such a ship, and so took no notice of it.

    The rest is history

    The story has no known source in 1770 records. The Endeavour's journals say that people on shore called out to the ship and that two men opposed the landing, and spears were thrown. Cook's and Banks's journals record the encounter with the Gweagal people at Kurnell. Where the idea of an unseen ship comes from is unclear, though it has been traced to twentieth-century retellings of Cook's arrival. It may be a modern invention, and historians treat it as myth.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCook, James. Journal of the Endeavour voyage, entry for 29 April 1770. Ed. J. C. Beaglehole, Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1955.
    2. BookKarskens, Grace. The Colony: A History of Early Sydney. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2009.

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