Late on the evening of 3 November 1769 the explorer James Cook sailed on HM Bark Endeavour into Mercury Bay and stayed for 12 days. During Captain Cook and his crew’s stay a number of firsts happened in the history of New Zealand.
So, does that mean this great part of the world we live in has an identity no one other place can claim? And if so, what is it?
The local people had good reason to be suspicious of Cook’s arrival in the Bay. According to Joe Davis, elder of Ngati Hei (the most prominent tribe in the area), for them it must have been like “a spaceship landing from Mars.” It was also at a time they were under attack from Maori tribes from the west, Tauranga and Northland. The area was well worth fighting over - the mountains were covered in tawa, rimu and kauri, the offshore islands had colonies of grey-faced petrels and swarms of eels and mussels, crayfish and oysters were in abundance. In the ocean there were many species of fish with stock quantities we can today only dream of.
Cook’s and his crew were on a scientific expedition of the Royal Society in London to observe the transit of Venus in Tahiti in June 1769 and to continue from there to explore the coasts of the “Southern Continent” or, failing that, the coasts of New Zealand. Among the crew were Charles Green, an astronomer and Joseph Banks, a botanist. Also on board when the Endeavour sailed into Mercury Bay was Tupaia, a Tahitian chief who acted as interpreter between Cook and his crew and the people of New Zealand.
Cook made landfall in New Zealand at Poverty Bay, from where he made his way up to Mercury Bay and further around New Zealand. Up to his arrival in Mercury Bay, Cook’s time in New Zealand was marked with many misunderstandings with the local Maori people and many of them were shot and killed.
Cook decided to stay in Mercury Bay as the transit of Mercury (a much more common occurrence than the transit of Venus) was imminent and would enable Green to plot the exact position of New Zealand on the world map.
In order to deter the local people from attacking the Endeavour while awaiting the transit of Mercury, Cook and his crew started trading goods they had on board for the locals’ weapons. This process was the start of a few days where, in today’s terms, Pakeha developed a better understanding of Maori and their way of life.
In this process of relationship building, Toiawa, a Ngati Hei chief, was invited on board the Endeavour. Banks, who kept a detailed journal of most of the expedition, said the chief had to be persuaded to venture down into the ship’s cabin where he was given presents. He told the crew his people were “very much afraid” of them and was promised friendship in return for “provision at their own price.”
This visit was followed by another, where two other locals boarded the Endeavour and candidly told the crew about the concerns of their people, particularly because of the plundering they had to endure from other Maori tribes, mostly from the north. They soon, however, realised the crew members weren’t hostile and they became friendly and inquisitive.
The days following Cook ordered some maintenance on the ship to be done, wood to be cut, water to brought on board and wild celery, an anti-scorbutic, to be collected. These activities were intermingled with frequent contact with the local people where, among other things, food was exchanged. Banks and a Dr Solander, another crew member and representing the Royal Society’s scientific interests in the expedition, regularly visited a group of local people living out in the open at the Purangi while collecting fern root and shellfish to take home to their more permanent settlements elsewhere.
9 November was an eventful day. Not only did Green with the help of Cook go ashore and successfully observe the passing of Mercury, but unfortunately, in Cook’s absence, a local warrior not keeping his end of the bargain in a trade was shot dead by an Endeavour officer. Cook was angry with his officer and evidence of the amicable relationship that was in the process of developing between “Pakeha and Maori” can be found in Cooks personal view of the warrior’s loss of life, “… I thought the punishment a little too severe for the crime, and we had now been long enough acquainted with these People to know how to chastise trifling faults like this without taking away their lives.”
A boat with Endeavour crew was sent to tell the people at the Purangi what had happened, simply to receive the message that the warrior was deserving of his punishment. That same evening Banks and Dr Solander shared a meal with the Purangi people, eating shellfish, crayfish, fish and birds that had been cooked, in Banks’s words, “… in holes in the ground filled with provision and hot stones and covered over with leaves and Earth.”
On 10 November Cook and some of his crew explored the Whitianga River by boat, accompanied by some locals. They stopped at Whitianga Pa (at Whitianga rock), by that time already destroyed for more than 15 years, and were invited to a delicious meal of hot pipi by the people of a small village nearby.
On 12 November Cook, Banks, Dr Solander and many of the Endeavour crew took boats to the north side of the Bay (to Wharekaho) to visit Ngati Hei’s stronghold. They first were invited to a small pa with only five or six houses, but reluctantly refused as they intended to visit the much larger Wharetaewa Pa. At Wharetaewa Cook and his crew were welcomed, for the first time in New Zealand, with karanga (ritual calls of welcome). They gave the local people gifts and were with a great deal of friendship shown around the pa.
13 to 14 November were used to collect celery and boatloads of oysters from the beds of the Purangi River. Later on 14 November Cook raised an English flag (the exact flag that was raised is uncertain) at the Purangi and claimed possession (either of the whole of New Zealand or just part of the country) in the name of the British King. Cook didn’t leave the flag and his action was without value as he didn’t, according to his instructions, obtain the local people’s consent to possess their land. “The raising of the flag wouldn’t have meant anything to the people of Ngati Hei at that time,” said Joe. “They wouldn’t have known why Cook did it.”
Early in the morning of 15 November Ngati Hei chief, Toiawa and other local Maori visited Cook on board the Endeavour, among them Horeta Te Taniwha, who later became a well-known Maori leader and who was only a young boy at the time. He recalled how Toiawa drew with a piece of charcoal an outline of the North Island on the deck of the Endeavour, how Cook gave Toiawa a handful of seed potatoes (the first time European potatoes were given to anyone in New Zealand) and how Cook gave him (Te Taniwha) a nail and how the nail became his “god.”
Later on 15 November the Endeavour sailed away from Mercury Bay.
According to Joe and Richard Gates, a Mercury Bay historian and member of the Mercury Bay Museum Trust Board, Cook’s visit to Mercury Bay was undoubtedly the first time Europeans developed some understanding of the way local Maori people lived, for the first time New Zealand was correctly positioned on a map of the world, for the first time Europeans were invited and welcomed to a pa with a karanga, for the first time European potatoes were offered to a Maori person and for the first time a British flag was raised on New Zealand soil.
So, what is the identity of this great place we live in? Is Mercury Bay the true birthplace of New Zealand as a nation? Or is it the place where the idea of New Zealand as a nation was conceived? Or is it the place where a future-shaping meeting of minds happened? Or is it simply the place where New Zealand was put on the map? Or is it, perhaps, New Zealand’s place of firsts?
Whatever it is, Mercury Bay has a place in the history of New Zealand. A history all of us who live here, Maori and Pakeha alike, can be rightfully proud of.