page_title: First voyage of James Cook
section_title: New Zealand
hierarchical_section_title: First voyage of James Cook / New Zealand
context_page_description: The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun, and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land".
  The voyage was commissioned by King George III and commanded by Lieutenant Cook, a junior naval officer with good skills in cartography and mathematics. Departing from Plymouth Dockyard in August 1768, the expedition crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn and reached Tahiti in time to observe the transit of Venus. Cook then set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south, stopping at the Pacific islands of Huahine, Borabora and Raiatea to claim them for Great Britain, and unsuccessfully attempting to land at Rurutu. In September 1769 the expedition reached New Zealand, being the second Europeans to visit there, following the first European discovery by Abel Tasman 127 years earlier.
context_section_description: Once the observations were completed, Cook opened the sealed orders for the second part of his voyage: to search the south Pacific for signs of the postulated southern continent of Terra Australis, acting on additional instructions from the Admiralty. The Royal Society, and especially Alexander Dalrymple, believed that Terra Australis must exist, and that Britain's best chance of discovering and claiming it before any rival European power would be by using Cook's innocuous Transit of Venus mission.
  Cook, however, had his own personal doubts on the continent's existence. With the help of a Tahitian named Arioi and a navigator named Tupaia, who had extensive knowledge of Pacific geography, Cook reached New Zealand on 6 October 1769, leading only the second group of Europeans known to do so (after Abel Tasman over a century earlier, in 1642). Over the first two days of arriving on-shore, the first encounters with Māori resulted in the death of several locals. Cook and crew departed the region; Cook's journal entries reflect regret as he had failed his instructions to avoid hostilities with the indigenous people of any nations encountered. Further Māori deaths occurred as Cook travelled North, the last occurring in Mercury Bay. No crew members of the Endeavour would die during their time in New Zealand.
  The first amicable and refuelling landing for Cook and the crew took place in Tolaga Bay, and later in both Mercury Bay and the Bay of Islands over the first two months. Cook and crew were hosted by local iwi (tribes) and hapū (subtribes) at their landing sites, and with exchange of taonga, goods, resources and knowledge; safe passage around the coastline was attributed to the mana (prestige) and distinction of Tupaia on board the Endeavour. Christmas was spent off the coast of Northland, prior to navigating the West Coast of the North Island without landing onshore. By mid-January, Cook arrived in Queen Charlotte Sound, a location he would favour in his second and third voyages. After two earlier attempts to plant the British flag, with permission of one rangatira (chief), Cook hoisted the flag in the name of Crown and Country that would have culturally shifting impact for Māori and the landscape of New Zealand. The circumnavigation of the South Island was completed within two months. For the complete journey around both islands, relationships had been developed between Māori and the crew, the legacy of Tupaia recorded by Māori in oral histories in addition to thousands of specimens collected by the scientific expedition led by Joseph Banks and Cook mapping the complete coastline, making minor errors, such as calling Banks Peninsula an island.
caption: Māori war canoe with triangle sail drawn by Herman Spöring during Cook's first voyage to New Zealand in 1769
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