Captain Cook went to New Zealand on the Endeavour in 1769. He travelled there for supplies and trading, and stayed there longer than intended. They were possibly dehydrated and needed to find land. The fact that they stayed there changed New Zealand’s future, and for the better or for the worse is what many people have been debating.
When the Endeavour’s crew arrived at Gisborne, a person was shot almost immediately (he was called Te Maro, and was quite possibly going to be the next chief). That was the Maoris first experience with guns, or, as they called it, ‘firesticks’. People around New Zealand thought that Cook was a brave man, while those in Gisborne thought otherwise. Many wanted to see and meet Cook.Early life can sometimes influence who someone is as an older person in life. James Cook was eighteen when he went to Whitby to be apprenticed to a ship’s crew for three years. Life as a grocer’s employee didn’t work out at all, so his employer introduced him to a couple of friends. James had been employed by the man for a year. The three years onboard encouraged Cook to be on the sea as a profession.
The Cook’s lived nearby Whitby, with ten in the family. He had seven siblings; John, Christiana, Mary, Jane, Mary (a different Mary than the first), Margaret and William. James farmed alongside his father, who was a Scottish farmhand, until he left to go to Staithes. Once Cook’s three-year apprenticeship was over, he joined the Royal Navy, and at the age of twenty-one was considered as an able seaman, something uncommon for somebody his age. He was the second-oldest.
Endeavour’s crew were possibly dehydrated and needed to find land. James Cook had a poor background but raised the stakes for seamen of that age. He had six children, but not one of them lived long enough to have children of their own. James Cook sucessfully completed the original map of New Zealand.