Captain Cook reaches Hawaii

James Cook sighted the Hawaiian islands and landed on Kauai. When he returned in 1779 he was killed in a dispute at Kealakekua Bay.

Context

Cook's third voyage, begun in 1776 with the ships Resolution and Discovery, aimed to look for a Northwest Passage from the Pacific side. On the way north from Tahiti, the ships sighted Oahu and Kauai in January 1778 and landed at Waimea on Kauai. Cook named the group the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich.

Cook then surveyed the Pacific coast of North America and entered the Bering Strait, but ice blocked further progress. The ships returned to Hawaii in late 1778 and anchored at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii in January 1779, where Cook was received with ceremony during the Makahiki season.

After leaving, a broken mast forced the ships back. Tension rose over thefts and a stolen boat, and on 14 February 1779 a confrontation on the shore ended with Cook's death. Accounts differ among British and Hawaiian sources. Hawaiian people had arrived centuries earlier, so this is the first recorded European contact rather than the discovery of the islands.

Cook's first two voyages had already made him famous for mapping New Zealand, eastern Australia and for sailing far into the Southern Ocean.