Captain Cook Was Here

This book is a dramatic and lively account of the encounters between Captain Cook, his crew and the Indigenous people of Australia during the Endeavour’s first landing at Botany Bay, on Australia’s east coast in 1770. These encounters were marked by poise, fragility, humanity, intrigue, fear, confusion and regret. The book brings together for the first time all the known surviving objects collected, and all the visual material produced, during Cook’s time on shore, and incorporates them into the history told. The story about cross-cultural encounters in 1770 is complemented by stories told in art, word and performance by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians over two centuries or more. The book includes a rich store of historical and contemporary visual images, which are used to show the way in which the meanings and interpretations of these encounters have changed over time.