Introduction

During the eighteenth century, exploratory forays into the Pacific Ocean, in what David Igler designates as the vast watery expanse west of the West, were stamped with violence which was omnipresent in the relationships between the Europeans and the indigenous peoples, as well as amongst the travelling Europeans themselves. What Igler means by violence is unclear, but he identifies a key period of conflict as occurring just before, during and after the Cook voyages between 1768 and 1779. However, current conversations, in particular in the midst of a decade-long “extravaganza of commemoration,” remembering Captain Cook’s expeditions, appear to overlook this particular aspect of the voyages. Kate Fullagar makes it clear that the “volume of production on Cook has exploded” in recent years. But she shows that this scholarship, much like that of old, is still steeped in nostalgia and hagiographic concerns. There are also welcome attempts at an “oceanization” of these voyages, within the frameworks of indigenous studies, the latter connecting to what Fullagar calls the politics of the day. In all of these broad categories, there is though little sustained attention paid to how violence, as a key characteristic of initial contacts and prolonged encounters, was represented and prepared for public consumption.