PDF Summary:The Wide Wide Sea, by Hampton Sides

Captain James Cook's final voyage in search of the Northwest Passage ended in his death in Hawaii in 1779. In The Wide Wide Sea, Hampton Sides examines Cook's expeditions and their lasting consequences for the Indigenous peoples he encountered.

Sides explores how Cook's journeys advanced European navigation and cartography while also documenting Indigenous cultures with relative curiosity and respect for his era. However, the summary also reveals the darker aspects of these encounters: escalating violence, the spread of disease, and the destruction of communities. You'll learn about Polynesian navigation techniques, Hawaiian sacred rituals, and Cook's interactions with groups from Tasmania to the Arctic—and you'll see how these meetings between cultures shaped the course of colonial history in the Pacific.

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(Shortform note: In Nānā i ke Kumu: Look to the Source, a book on Hawaiian culture and values, the authors explain that kapu is a sacred law that sets apart certain people, places, times, and acts as restricted. The purpose of kapu is to protect and conserve spiritual power, or mana. To violate a kapu is not simply to break a rule but to diminish the mana that sustains the chiefs, the family, and the land.)

At the festival's beginning, Lono’s priests conducted a pilgrimage that covered the whole coast of Hawai’i, gathering seasonal tributes. The parade started and finished at Kealakekua Bay's heiau, traveling clockwise. The priests carried a shield that symbolized Lono: a tall rod with a horizontal bar adorned with white cloth banners. The festival was a period of peace, and engaging in warfare during this time was regarded as a grave offense.

(Shortform note: The clockwise pilgrimage around the island, carrying the image of Lono, was a central ritual of the Makahiki festival. As Patrick Vinton Kirch explains in A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief, the Makahiki was a key institution of the ancient Hawaiian state, in which the paramount chief and his ritual specialists transformed agricultural surplus into political authority.)

Kealakekua Bay held sacred significance in Hawaiian culture. It served as the royal seat, home to the divine kings, and a center of Hawaiian spiritual beliefs and cosmology. The cliff face at Kealakekua Bay served as a mausoleum where generations of leaders were entombed. Lono, deity of tranquility, rainfall, and abundance, also resided there. A temple was constructed on the bay's shore to honor Lono and present him with offerings, which included human sacrifices.

Kealakekua Bay as a Meeting Place Between the Divine and the Ruling Elite

In Hawaiian Mythology, Martha Beckwith describes how Kealakekua Bay was remembered in the family chants of the Kona district as “the path of the gods,” a shore where the akua are described as arriving from the sea in canoes and where the high chiefs go down in state to greet them, so that the place stands in tradition as a meeting-ground between divine visitants and the ruling line. This liminal role of Kealakekua Bay as a meeting place between the divine and the ruling elite may have contributed to its later significance as a royal seat, a mausoleum for leaders, and a site for honoring Lono.

Sides notes that heiau are sacred Hawaiian structures. It was an open-air collection of religious buildings with volcanic stone walls that were four feet high, a wooden oracle tower, homes for deities, intricately carved wooden statues, a building for percussion devices, and graves. The heiau was imbued with deep mana, the location of royal authority, and a central hub for the cosmology and religious beliefs of Hawai'i.

(Shortform note: Hawaiian Antiquities, written by David Malo in the 19th century, is a comprehensive account of Hawaiian culture, history, and religion. Malo, a Native Hawaiian scholar and Christian convert, documented traditional Hawaiian practices, including the construction and significance of heiau, the kapu system, and the roles of chiefs and priests.)

Interactions and Impacts

Cook's interactions with Indigenous communities were marked by curiosity and attempts at understanding. His first meeting with the Palawa, Tasmania's Aboriginal people, was characterized by mutual curiosity and caution. The Palawa had been cut off from the outside world for thousands of years, and when they initially met Europeans, the encounter was uneventful. They accepted the presents without much interest. The next day, Cook saw the Palawa again, this time more freely. He moved without weapons through their midst, seeking to comprehend them by exchanging goods, using hand signals, smiling, pointing, and making strange sounds. He was curious about the Palawa's identity, diet, thought processes, language, clothing, and religious practices.

(Shortform note: Many Palawa community advocates and historians like Lyndall Ryan would disagree with this characterization of Cook's interactions with the Palawa. They argue that the British arrival in Tasmania was the beginning of an invasion that led to the dispossession and near destruction of the Palawa people. They see Cook's actions as part of a larger pattern of colonialism and imperialism, rather than as a neutral or benign attempt to understand another culture. In her book Tasmanian Aborigines, Ryan argues that the British arrival in Tasmania was the beginning of a process of dispossession and violence that had devastating consequences for the Palawa people.)

He observed that they appeared to dislike swimming, and he didn't see any boats or watercraft. They consumed mussels and other shellfish but weren't interested in different types of marine food, and they fled in terror when Cook's men offered them fish as a gift. They appeared interested in Cook’s little vessels docked on the shore, but they were unwilling to come aboard. Cook was right in thinking they used a different dialect from the Indigenous people of New Holland he had encountered in 1770.

(Shortform note: Palawa historian Patsy Cameron, author of Grease and Ochre, would disagree with Cook’s assessment of the Palawa. She writes that her ancestors were a saltwater people who built and handled bark canoes, voyaged to offshore islands, and were confident swimmers and divers. She describes a rich marine economy that included scale-fish, crayfish, abalone, seals, seabirds, muttonbirds, and edible seaweeds. She writes that the coastal waters were a vast larder that sustained her people for countless generations.)

Cook’s men also encountered the Mowachaht, who were amazed at the light-skinned newcomers. The Mowachaht believed the visitors to be salmon that had assumed human form. They welcomed Cook’s men with a ritual in which a spiritual leader sprinkled bird feathers on the water and sang an incantation. The sailors replied with a tune on their horns, and the Mowachaht responded by singing again.

(Shortform note: The Mowachaht’s belief that Cook’s men were salmon in human form may have been a way of making sense of the newcomers by placing them within a familiar relationship pattern. In Mowachaht tradition, salmon are considered to be people who organize human life. By calling Cook’s men “salmon,” the Mowachaht may have been trying to establish a kin-like relationship with the newcomers.)

Cook likewise encountered the Chukchi, who were anxious and ready to fight. Cook walked toward them, extending his arms to demonstrate that he was unarmed and came in peace. He believed cultures could achieve mutual understanding by using an appropriate tone and gestures, making eye contact, and demonstrating respect. He put a beaded necklace on a Chukchi man and gave him tobacco. The Chukchi man presented Cook with a pair of fox pelts and some walrus tusks. They invited Cook and several of his crew members to their village and served them whale meat and onions. They displayed their homes, kayaks, dog sleds, and tools for hunting. Cook’s curiosity was genuine. He took the greatest delight and fulfillment in acting as an anthropological observer.

Indigenous Perspectives on Early Encounters

In Arctic Mirrors, historian Yuri Slezkine draws on Chukchi and other Indigenous narratives to challenge the idea that early encounters between outsiders and Indigenous peoples were characterized by mutual understanding and anthropological curiosity. Slezkine argues that many Indigenous peoples in the Russian North remember the first outsiders not as anthropological observers but as agents of violence and extraction. He explains that Indigenous peoples often describe the first outsiders as Cossacks, traders, missionaries, and officials who came to collect furs, impose tribute, take hostages, seize women, and punish resistance. What imperial chronicles celebrate as exploration and contact appears in local memory as the beginning of a long era of violence, fear, and material and spiritual dispossession.

We will now explore the growing conflicts between the islanders and Cook. We will also discuss the lasting impacts of Cook’s actions on the places he visited.

Direct Encounters & Escalating Tensions

Cook's encounters with the locals led to escalating tensions. Sides writes that his interactions with them became increasingly violent. When a sextant was stolen, Cook commanded the thief's ears be cut off. When a goat went missing, he instructed his men to destroy the islanders' canoes and homes. When a boat was stolen, he planned to kidnap the king of Hawaii and hold him hostage for money.

(Shortform note: Cook’s increasingly drastic responses to theft and loss reflected the imperial mindset of the time. In The Trial of the Cannibal Dog, Anne Salmond explains that in the world of naval expeditions, theft was seen not as a minor crime but as a challenge to royal authority. Captains were expected to stage theatrical punishments to reassert British sovereignty, discipline their crews, and impress upon Indigenous communities the power of the Crown.)

Lasting Impacts & Colonial Repercussions

Cook’s actions had lasting impacts on the locations he visited. Sides explains that his men transmitted sexually transmitted infections to the islanders. Cook also destroyed the homes, crops, and canoes of the Mooreans, which would take them a century to recover from.

(Shortform note: It’s easy to see how the destruction of homes, crops, and canoes could have a lasting impact on a small island community. But how could sexually transmitted infections have such a long-term impact? In a small population, a disease that reduces fertility could have a significant impact on the population’s ability to recover from a disaster.)