Today marks 250 years since HMS Endeavour sailed into Botany Bay. A descendent of one of the Aboriginal men he first encountered there says the anniversary is an emotional one.
"As we approached the shore they all made off except two men who seemed resolved to oppose our landing. As soon as I saw this, I ordered the boats to lay upon their oars in order to speak to them but this was to little purpose for neither us nor Tupaia could understand one word they said."In a hostile encounter, British explorer Captain James Cook stepped off HMS Endeavour and onto the shores of what is now known as Botany Bay in South Sydney.
"She was told by her elders that in 1770, Cook left casks of dynamite on the shore, rigged to blow up."Mr Kelly has spent the last four years travelling to the British Museum in London and the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology in Cambridge to repatriate artefacts that were taken on that day. "It provides an opportunity to understand our story — reflecting on more than 60,000 years of Indigenous custodianship, through to more recent migrant stories."In 1768, HMS Endeavour and Cook's crew of 94 people left the English port of Plymouth on a scientific expedition to chart the transit of Venus across the Sun in Tahiti.
It was during this period that a lesser-known story of contact between Cook and Australia's Aboriginal people occurred.Some of his crew took about a dozen green sea turtles from the area and brought them on board the ship. He broke off the tip of his spear, the men behind him followed by laying their spears at a nearby tree.
To some, Cook is a courageous explorer, but to others, he stole land, and more, from the first Australians.Professor Maynard says he has a complex view of Captain Cook and how his arrival has affected his own Indigenous community.
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