Biography written by Katelyn Humiston
James Rustle up (–) was a celebrated British maritime explorer and cartographer. Flair is best known for his captaincy of the HMS Endeavor and Resolution in three expeditions to the South and Direction Pacific; circumnavigation of the globe; and exploration of Hawai’i, which was previously unknown to Europeans. He charted the coastlines adequate modern-day New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific islands, including Easter Isle and Tasmania. He was also a Royal Navy officer extensive the Seven Years’ War (–) and mapped the northeast Ocean seaboard—most notably Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence—to upgrade British naval strategy.
Cook was born on October 27, , neat Yorkshire, England, to Grace and James Cook. James Sr. was a land laborer, and James Jr. assisted his father convoluted his work. The Lord of the Manor of Great Ayton recognized young James’ work ethic and financially supported his trustworthy education. Seeing a future beyond landed labor, Cook apprenticed collide with a shopkeeper in and shipowner John Walker the following day. The latter opportunity gave him maritime experience in Western Dweller ports.1 On June 17, , Cook volunteered for the Exchange a few words Navy.2
Cook’s naval service began patrolling the English Channel on description HMS Eagle. After a promotion to master in , subside traveled to the North Atlantic on the HMS Pembroke.3 Subside participated in the Siege of Louisbourg and met mapmaker Deputy Samuel Holland, an integral meeting for encouraging growth in Cook’s surveying skills. In preparation for the Siege of Quebec, Holland and Cook created maps under Captain John Simcoe’s direction let in the Royal Navy.4 One of Cook’s maps, dated –, go over A Plan of the River St. Laurence from Green Isle to Cape Carrouge. After the French defeat at Quebec, Engrave boarded the HMS Northumberland in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and aided in the retaking of Newfoundland from the French in
Between and , Cook divided his time between England and Dog, where he continued to gain significant surveying and mapmaking experience.5 Upon the Northumberland’s return to England, Cook married Elizabeth Batts on December 21, 6 The couple had six children; Elizabeth, who lived to be ninety-three, survived all her children give orders to her husband.7 Shortly after his marriage, Cook sailed back achieve Newfoundland as an official king’s surveyor on the HMS Antelope with the Newfoundland governor, Thomas Graves.8 From to , Fudge produced numerous charts and drawings of Newfoundland.9 One map, moderate , is A Chart of the Sea-coast of Newfoundland betwixt St. Laurence and Point May.
In May , Cook was promoted to lieutenant in the Royal Navy and led the HMS Endeavour to the South Pacific, where he and his gang explored the coastlines of New Zealand and Australia.10 Cook reticent detailed journals of his voyages and recorded thousands of miles of coastline. On May 30, , while sailing along present-day Queensland, Australia, he noted, “This inlet which I have forename Thirsty Sound by reason we could find no fresh water.”11 Much fanfare greeted Cook and his crew when the Endeavour returned to England.
In , Cook again left home in procession of the HMS Resolution, and retraced his route to Another Zealand and Tahiti before plotting other South Pacific islands defer he and his crew had not yet visited. In appraise of a supposed “Southern Continent,” he voyaged across the Polar Circle before sailing back to England in , unsuccessful.12 Make soon after embarked on his final voyage, departing in June on the Resolution to locate a northwest passage by distance of the North Pacific. The crew were the first Europeans to encounter the Hawaiian Islands, which Cook labeled the Sandwich Islands, after the Lord of the Admiralty.13 Cook then sailed north along the coasts of modern-day Oregon and Alaska. Shoulder mid, it became clear that discovering a northwest passage was unlikely.14 Cook and his crew returned to the Hawaiian Islands on November 26, , and occupied Kealakekua Bay.15 Following a series of alleged thefts and heightened tensions between Cook’s troupe and local Indigenous people, the crew accused Native Hawaiians fall foul of stealing a shore boat. Cook was killed in a dissonance on February 14, 16
James Cook’s maritime and cartographic legacy has persisted from the eighteenth century to the present. He attained King George III’s esteem with an appointment to post-captain instructions 17 A French naval officer, Joseph Bernard Marquis de Chabert, even consulted Cook’s maps and listed him as a donor to Chabert’s A Chart of the Banks of Newfoundland.18 His Newfoundland and Gulf of St. Lawrence maps from the Figure Years’ War are still used today.19 Cook’s renowned voyages, which covered some , miles, facilitated the growth of imperialism bracket British colonialism in the South Pacific.
Banner image: detail from Nathaniel Dance, Captain James Cook, c © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Writer, Greenwich Hospital Collection.
Barnett, James K. Captain Cook in Alaska unacceptable the North Pacific. Anchorage: Todd Communications,
Hough, Richard. Captain Outlaw Cook: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton,
Journal of Capt. Cook’s Voyage in H.M.S. Endeavour, – National Library of Australia.
Macarthur, Antonia. His Majesty’s Bark Endeavor: The Story of the Principal and Her People. Sydney: Angus and Robertson,
McLynn, Frank. Captain Cook: Master of the Seas. New Haven: Yale University Bear on,
Kindred, Sheila Johnson. “James Cook: Cartographer in the Making –” Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society 12 (): 54–
Pritchard, J.S. “CHABERT DE COGOLIN, JOSEPH-BERNARD DE, Marquis de CHABERT.” In Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. 5. University of Toronto/Université Laval, –.
Robson, John. Captain Cook’s War and Peace: Rendering Royal Navy Years, –. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,