Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Edited by Jonathan Green, Melbourne University Publishing, $24.99.
In Volume 78, issue #4 of Meanjin, Paul Daley takes a long look at the complex legacy of James Cook, a British explorer, navigator, cartographer and captain in the British Royal Navy.
In a timely essay ahead of the Cook sestercentennial in 2020, Sydney-based award-winning journalist and author, digs deep into the many and conflicting strands of this Australian colonial foundation story. The question is what to make of Captain Cook after 250 years? There is serious scrutiny.
Was Cook a blameless master navigator? Or should he be connected intimately to the dispossession of First Nations peoples that followed his voyage of 1770?
Daley says: “It’s true – he couldn’t see the future. But for the very reason that centuries of colonization had preceded his voyages of discovery, Cook would have been conversant with the well-worn patterns of empirical colonisation – including the taking of land and violent repression of custodians … A glance across the Irish Sea would have been prescient enough”.
Noted in James Cook’s Endeavour Journal were some specific records.
“In the early light of 19 April 1770, did James Cook catch sight of Australia, or New Holland as he had it then. This glimpse was Cook’s introduction to the country of the Bidhawal and Gunaikurnai peoples. They called the point Tolywiarar.”
In the Summer 2019 edition, Daley looks back at Cook and considerately reflects on his complex legacy; here begins the story of this country’s occupation. The ‘reconciled nation that might write that tale, a nation hones with the many facets of its true self and respectful of its ancient elders, is yet to be discovered’.
Other notable writers in this issue include Gabrielle Chan, Greg Jericho, Tony Birch, Gregory Day, Robbie Arnott, Ruby Hamad, Carmel Bird, Belinda Rule, Anthony Lawrence, Geoff Page, Jaya Savige and more.
