![cook II](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/cook-II.png)
The Compassion of Captain James Cook
James Cook, the finest maritime explorer in recorded history, was among the victims of a massacre by First Nation peoples. His violent death and those of four marines protecting him, as well as the killing of another ten crewmen on his previous expedition, may be omitted from postmodern lists of historic massacres in the Pacific region. Nevertheless, what transpired on both occasions were massacres.
The first massacre occurred in New Zealand during the expedition of 1772–75. Recently promoted to Commander, James Cook was leading two vessels: his own ship the Resolution, and the Adventure captained by Commander Tobias Furneaux. Cook used them in tandem to explore and map the southern Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, searching for land at high latitudes while aspiring to approach the South Pole.
This essay appears in June’s Quadrant.
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