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Editor's note
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Captain James Cook and the crew of the Endeavour stepped ashore 250 years ago at Kamay, on the lands of the Gweagal Clan of the Dharawal Nation. Cook called it Botany Bay. The encounter started almost immediately with violence, as Cook fired a musket loaded with small shot at Gweagal warriors who protested the arrival of these strangers.
Today, we’re launching a series of essays reflecting on these early encounters – both in Sydney and around what came to be known as Cooktown, where the Endeavour ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef.
An interactive by The Conversation’s multimedia editor Wes Mountain threads together dozens of perspectives to trace Cook’s journey through the Pacific and his interactions with Indigenous peoples. It also explores how – 18 years after the Endeavour left – Australia came to be the site of a new British penal colony.
We’re also hearing from Aboriginal historian John Maynard on how an honest reckoning with Cook’s legacy might help chart a path to reconciliation and from researcher and filmmaker Alison Page, a descendent of the Walbanga and Wadi Wadi people of the Yuin nation, on why Joseph Banks, for her, “emerges as a much colder, unkinder figure” than Cook.
David Andress reflects on Banks – the man, the scientist and the agent of empire – while Bruce Buchan unpicks the role botany played in Britain’s imperial aspirations.
Shino Konishi explains how Cook’s dealings with Indigenous people grew increasingly violent over the course of his three Pacific voyages, while Kate Fullagar shines a light on Indigenous navigators and translators Tupaia and Omai and their vital role as Captain Cook’s unsung shipmates.
Louise Zarmarti reviewed several decades worth of school textbooks to reveal how the way we’ve been taught about Captain Cook and his encounters with Indigenous Australians has changed over time, while Kate Darian-Smith argues re-enactments of the Endeavour’s voyage have perpetuated myths of Australia’s “discovery”.
We hope you find this essay series as enjoyable, challenging and eye-opening to read as we did to curate.
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Sunanda Creagh
Head of Digital Storytelling
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Top story
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Great Spirit and Rainbow Serpent – Jeffrey Samuels (used with permission, no re-use)
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation; Wes Mountain, The Conversation; Justin Bergman, The Conversation
Explore Cook's journey through the Pacific, the orders that brought him in search of the 'Great Southern Land' and the impact of his arrival in our new interactive.
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Uncle Fred Deeral as little old man in the film The Message, by Zakpage, to be shown at the National Museum of Australia in April. Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation
The impact of 1770 has never eased for Aboriginal people. It was a collision of catastrophic proportions.
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A scene from the author’s film The Message, commissioned by the National Museum of Australia. At the first encounter in Botany Bay, two Gweagal warriors threw stones and spears at Cook, saying ‘warrawarrawa’, meaning ‘they are all dead’.
Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage
Alison Page, University of Technology Sydney
Incidents from Cook's first voyage highlight themes relevant in Indigenous-settler relations today: environmental care, reconciliation and governance. This collision of beliefs, it seems, wasn't lost on Cook.
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Portrait of Mai, also known as Omai or Omai of the Friendly Isles.
Wikimedia Commons
Kate Fullagar, Macquarie University
Both islanders played a central role in Cook's three voyages across the Pacific, but their contributions have largely been overshadowed in what is generally thought of as era of European exploration.
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Education
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Louise Zarmati, University of Tasmania
To find out how the teaching of Captain Cook in Australian schools has changed, I examined textbooks used in the 1950s until today.
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Science + Technology
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Bruce Buchan, Griffith University
Botany was an integral feature of Britain’s colonial and imperial ambitions.
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Arts + Culture
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Philip C. Almond, The University of Queensland
The big questions don't get much bigger. After the Lisbon earthquake killed thousands, philosopher Voltaire took aim at Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and skewered his view that God is good.
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Aaron Corn, University of Adelaide
A series of four live-streamed concerts from Arnhem Land offers a welcome break from bad news and a way for Indigenous musicians to share their talents with the world.
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Politics + Society
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Kate Darian-Smith, University of Tasmania; Katrina Schlunke, University of Tasmania
Re-enactments of James Cook's arrival in Australia have served only to gloss over the violence of his interactions with Indigenous people and elevate Australia's imperial and British connections.
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Shino Konishi, University of Western Australia
Over the course of his three voyages, Cook was frustrated by the refusal of Indigenous people to embrace Western ways. He grew increasingly punitive, embodying the 'savagery' he ostensibly despised.
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Tony Walker, La Trobe University
China’s bullying behaviour, its threatened resort to a form of economic blackmail and its attempts to drive a wedge between Canberra and Washington mark a vexed new frontier for Australian diplomacy.
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Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Monash University; Jessica Burley, Monash University; Silke Meyer, Monash University
There's a real risk perpetrators of domestic violence will go 'unchecked' during the pandemic. But programs are coming up with innovative ways to monitor them and provide them with support.
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Stephen Gapps, University of Newcastle
Every European ship that voyaged the Pacific was, in the first instance, a floating fortress, an independent command that could send out small shore parties or to concentrate firepower as needed.
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Business + Economy
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James Morley, University of Sydney; Richard Holden, UNSW
We'll need to spend at least an extra 15-20% of GDP per year. It'll be more palatable if it is funded by COVID bonds.
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Health + Medicine
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Fabien B. Vincent, Monash University; Corinne Miceli-Richard, AP-HP
Kim Kardashian West suffers from psoriatic arthritis. About 1% of people have the autoimmune condition which primarily affects the skin and joints.
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Andrea Pattinson, University of Sydney; Amanda Salis, University of Western Australia
Research pointing to obesity as a significant risk factor for severe COVID-19 illness is growing. There are a few reasons this might be.
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Alex Collie, Monash University
Prolonged unemployment could result in a major public health crisis as early findings from a study indicate high rates of psychological distress in people who have lost their jobs during COVID-19.
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Cities
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Ben Beck, Monash University; Billie Giles-Corti, RMIT University; Rebecca Ivers, UNSW
We've all seen the increases in people walking and cycling on shared paths so crowded it's almost impossible to maintain physical distancing. This must be fixed, and quickly.
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Marion Terrill, Grattan Institute; Tom Crowley, Grattan Institute
The federal opposition’s idea for a bullet train from Melbourne to Brisbane is not a good use of a generation’s worth of infrastructure spending. It won't even work as an economic stimulus.
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Environment + Energy
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Sebastian Leuzinger, Auckland University of Technology
Plants take carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, but it goes straight back when they die or are harvested. There is an important difference between carbon fluxes and actual carbon sequestration.
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Laura Schuijers, University of Melbourne
As we face mounting job losses, taxpayers have a right to anticipate that the government's investments will be strategically sound.
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Ian Wright, Western Sydney University
In my 30 years of research, I keep uncovering long-standing environmental issues the mining industry doesn't seem to learn from.
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Daiane Scaraboto, University of Melbourne; Alison M Joubert, The University of Queensland; Claudia Gonzalez-Arcos, The University of Queensland
Many sustainability-conscious people now find their cupboards stocked with plastic bottles of hand sanitiser, disposable wipes and takeaway food containers.
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