February 14 is celebrated by many around the world as Valentine’s Day. But in Hawaii, the date is known by a different name: “kill Captain Cook Day”.
On This week’s Stuff the British Stole, Marc Fennell unravels the death of British explorer Captain James Cook, who famously claimed the east coast of Australia. He came unstuck in Hawaii in a clash with the native people.
But what was Cook and his crew said to have stolen?
The episode begins in the Queensland town of 1770, so named as it was the year celebrated exporter and cartographer Cook and the crew of the ship Endeavour made their second landing in Australia.
Presenter Marc Fennell joins a lively bunch of “Cookies” reenacting the landing. From there, Marc traces Cook’s journey to Kealakekua Bay, in Hawaii.
Cook was searching for a northern passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, but bad weather saw him taking shelter in Hawaii.
Academic Dr Emalani Case takes Marc to where Cook was killed in 1779. It’s a place that is marked to this day with an “X”.
Dr Emalani tells Marc that Cook died when a local “clubbed him with a piece of wood multiple times”. Why?
“He stole from us,” she says. “I think people need to see him and his crew as thieves.”
When they first arrived, Cook was treated like a deity by the locals. But Marc discovers Cook’s crew were said to have stolen something sacred to the locals. What could it be?
“If you go to the British Museum, there’s like the Enlightenment Gallery, which is off to the right, and there’s a lot of stuff taken from the Pacific there,” Marc tells TV WEEK. “And there’s a repeated phrase you’ll see on those little labels there, which says something like, ‘First contacts in the Pacific were often tense and violent.’
“You mean, you shot people and took your things? Is that what that means?”
These days, there are mixed views about Cook and his achievements. But the celebrated explorer’s journey and ultimate demise in Hawaii makes for a fascinating story.
Marc tells TV WEEK, Stuff the British Stole is “mystery show first, a travel show second and then a history show third”.
“You need those elements to bring people along for the ride, I think, because like nobody wants, nobody wants to be lectured about the past, but everybody loves a treasure hunt.”
Stuff The British Stole airs Tuesday, 8pm on ABC and iview
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