Captain Cook's legacy is complex, but whether white Australia likes it or not he is emblematic of violence and oppression
The British government has issued an oh-so-carefully worded expression of “regret” for the killing of Māori in Aotearoa, today’s New Zealand, at the point of first contact during Lieutenant James Cook’s “voyage of discovery” 250 years ago.
Regrets! The old empire certainly has had cause for a few when it comes to the violence it has meted out to the indigenes of the places it took during Britain’s colonial expansion.
For the deaths of a million Irish in the potato famine. For the Kenyans tortured and imprisoned during the Mau Mau insurgency. For the Indians killed in the Amritsar massacre. And, now, for the Māori, whose first contact with Cook’s HMS Bark Endeavour in 1769 was characterised by disastrous violence for the first Aotearoans.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2019/oct/03/captain-cooks-legacy-is-complex-but-whether-white-australia-likes-it-or-not-he-is-emblematic-of-violence-and-oppression
Regrets! The old empire certainly has had cause for a few when it comes to the violence it has meted out to the indigenes of the places it took during Britain’s colonial expansion.
For the deaths of a million Irish in the potato famine. For the Kenyans tortured and imprisoned during the Mau Mau insurgency. For the Indians killed in the Amritsar massacre. And, now, for the Māori, whose first contact with Cook’s HMS Bark Endeavour in 1769 was characterised by disastrous violence for the first Aotearoans.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2019/oct/03/captain-cooks-legacy-is-complex-but-whether-white-australia-likes-it-or-not-he-is-emblematic-of-violence-and-oppression
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