After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Final Days of Captain Cook

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

The violent death of Captain James Cook, British explorer, on a Hawaiian beach in 1779 has become the stuff of legend. Should we believe the story that's been handed down? How should we remember a man who means so many different things to so many different people?Anthony Delaney tells Maddy Pelling the story of the Final Days of Captain Cook.Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick and Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code AFTERDARKYou can take part in our listener survey here.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

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Listen to Uncover Bad Results everywhere you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. acast.com Hawaii, February 1779. Captain James Cook, supposedly one of the world's greatest explorers, should be enjoying his retirement by now. His illustrious career has seen him become the first navigator to cross the Antarctic Circle, create the first accurate map of the Pacific Ocean and claim both New Zealand and

Eastern Australia in the name of King George III. And after being personally promoted to the post of captain by the king himself, it was assumed he would slow down and enjoy the spoils of his achievements on land with his family at home near St Paul's in London, England. But at the age of 47, he could not resist one last mission. He wanted to find the Northwest Passage, which was believed to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and, if found, would open up efficient trade routes and, more importantly, secure his legacy.

Little did he know, he would never return. This is the history of the final days of Captain James Cook. Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony. And today we are talking about the final days, part indeed of our final days mini series of Captain James Cook. Listeners, you've been really enjoying these episodes. We've had loads of great feedback and so we're back with another one. We have a long list of historical figures to get through, so don't fear. Those of you who put ideas forward, they

are coming. But we're going to begin with Captain James Cook. I think it's fair to say from the outset, controversial figure. Someone formative in our ideas of global history, of history of Britain, of naval exploration, of European ideals of enlightenment, and the racist under and overtones that came with that. Anthony, what drew you to this particular history? Why have you chosen this one? Anthony Comegna I think you're so right to bring this in right at the top because for so long, Cook has been this beacon almost of the British Empire,

even before the empire reaches its absolute maximum. So in many ways, Cook feels like one of the founding fathers of the British Empire, pushing boundaries and discovering, I use that term very loosely, new lands. Then you go and visit some of those countries, which he so determinedly interfered with. And the perception there is entirely different, as well it might be. It's interesting Maddy, right? Because this makes people uncomfortable, where they see it as revisionist history, they see it as trying to malign these British heroes. And I always say, history does not stop. We must keep re-interrogating the sources that we're trying to look at when

we're talking about some of these figures. And Cook is one of those people, if you find this history difficult to listen to, then… LARSON All the more reason to listen. GERMECK Exactly, exactly. All the more reason to listen. LARSON Yes, I completely agree. And I think he is two things at once. He is this beacon of enlightenment. He was an agent of imperialism. He was at the forefront of this global expansion. We can't deny that. We can't deny that he occupied that space, that he was celebrated, that he

continues to be celebrated. But also, he was one of many who upheld ideals in the world about the superiority of Europeans and the inferiority of various indigenous peoples that he came into contact with. I think we have to hold both of those things in our mind and I don't think that they're necessarily disparate, separate ideas and we're going to try and bring them together a little bit. What I think is so fascinating about him is that he means so many different things to different people as you've alluded to there, Anthony. I used to live up in North Yorkshire and we'll get into his life in a little bit, but he was born on the northernmost northern tip of North Yorkshire near Middlesbrough. In that area, he's still really celebrated

today and he is a historical figure that has become part of the local identity there. There's a museum to him in Whitby. I think there are several smaller little museums to him smattered around. There's the school room that he went to and the cottage that his family lived in and all of that. He has different meanings for different people, but I agree. I think thinking about his death is a very interesting way into thinking about his life, obviously the moment that he dies, but also the legacy afterwards. We've got a lot to get through in this episode and there's so many complications and nuances to talk about when it comes to Captain Cook. But first of all, let's get the lay of the land. We are in 1779. Give

us some context. What is going on in the world? It is an interesting time for so many. We say this for every episode because we're historians and we find all of these time periods interesting, but this really is quite a formative time. You have the American Revolutionary War going on between the American colonies and the British forces. Of course, France is by this time already siding with the American colonies in their fight for independence. This is a world defining event that's happening in the background as we discuss Cook's final days. In Britain specifically, we have the beginnings of, let's say the early stages, not quite the beginnings, but the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, which is going to change basically the face of Britain forever.

Its key being at this moment in time, the textile industry. Spain is consolidating its power in the Pacific and in South America. You're getting this idea all throughout this of this global expansion. And we have something similar happening in Russia, of course, with explorers who have been instructed by Catherine the Great, and they are continuing to map Alaska. So if we think about the times in which we're talking here, Cook is mapping different parts of the world. The Russians are trying to map Alaska and other related areas.

The American Revolutionary War is shaping what will be the modern world in many ways. So this really is a key and changeable time. Stesha The world as people know it is changing. It's changing shape. People's perceptions of it are changing. How accessible it is, is changing. Certainly from a European centric position, I suppose. The world is becoming both bigger and smaller in that new lands are being, and again, we're using this in a vertical as discovered by Europeans heading out in ships across the planet. But also it's becoming smaller because

travel is becoming maybe not easier or safer in the late 18th century, but certainly more frequent. There's technological advances that are allowing that, but it's also an era, we're right on the cospere of the 1780s and we know that the close of the next decade brings with it the French Revolution. There's already the Revolutionary War taking place in America. This really is the age of revolutions. It's an age when not only the geography of the world, but its hierarchies, its order are being reassessed. Cook is part of that. He's been on two voyages, two major state-backed voyages at this point, and he's about to go on the third and final fateful voyage. During those voyages, he has come into contact with all kinds of people and places and objects, and he's brought back

so much new knowledge and new items that he has variously traded and stolen and been gifted, depending on where he's been. So many of those items that are, for European eyes, representative of this wider changing world are brought back to London and placed in private collections, museums like Joseph Banks' collection, the naturalist who travelled with Cook on various voyages, the collections that then are eventually bought up and become part of what is now the British Museum. Our cultural understanding of so many of the places Cook visited begins in this moment with Cook. He really shapes culture, knowledge, and European centric world view in this moment, I think. Well, let's talk about him in a little bit more biographical detail. So he is born on the 27th of October, 1728 in Martin, England.

and you might be forgiven for thinking that he was from a very affluent family given his legacy. He's from a kind of lower middle family, they're very farm focused, farmland focused, but he is taken up by his father's employer and he's sent to a local school. He's paid for it, go to a local school. This gives him an opportunity to change his position in life. And as you were saying, Maddie, eventually he goes on to enjoy a career with the Royal Navy. He joins in 1755 and he is particularly known, even at that moment in time, for his skills in cartography and navigation. So he's already singling himself out as quite skilled in those areas. As you already said, Maddie, we have two voyages that have already happened by the time we come to these final days. The first took place in 1768 and lasted then until

1771. And that was to explore New Zealand and Australia's East Coast. So that was the first voyage. The second then very quickly afterwards, 1772 to 1775. Bear in mind the timeframes we're talking about here. These voyages are taking three years. During the second voyage, he mapped more of the Pacific and he was searching for unknown lands, trying to make discoveries as we've alluded to before. Then this, his third voyage starts in 1776 and he is attempting to find the Northwest Passage. The Northwest Passage is a sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and it's through the Arctic Ocean. And so this is something that's going to enhance trade, it's going to be very financially lucrative. And that is why he has set out again in 1776. And this leads us now, of course, to 1779, three years later, and we find him like we started. He's in Hawaii.

So you mentioned at the top, Anthony, that by the time Cook does this third and what will be his final voyage, he's not necessarily a young man. By modern standards, he's certainly not an old man, but he is in his late 40s and has every opportunity really to stay back in Britain. He's made a huge success of his life. He's made presumably a lot of money. He has social standing and connection. He moves in circles that include people at the royal court and some of the wealthiest aristocrats in the land. He's welcome in the drawing rooms of all of those people

and he's very, very well known publicly. My question is really, why do you think he chooses to go on this voyage, having had all that success and there's not really a need to prove himself anymore? And then I want to know a little bit more about the voyage itself, but answer me that first because I just think it's quite interesting if we're trying to get under the skin of who this man was. To answer you, it requires a little bit of conjecture, but you know me, Maddie, I don't mind having a little bit of conjecture, but you know me, Maddie, I don't mind having a little bit of conjecture. So yes, there's the financial legacy that will afford England, particularly, but not

just England, but will be afforded based on his discoveries if he manages to map this Northwest passage and that will change trade. You talked about him having kind of proven his legacy and i wonder if what i talked about before about his prior. Class status has something got to do with this i don't know what it feels to me like he still doesn't feel secure in his legacy because this could very easily be somebody else's voyage, you know? And like you're saying, Maddie, I just wonder sometimes if he felt that this would be the one, that this would be the thing to kind of submit. He'd done Australia, New Zealand, he'd mapped other places, and now he was going to find this important trade route as well. And he has this triumvirate then of discovery under his belt and he can retire peacefully. So I think his legacy has to, and his ego, and look, I don't mean

that in a negative way, everyone has an ego, but I think that might come into play here because he could have had himself a very easy final portion of his life, but no, he chooses this instead. And it almost makes sense that he chooses it. It feels very on brand for him to have chosen this way forward. So he hops in the resolution, which sets sail with the HMS Discovery under Charles Clark, and off they go together. I totally buy what you're saying. And I think the importance of the Northwest passage really can't be understated. You know, this is a hugely important shipping route, which if discovered and mapped correctly and claimed by Britain,

could change the fortunes of the British Empire. This would really open up global travel. It's incredibly important. We know that there are so many different people, all with ambitions and egos, trying to find this because it will inscribe them and shrine them into the history of the British Empire if they're able to do this. So I totally buy what you're saying actually. I've enjoyed this little bit of non-fact based conjecture. Yeah, absolutely. Tell me about the voyage then. So they set off in several years before 1779, right? It's 76 at the beginning, because that's the thing about the 18th century, it takes a long time to get anywhere in a ship.

Yeah. I mean, I just, I honestly couldn't cope. But yeah, they leave in July 1776. And we get to Hawaii, they're not traveling all this time, of course, but it's not until January 1779, 17th of January 1779, to be precise, that we arrive in Hawaii and he first arrives at Kealakekua Bay and as it so happens, and this is quite decisive, right? And it feels like a bit of a nothing detail when you read some of his histories, but it's quite formative. His arrival coincides with a sacred festival called Makahiki. And because of the timing at which he arrives, Cook is believed by some of the indigenous people in Hawaii to be the actual god Lono. So he arrives and there is instantly this divinity associated with his arrival from the perspective of the indigenous people

there. So initially they're very much welcomed and they in fact get to depart. There is no, you know, we're talking about the final days here, so something's about to happen we know on the horizon that leads to a demise. He gets to leave and he gets to leave the bay and he leaves in early February, so you know, he stays a couple of weeks. He leaves in early February 1779. But by the 11th of February, weather conditions have been so bad, it's been quite stormy, that he has to return to the bay because there has been damage to the ship's mast. And this is where this sacred festival becomes really important because in the tradition of that sacred festival, the return of Lono, or Lono's

representative, is not part of how they understand that tradition. So the fact that he comes back is hugely disruptive to religious expectations. His return starts to create these tensions. I just, I think that that is so fascinating. I'm Professor Susanne Lipscomb and on Not Just The Tudors from History Hit we do admittedly cover quite a lot of Tudors, from the rise of Henry VII to the death of Henry VIII, from Anne Boleyn to her daughter Elizabeth I. But we also do lots that's not Tudors, murderers, mistresses, pirates and witches. Clues in the title really. So follow not just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. There's a lot of information to digest here and I think the way that we are given this story in our cultural retellings, there is a tendency towards, again, a European skewed,

almost humorous retelling. Cook turns upon this island and it's a sort of twist of comic fate that the indigenous people think that he is one of their gods, and then he messes it up by returning again. But I think as well it speaks to Cook and his crews' complete lack of understanding of the people that they are encountering and whose land they are coming into, that they don't see any of the importance or significance of their religious rites, their religious festivals, that they misunderstand them. And that is his downfall. I think you've hit the nail on the head there. And let's remember this, but put a pin in

it because we're coming back to this. Who is delivering this history to us? Why do we know this? How do we know this? And as you said Maddy, we're getting this exclusively through a European lens. And I'm going to tie this piece of information to something else a little bit later and we can question both at that particular time. So because of his return, we have this tension that's created with the indigenous people and with those who are traveling with Cook. And what we find is that the Discovery, so that's the other ship that I said had set sail with Cook when they left, the Discovery's cutter is taken on the 13th of February, 1779, and this starts to see an escalation of tensions then, right?

What is the cutter, by the way? Do we know? It's a smaller vessel. And the response, which we are told corresponds to indigenous practice on Hawaii, is that Cook's response is right. If you've taken our cutter, which is an important part of our traveling equipment, we are going to take your king. So they take King Kalani Opu'u to negotiate the return of the Discovery's cutter ship. It's an invitation at first, but following this invitation, the king's wife, Queen K'neka Pole intervenes and she says there is danger here and the King shouldn't go. She seems a little bit more in tune with what Cook's intentions might be. And because of the Queen's

warnings, the King's attendants start to become more and more suspicious and agitated. They're becoming even more agitated with the arrival of Cook's armed Marines who have come to take the King. Now, we have to bear in mind that there's context for this, and that is that before this has happened, another Hawaiian chief, Kana'ina, has been shot and killed in a scuffle across the bay with Cook's men. And this then is adding insult to injury that there's now what feels like an attempt to capture the King. There's so much going on here. So we have these rising tensions between Cook's men who are at this stage, they've been to Hawaii during this festival, they've all integrated

and interacted with the indigenous peoples there. Then they've all got back on the ship and they've gone, but there was a storm and they've had to come back again. Now we have some of them on the ship, we have some on the shore, tensions arising, little pockets of disagreements, violence are breaking out between everyone. Because the cutter has been taken, which is vitally important to the voyage, he's tried to react in what I think is an incredibly unwise way to try and kidnap the king. It just seems so undiplomatic and such an escalation. This just doesn't strike me as the behaviour of a man

who's been so... he's had so much experience, he's done two voyages around the world. He has interacted with, traded with, fought with people he's come into contact with in various different places. But this just feels like a misstep, This just feels like a miscalculation. And we know that it's going to go wrong for him. So it is a mistake and it's one that's going to lead to his downfall. So tell me what happens next, because we know we all know what's coming. But take us to that point, please. 9am on the 14th of February, 1779. It's my birthday, by the way.

Yes. Not 1779. I'm not that old. No. So many people I know are born on the 14th of February. It's kind birthday, by the way. Yes. Not 1779, I'm not that old. No. So many people I know are born on the 14th of February. It's kind of weird. So there you go now. 9am, the 14th of February, 1779. The crowd has grown. It's becoming increasingly hostile. So Cook, in retaliation, fires his musket at the advancing Hawaiians. And this, of course, then provokes a response and that response turns out

to be deadly. There is a painting by Zofany, which I'm going to get Maddie to describe in Grand after Dark tradition in just a moment. But the attack that's launched on Cook takes place with clubs and spears and he's struck on the head and he's stabbed. He has multiple injuries. These all lead to his death. But Maddie, let's have a look at Zofny's painting. This actually is an incomplete painting, so it's at the National Maritime Museum. But yeah, if you wouldn't mind just describing what we can see there, it's interesting for so many reasons. Yeah, so this is by Johann Zofny, who is one of the great neoclassical painters of the

18th century. He's a society portraitist, but also a history painter. And this painting, as you say, Anthony, it's unfinished. It's got these edges that fade out in terms of colour and detail. It was produced 20 years, almost 20 years. No, maths. Yes, 20 years after Cook's death. 15, 14, 15, yep. And that historical distance tells you a lot of what you need to know about this painting. So, as I say, Zofny is a history painter and the tradition of history painting in the 18th century is very grand. It's all about the big canvas. It's about taking

a dramatic moment from the past and sometimes from contemporary life and elevating it, making it into this snapshot, this moment in which the whole story is encapsulated in this one moment. In this particular image, we are on the shore of Hawaii and we've got the sea, this choppy sea down to the left-hand corner, just a hint of it, which I think there's even a shark's fin sticking up. Potentially it's a rock. It looks a little bit like a shark's fin. It looks like a shark's fin, whatever it is. Quite close to the shoreline. I'm not sure Zofanie knew much about marine biology, but

anyway, and we've got a sort of battle scene going on. So all around us, we have got marines armed with muskets in their red uniforms and their tricorn hats, and they are fighting the indigenous Hawaiians who are mostly naked. We can talk about this racialized depiction in a second, and who are armed with knives, clubs, other weaponry. In the center of the image, on the floor, we have Cook himself. He's wearing his blue naval uniform with his white britches. I mean, he almost looks like he's sort of reclining. He's fallen to the floor. He's still grasping his musket and it even looks like there's a fire, like a shot coming out of it. He's fired it accidentally as he's fallen to the ground. So you really get the sense of the action

that's taking place here. He is on his right hand side sort of leaning almost into the sea, he's sort of tumbled over into the water. And over the top of him, these two Hawaiians are leaning and attacking him. There's one on the right in particular, who I assume is the chieftain, is the king himself. He's wearing a feathered headdress and a feathered cape. The likes of which, by the way, were fairly typical across, as I understand it, a lot of the Pacific Islands. Cook had actually brought back similar objects to Britain before and they were in the collections of various aristocrats there. Their appearance in this picture is very much evoking the material culture, the material

landscape of these places as understood by Europeans who would come into contact with some of these items. So this is a very European coded image of what's happening. Some of the figures are unfinished in the background, as we say. This isn't a painting that's oftenly ever completed. What we have here, I think, is this question of this idea of nobility. We've got Cook portrayed as this noble suffering hero who is taking on for the team. He is dying on behalf of the empire. He's this elevated figure.

And then we also have, and I'm using this again in adverted commas very heavily, this idea of the noble savage. And this is an idea that was at the forefront of people's minds in the 18th century. It's something that the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau talks about. In fact, I think I'm correct in saying that he coined the phrase. And it's this idea of the indigenous peoples that the expanding British and other European empires were coming into contact with being on the one hand elevated and noble and warrior-like and heroic, but kept within the parameters of uncivilisation according to what that might look like according to the Europeans. This idea that they are unsophisticated, they have no clothes on here,

they have what is in comparison with the muskets rudimental weaponry. This image therefore is so coded with the values of empire, with the values of the British Navy, this idea of British expansion, of heroism. What it's saying is Cook died nobly because he met a worthy opponent. The people who killed him, according to Zofany and others back home, are uncivilized and violent, but there's a nobility in that. And it's this idea that the whole of the frontier of empire that's constantly being expanded, that that is a place worth dying for and where these interesting clashes are taking place. That's my reading of the 18th century idea of this painting. I think it's fascinating, and of course this isn't the only depiction of Cook's death

that we have, but I think, Anthony, you've picked such a great image here that holds within it all of these late 18th century ideas and racist, violent structures that it's upholding. I'm Professor Cezanne Lipscomb and on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, we do admittedly cover quite a lot of Tudors, from the rise of Henry VII to the death of Henry VIII, from Anne Boleyn to her daughter Elizabeth I. But we also do lots that's not Tudors, murderers, mistresses, pirates, and witches. Clues in the title, really. So follow not just the Tudors from a history hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's look at the hours and days immediately after his death, and in this next narrative we'll get a clearer picture of what happened. Cook's body was taken away by the indigenous Hawaiians into the heart of their settlement. We're told that they treated his body in a way usually reserved for chiefs or for the most respected elders in their society. He was disemboweled, his flesh removed and his bones carefully cleaned for preservation. Many items were exchanged between the Hawaiians and Captain Cook's crew during their stay on the island, before relations soured. The Hawaiians traded fish and sweet potatoes for pieces of iron and brass, for instance, but now his crew were negotiating for Cook's remains to be returned, so that they could

bury him at sea. Captain Clark, Cook's second-in-command, eventually succeeded and brought his former captain's dismembered body back to the ship for the final time. At dusk on the 22nd of February 1779, the crew gathered together on board the ship, still moored near to the bay. The ship bobbed gently as they prepared to drop all that remained of Captain Cook, now swaddled in a sail cloth, to his final resting place. The men watched as the remains fell deeper and deeper into the silken dark water, never

to be seen again. So we have this version, and again, I'm very aware that this is the European version of the story that's been handed to us from the perspective of Cook and his men. Cook is, despite being an antagonist, despite being at fault as a leader and getting himself into a position where he's having a battle on the beach and is killed. Despite all of that, Hawaiian custom around funerary rights dictates that he's treated as a leader, as someone of high status, and that his body is treated with respect and is dealt with. I think this is fascinating. We can talk about the veracity of that in a moment and if there's another way to possibly read this scene. But I think it's so interesting to me that there's these two versions of disposing of the dead

that come up against each other in this moment. We know in the 18th century and indeed into the 19th century that there were very specific traditions around dealing with deceased people on ships and lots of practices associated with that. The wrapping of people in their hammock, I think it was often, if not bits of sail. The putting of the final stitch of that shroud through the nose of the person who died just to make sure that they were definitely dead before you threw them overboard. The tradition of that often being done by a crewmate who had been close to the person in life and the idea of showing respect and gentility in that moment before committing the body to the deep. So we have

those traditions and then we have the Hawaiian tradition and Cook's body becomes a contested territory. It becomes an item, a site of tension, of conflicting ideas and conflict over control of the narrative of the situation. But it's so fascinating to me this idea that the Hawaiians simply take the body and treat it in this way with honour. I don't know. Is that true? Is that what happened? I mean, yes, but I want to offer another interpretation. It looks very much like the steps that were just described there did take place. And it would archivally make sense that those practices would have been done by the indigenous Hawaiians in order to mark the passing of Cook.

Now as you're saying, Maddy, we are sold this version that they couldn't help but honor his greatness. That yes, okay, they'd been adversaries, but they couldn't help but honor his greatness in his death because despite the fact that they had this clash, well, he's a great old chap altogether. But I think the alternative interpretation of this is not necessarily an honoring, but an acknowledgement of his status. Because in indigenous Hawaiian cultures, this taking of the bones were to be taken to be displayed as proof

of their victory in battle. So actually it's not necessarily an honouring of the, well, it is in some ways an honouring of the foe, but it's showing that they emerged victorious. And according to other historians who look at the indigenous side of this history, that was something that most other chiefs would prefer not to have happen to them. It wasn't necessarily an honorific positioning because basically what they're showing is I was defeated. I was the chief and I was defeated. So this isn't necessarily honoring, it's acknowledging his status but not necessarily

honoring in a Western concept of honoring, although there is an element of honoring in how the bones would have been displayed if they had been left with the Hawaiians, but they're not. So the British retelling seeks to horrify Cook even more, where actually what the Indigenous Hawaiians are doing are showing him as a defeatable enemy. I like that interpretation. I think that sounds far more plausible and nuanced and interesting actually than the version that we've been handed down. In terms of Cook's legacy and the aftermath of this moment, as we've seen, the violence of his death reverberates down,

certainly the decades immediately after it happened. The news is huge in Britain and artists are still depicting it towards the end of the close of the century and well beyond. But what do you see his legacy as being and how has it shape-shifted over time? Do you think people in the late 18th century, we know that not everyone in Britain wanted to uphold the empire and the violent foundations that supported it. We know that there were people campaigning for all sorts of equalities and liberties that weren't in place. Do you think that there was criticism of Cook? Do you think that his mistake in interacting with the indigenous Hawaiians and his bad leadership, as I think it is fair to call it that, was there a sense of criticism or

was he just held up as a hero and that's the version that we've got today, or at least until relatively recently and more recent you know, sort of more recent moves to reassess these histories. I think the answer depends on who you ask. Now, obviously, on the one hand, we have this idea that Cook was this great explorer, great hero, but it really is not that simple. For example, in October of this year, when King Charles III visited Australia, an Indigenous member of the Australian parliament protested against King Charles III's presence in Australia, and she shouted up the aisle, you are not my king, you have taken our lands.

taken our lands. And for many Hawaiians, that would resonate with them too. Me as a Western historian who's not British has a different take again, where it's coded with imperial. You know, there's this thing, Maddie, which, I mean, this is a broader discussion, but there's this thing where there's a misconception that historians are unbiased. And while we come to archives with as clear a slate as we possibly can in order to interpret the facts that we encounter there, as impartially as we can, we all come with baggage and we all come with cultural baggage and historical baggage that informs our interpretation of those facts. So Cook's legacy is, I think the easiest way to round it up would be to say that it's

mixed and it is incredibly divisive. Well, there you have it, folks. I think if nothing else, hopefully this episode will prompt discussion amongst you. Let us know what you think about the legacy of Captain Cook and indeed the other figures that we're covering in this ongoing mini-series of the final days of various people from the past. If you want to get in touch with the show, you are always welcome to do so. You can email us and our producers at afterdark at historyhit.com. Don't forget to leave a five star review of the show wherever you get your podcasts. It really, really genuinely

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