Foreign Visitors to the Cook Islands 1773 to 1840 : Nga Papa'a Mua Ki Teia Nga Pa Enua

After the foreign explorers, traders, missionaries and whalemen began to visit the Cook Islands. Seen from the shore with a Cook Islander's perspective, these early visits were brief and erratic. Gradually however more frequent and longer visits brought in foreign influences, some good and some bad. The prime task for the generation of Cook Islanders alive from 1800 to 1840 was how to make sense of this erratic parade of foreign visits, and how to adapt to the introduction of new ideas, new technologies, and new religions, and how to cope despite the new diseases. Initially the Cook Islands chiefs and the missionaries worked well together to provide a safe welcome, with effective law and order on shore, and a reliable if modest supply of cheap provisions. This security ashore proved very attractive to American and other whaling captains. Their needs were mainly for firewood, fresh water and food, but there were so many of them that they had a big impact locally. I have tried to present the fragmented and widely scattered raw source materials in what is, I hope, an accessible and readable form. Short summaries of the visits made by the discoverers, traders, early missionaries and whalers are followed by three annexes. Annex A has details of early trading visits from Port Jackson 1808 to 1840. Annex B records the known trading visits, mainly American, from 1824 to 1840. Annex C has details from logbooks and journals etc, mostly of American whaleships, that include visits to the Cook Islands between 1826 and the end of 1840.