4 Europeans explore (and imagine) the Pacific’s islands
4 Europeans explore (and imagine) the Pacific’s islands
Captain Cook’s Endeavour voyage in 1770 was part of a growing European presence in the Pacific from the late eighteenth century onwards. While the Manila Galleon had plied its familiar route since 1565, Spanish exploration of the region was limited. Similarly, English pirates might have pursued the Galleon, but they had not mapped the Ocean. And despite the voyages of Abel Tasman and Jacob Roggeveen into the Pacific itself, the Dutch presence had largely remained west of the Australian continent, and had concentrated on avoiding undesirable landfall, rather than exploration. This changed as European technology improved and European explorers became better able to meet the challenges of reaching and navigating Oceania. But while their technology had improved, in many ways European explorers in this period were seeking the same things in the Pacific as their predecessors, and they were similarly guided by preconceptions when interpreting and reporting their Pacific encounters.
In the late eighteenth century, the number of Europeans entering the Pacific increased markedly, and European exploration of the region became more systematic. As a result, more islands were encountered, and the positions of those islands began to be calculated and recorded with some degree of accuracy. Key in this process of increasing contact between Europeans and Pacific Islanders was the island of Tahiti. That island was first encountered by Europeans on 18 June 1767, when it was sighted from the Dolphin (a ship under the command of Samuel Wallis). The Dolphin was on its second voyage to the Pacific, the first had taken place in 1764-5 under John Byron. While European vessels were beginning to reach the Pacific repeatedly by this point, they were often short of food supplies and drinking water during their voyages across the vast ocean. When it reached Tahiti in 1767 the Dolphin was in desperate need of supplies, and the officers could not determine how far away the nearest known port lay. As a result, the desperate crew resorted to violence in the face of local people who asserted their control over their land and resources. After suffering significant casualties from European canons and firearms, the Tahitians sought to control their insistent guests through overwhelming hospitality. In doing so, they helped create a persistent European myth of luscious Pacific places and people.
On the Dolphin’s return to England Tahiti was identified as an excellent location from which to observe a rare astronomical event, the transit of Venus. Accurate measurements of the transit, taken from widely flung regions of the planet, would provide data for calculations to determine distances between the sun and its planets. The Endeavour was dispatched in 1768 for what would be a three-month stay in Tahiti. During that time Tahiti was accurately charted, and its longitude calculated, meaning that it could be placed on European maps wit