The Death of Cook

It had all been just a terrible mistake. Things got out of hand. It was tragic. Really. An accident. A fatal one. Today a lonely monument stands in solitary salute, isolated across a small bay, on the location of the tragic event.

James Cook was undoubtedly the most famous navigator of the 18th century. Indeed, his name is still revered as a paragon of exploration, navigation expertise and accomplishment. Called ‘Captain Cook’ he was but a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Yet because he commanded a ship he was entitled to be called ‘Captain’. He was not a British aristocrat nor did he have much in the way of political influence. But he was a steady and accomplished British naval officer who was, at first, charged with a relatively minor task: sail to Tahiti and observe the transit of Venus.

The Royal Navy had a problem with navigation. In the 18th century navigation was still an inexact science and the Navy paid a huge toll in shipwrecks as its ships piled up on both charted and uncharted reefs. Some men of science proposed that if the transit of Venus across the face of the sun could be plotted from different locations on the globe, they would be able to more accurately plot the circumference of the earth. This, in turn, would help them determine longitude. Not true, as is turns out. But the effort gained unexpected results. During his journey Cook would explore and map many previously unknown Polynesian islands. His scientists would bring back exciting new discoveries, titillating the world by the display of previously unknown floras and faunas, all magnificently exotic. Cook would be sent three times to the Pacific to explore and map. His discoveries would confirm the presence of a continent called Australia. He would bring back the first maps of a place called New Zealand.

In his third voyage he was asked to do the impossible – find the mythical ‘Northwest Passage’. The northern way around North America, the Northwest Passage, was the Holy Grail of exploration. The only problem was that it didn’t exist. Nobody knew that for sure so Cook was sent to confirm or deny its existence.

So Cook returned to the familiar waters of Tahiti. He spent some time refitting his two ships, Resolution and Discovery, and charting islands with their attendant bays and possible anchorages. He then departed to the north, headed for Canada and the pursuit of the Northwest Passage. However, a strange thing happened enroute. About a month north of Tahiti land was sighted. But there was no land here. At least none plotted on Royal Navy charts. It appeared to Cook to be a series of islands. And it was. Cook and his crew were the first men to sail from Tahiti to Hawaii in over 500 years. As Cook approached the island of Kauai canoes came out to greet him, offering fruit and fish for trade. The language that was shouted from the canoes sounded much like the Tahitian language Cook had mastered. He would constantly wonder how these people, so similar to Tahitians, had arrived in these islands over 2,000 miles from the nearest land. He would never know the answer to that riddle.

As Cook coasted around these strange islands he arrived off the Big Island, Hawaii. His arrival was mistaken by the Hawaiian priests as the coming of the god Lono. He was treated with reverence and pomp, his two ships loaded with fresh food. Cook and his crew ventured ashore and formed acquaintance and friendships with many of the Hawaiians. Cook would write in his log that he was surprised by the relative wealth and organization of this new society. There was obviously a royal court complete with king and courtiers, a priestly class and a common people accomplished in a variety of trades. His relationship with the Hawaiians was one of mutual exploration, neither side understood the other. But the Hawaiians, a Stone Age people, understood the superior technology of the westerners and the clear implication of their metals and tools. Nothing of metal was safe around any Hawaiian. They wanted it all.

Despite the serendipitous finding of these islands Cook was not to be deterred from his main mission of seeking the Northwest Passage. The small expedition headed north into the Pacific, the ships groaning under the gifts of food supplied by the Hawaiians. Only to return. A storm at sea had sprung the main mast of one of the ships. It was foolish to continue in such condition so Cook returned to Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island for repair.

The coast of the Big Island is not the creamy sand beaches that many imagine for Hawaii. Instead the beaches, if they exist, are black sand and rocky. Many are small with little protection from ocean waves. Kealakekua Bay offered modest protection from the ocean swell and access to forests for timber for repairs.

But the Hawaiians were troubled by the return of Cook. If, as they supposed, Cook was a god, why did he return? It was not his season. He had left - he should remain gone until his time of coming next year. And why would a god need help in repairing his strange canoe? A certain uneasiness crept over the Hawaiians and their relationship with the strangers. Perhaps they weren’t gods at all, perhaps they were something else? While Cook and his crew struggled ashore to find and shape a tree with which to repair their main mast, trouble broke out.

Early one morning the officer of the watch reported to Cook that one of the ship’s boats was missing. The Resolutions’ two boats had been tied off behind the ship overnight. Some one had cut one of the boats loose overnight and stolen it. This was a very serious matter to the British. The boats were the only way for the crew to get ashore for water and supplies. Without his boats Cook knew he was in serious difficulty. Cook knew he must act immediately to recover the boat.

The lonely monument on the small bay is accessible only by foot or by boat. The foot path runs two miles downhill. And two challenging miles back uphill. One may also kayak over from the state park on the other side of the Bay. It is just as the Hawaiians had accessed the bay those many years before. For a man who would have towns, rivers and islands named after him, it is small enough tribute. It is mournful, standing in isolation all alone. When the King mourns, everyone mourns.