Cook Claims Australia — 255 Years Ago

A Scientific Voyage That Changed History

In August 1768, British naval officer James Cook set sail from Plymouth, England, aboard HMS Endeavour on what was officially a scientific voyage to observe the transit of Venus across the sun from Tahiti. But Cook also carried secret instructions: after completing the astronomical observations, he was to sail south and look for the great southern continent that European geographers believed must exist to balance the landmasses of the northern hemisphere. After Tahiti, Cook sailed to New Zealand, which he charted in detail, and then in April 1770 he reached the eastern coast of the continent that Europeans called New Holland — present-day Australia — landing at a bay so full of plants that he named it Botany Bay.

Charting the Unknown Coast

Cook and his crew spent several months sailing northward along Australia's eastern coast, meticulously charting what they saw. Cook formally claimed the eastern coast for Britain on August 22, 1770, at Possession Island off the tip of Cape York Peninsula. The voyage produced extraordinarily accurate maps of the coastline and detailed records of the plants, animals, and peoples of the region. Naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander collected thousands of specimens of plants new to science. The Endeavour nearly came to grief on the Great Barrier Reef, striking a coral head and requiring frantic emergency repairs before the ship could be saved.

The Consequences for Indigenous Australians

Cook's voyage opened Australia to British colonization, which began in earnest in 1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove. For the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who had lived on the continent for at least 65,000 years, the consequences were devastating. Colonization brought disease, displacement, violence, and the destruction of cultures and languages. The history of Cook's voyage is therefore deeply complicated — celebrated in Britain and by European Australians as a moment of discovery, it is understood by many Indigenous Australians as the beginning of a catastrophe. Australia's reckoning with this history is still ongoing, with growing recognition of the depth and duration of Indigenous Australian civilization.