Cook and his crew stay in the…
February 1779 CE
Cook and his crew stay in the Big Island for several weeks, returning to sea shortly after the end of the festival to resume the exploration of the Northern Pacific.
The foremast of the Resolution breaks during a storm shortly after leaving, however, and the ships return to Kealakekua Bay for repairs on February 14, 1779.
This time relations are not as smooth.
It has been hypothesized that the return to the islands by Cook's expedition was not just unexpected by the Hawaiians but unwelcome because the season of Lono had recently ended (though this presumes that Cook was connected in some way with Lono and Makahiki).
In any case, tensions rise and a number of quarrels break out between the Europeans and Hawaiians.
Some Hawaiians take one of Resolution's small boats.
As thefts are quite common in Tahiti and the other Polynesian islands Cook has visited, Cook would normally have taken hostages until the stolen articles were returned.
He attempts instead to lure aboard the King of Hawaii, Kalaniopu'u, until the boat is returned.
The Hawaiians prevent this, and Cook's men have to retreat to the beach.
As Cook turns his back to help launch the boats, he is struck on the head by the villagers and then stabbed to death as he falls on his face in the surf, on nearly the very spot where he had first set foot on the island.
The Hawaiians drag his body away.
Four of the Marines with Cook are also killed and two wounded in the confrontation.
James Clevely, brother of the painter John Cleveley the Younger, is a carpenter with Cook's crew, and the painting made by the latter in 1784 is said to concur with eyewitness accounts.
The original depicts Cook involved in hand-to-hand combat with the native Hawaiians.
The discovery of the original painting has not changed the way most historians view Cook's relationship with the Hawaiians, as during his last voyage, Cook was reported by his contemporaries to have become irrationally violent.
The British later demand that Cook’s body be returned, but the Hawaiians had already performed funerary rituals of their tradition.
Charles Clerke, the commander of HMS Discovery, takes command of the expedition and of HMS Resolution.
He will go on to make a final attempt to pass through the Bering Strait.
Images
The Death of Cook, an unfinished painting by Johan Zoffany, depicting Captain James Cook as one of the participants in the battle between sailors and Hawaiians.
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Polynesia
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