OPINION: Captain Cook 'First Encounter' celebrations a 'difficult step towards a truly shared story'

Friday, 8 June 2018

OPINION: Remembered as a founding father and imperial icon in the past, James Cook could become a symbol of our shared future, writes historian Rowan Light.

New Zealanders, still navigating the centenary of the First World War, are heading into rougher waters with another debate about our national past.

Next year marks the 250th anniversary of the arrival of Captain Cook. In October, 1769, Cook landed at Poverty Bay/Tūranganui-a-Kiwa.

The first encounter between Europeans and tangata whenua was marred by misunderstanding and resulted in the deaths of a number of Māori.

Cook went on to circumnavigate the North and South Islands, meeting with Māori, compiling the first cartographic map of the coastline, and cataloguing the unique animal and plant life.

Certainly, Cook was one of the great explorers of the 18th century. On the other hand, his voyages presaged the destruction of indigenous cultures through colonisation.

Recent comments suggest that we are faced with choosing between two extreme versions of this encounter: that of a 'syphilitic pirate' or the Great White Hope.

Should we be dedicating time and money to the commemoration of such a divisive moment in New Zealand history?

Commemorating a historic event or person is one way we use the past to understand our present and, through a particular narrative or story, shape our future.

In 2019, there are three stories at stake. The first is the story of the encounter between Cook and Māori in 1769. The second is how that story has been told by New Zealanders over the past 250 years. The third is how that story could be told in the future.

Unpacking each of these provides a discussion on the kind of story we want to tell about ourselves as a nation.

The Māori story of the encounter at Poverty Bay/Turanganui-a-Kiwa has too often been forgotten by historians. The controversy in 2019, however, is less about Cook the explorer, a man of his time and place, and more about the way in which his image and memory has been used at different times in New Zealand history.

The first monument to Cook's 1769 landing was raised in Gisborne in 1906. The 150th anniversary in 1919 was a similarly local affair.

The excitement and pride of these commemorations located New Zealand in a grand story of British civilisation and progress.

Eighteenth-century Cook was re-imagined in the 19th century as, in James Belich's famous phrase, 'the first of a Pākehā pantheon of deified ancestors' who augured an imperial destiny.

Christchurch's own James Cook statue is a good example of this story. The handsome carrara-marble monument was commissioned by Matthew Barnett, a self-made businessman.

The Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, unveiled the statue in 1932. Photographs of the ceremony show the monument draped in the Union Jack, bestriding Victoria Square.

Lord Bledisloe celebrated Cook's 1769 arrival as the first and foremost of 'three outstanding landmarks' in the history of New Zealand, followed by the arrival of Christianity and the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

This story, in Bledisloe's view, would advance 'the effectiveness of Empire partnership', putting Europeans at the helm of history and centering New Zealand's story as a British nation.

Bledisloe and his audience made sense of the encounter of 1769 through mid-20th-century ideas of race and empire. Hapū and iwi perspectives didn't get a look in.

The collapse of the British Empire, however, called into question those stories which gave meaning to New Zealand British identity.

If early commemorations oozed imperial confidence, the bicentenary of Cook's landing in 1969 was markedly more anxious.

A parade through the centre of Gisborne featured a giant representation of Cook's head, followed by a model of the Endeavour. Fireworks and religious services were also part of the celebrations.

Naval visits from Britain, Australia, the United States, and Canada, and Vampire Jet flybys, gave the commemoration an international flair.

The 1970 Royal Visit of Queen Elizabeth II placed the Cook anniversary in a broader discussion about New Zealand's story. Traditional performances emphasised Māori as a 'prehistory' to the arrival of a triumphant European society.

National introspection, however, collided with Māori activists who focused on Cook as a symbol of a shameful colonial past and the omission of Māori voices from the history of New Zealand.

On the cusp of the 250th anniversary, we can see continuities in this history of commemoration. The Government has allocated close to $10 million to mark the anniversary. An invitation to Prince Charles still stands. A flotilla of waka and other ships, including an Endeavour replica, will visit four of the main Cook landing sites, starting with Gisborne.

The story that could frame the commemoration, however, is decidedly different to 1919 and 1969. Te Hā/First Encounters is a collaborative project between Government and iwi.

'Te hā' means 'sharing of breath' - as in the hongi, an exchange of life. A digital platform will emphasise different stories and perspectives, rather than a one-sided story of triumphalist 'discovery'.

Anne Salmond suggests the anniversary is an opportunity to heal old wounds.

Celebrations of racial and imperial progress, as Lord Bledisloe emphasised in 1932, ring hollow for us today. So does the 1969 story of European discovery. Despite the search for a putative indigenous Pākehā identity, championed by the late Michael King, New Zealand's story is rudderless.

The 250th is a chance for a more truthful telling of the 1769 encounter. Setting aside the narrative of 'discovery' offers a richer story of cross-cultural encounters between Europeans and tangata whenua, marred by tragedy, but also exchange.

Most importantly, 1769 was the beginning of our shared history. Cook represents a European episode wedged between a Māori past and a Pacific future. While imperial stories have faded, tangata whenua histories remain.

The 2019 commemoration is a fresh start for Pākehā New Zealanders to see themselves as participants in Aotearoa New Zealand's deeper history. This means recognising that we are no longer at the steering wheel of history.

This is the first, difficult step towards a truly shared story, drawing strength from the relationships and meetings of the past as we head into the future.

Rowan Light is a history lecturer at the University of Canterbury who specialises in the history of memory and commemoration in New Zealand.