A View of Otaheite with Several Vessels belonging to that Island.

Title

A View of Otaheite with Several Vessels belonging to that Island.

Description

View of Tahiti with Native Boats in the Foreground (1772). Engraved for Charles Theodore Middleton's Complete System of Geography, 18th Century. Captain Cook's Second Voyage to the South Pole and Around the World. Undertaken and carried out on the orders of His Majesty, on His Majesty's Ships: 'The Resolution and Discovery', April 1772 to July 1775.

ca. 1777

Artist

Middletons

Historical Description

Tahiti was settled - like the other Society Islands - around 200 BC from Tonga and Samoa. It is not conclusively clear which European can be considered the "discoverer" of Tahiti. The Portuguese Pedro Fernández de Quirós sighted an inhabited island in 1606, which he called Sagittaria and which, according to some chroniclers, could have been Tahiti. However, there is no confirmation of this. Today, the Englishman Samuel Wallis is considered the first European to set foot on Tahiti in 1767. The visits of James Cook have remained in the consciousness of Europeans. In April 1769 he anchored with his ship Endeavour in Matavai Bay, about 10 km north of today's Papeete. Traveling with Cook was botanist Joseph Banks, who conducted extensive botanical studies during his three-month stay. His findings led to the fateful 1787 voyage of the Bounty to Tahiti, which was commissioned by the British Admiralty to William Bligh.