Exploration, the Pacific

During the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, Europeans became accustomed to luxury goods, especially rare spices, imported from Asia. Islam's spread—including the 1453 fall of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) and the 1517 Ottoman invasion of Egypt—cut off this trade and lent a new urgency to Europe's quest to find a direct route to the Far East. This, in turn, resulted in an era of European exploration that eventually led to the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest body of water extending from the western Americas to eastern Asia and Australia, and one of its most diverse cultural regions, including such civilizations as the Chinese, Aztecs, and Polynesians.

Portugal took the lead in this undertaking under Prince Henrique (1394–1460), better known as Henry the Navigator, who supported exploring parties that mapped almost the entire coastline of West Africa. In 1492 Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) attempted to circumnavigate the globe by sailing west, and mistakenly thought he had discovered a new route to Asia when he discovered the New World. In 1498 Vasco da Gama (ca. 1469–1524) rounded Africa, reached the Indian Ocean, and later arrived in India. By 1516 the Portuguese were in China, and by 1557 they had convinced the ruling Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to cede them Macao, the first European colony in Asia. In 1542 Portugal also became the first European country to trade with Japan. The Portuguese mariner Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) sailed around South America in 1520, landed in the Philippines in 1521, and led the expedition that became the first to circumnavigate the globe. In 1529 Spain and Portugal divided Asia between them in the Treaty of Saragossa. In 1564 a Spanish fleet conquered the Philippines, which remained a Spanish colony through 1898. Meanwhile, British influence in the Pacific region gradually grew. In 1578 Sir Francis Drake (ca. 1543–1596) transited the Strait of Magellan to the Pacific Ocean. After exploring as far north as present-day San Francisco, California, he sailed across the Pacific to the Moluccas (Spice Islands). When Drake reached Java he took on a load of spices, and returned to England in November 1580. Drake's success threatened Spain's spice monopoly, but in 1588 the British Navy destroyed the Spanish Armada, which ensured the freedom of the seas. This victory allowed another small European power—Holland—to obtain a toehold in the Pacific. The first Dutch fleet commanded by Jacob Mahu (ca. 1564–1598) reached the Pacific around 1600. Most of the ships were shipwrecked or sunk, but at least one found its way to Japan. Its pilot, William Adams (ca. 1564–1620), served the Japanese shogun until his death. After the Dutch colonized Indonesia, calling it the Dutch Indies, they moved north and landed on Formosa (Taiwan), meaning "beautiful island." In 1624 the Dutch built a fort on Formosa called Zeelandia. In February 1662 Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga, 1624–1662) besieged Zeelandia and forced the Dutch to retreat. In 1683, after a fifty-nine-year absence, Taiwan returned to Chinese control. In 1600 Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) of England granted a charter to the "Governor and Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies," better known as the East India Company. Beginning in 1699, the East India Company also established a trading post in the southern Chinese port of Guangzhou (Canton). Following Britain's conquest of India in 1757, King George III (1738–1820) sent Lord George Macartney (1737–1806) to open up China in 1793. Although his mission failed, British intentions to dominate trade with China eventually resulted in the first Opium War (1839–1842), which for the first time opened up other Chinese ports to foreign trade. Meanwhile, British explorers, most notably James Cook (1728–1779), continued to explore the Pacific. Based on their discoveries, the British began to colonize Australia in 1788 and New Zealand in 1790. Other European nations, like Russia, were also moving into the Pacific region. Following the fifteenth-century collapse of the Mongol Empire, Czar Ivan the Terrible (1530–1584) made Russia a Eurasian power by extending his realm from the White Sea in northwest Russia all the way to Siberia in 1584. By the late 1630s, the Russian settlement of Udsk was founded on the Sea of Okhotsk. In 1860 Russians founded the city of Vladivostok, meaning "ruler of the east," on the Pacific Ocean directly across from Japan.

Before the European advance into East Asia, Japan was isolated and its international trade was small. In 1854 U.S. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794–1858) visited Japan and forced it to open diplomatic and trade relations with the United States. With the Meiji Restoration, which began in 1867, Japan actively adopted Western ways, including a constitutional monarchy, a modern army and navy, and international law. In May 1875 Japan annexed the southern Kuril Islands to the north of Hokkaido, and then in 1876 obtained all of the Kurils in exchange for ceding the southern half of Sakhalin Island to Russia. In 1879 Japan annexed the Ryukyu Islands, and they became the Okinawa Prefecture. After the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Japan acquired the island of Taiwan, and after World War I (1914–1918), Japan received a League of Nations mandate over the Carolines, Marianas, Marshalls, and Palau Islands.

The United States came relatively late to the Pacific, but made its mark in the early nineteenth century by dominating the whaling industry. In 1867 the United States purchased Alaska for $7,200,000. While this was jokingly called "Seward's Folly" at the time, because Secretary of State William H. Seward (1801–1872) had brokered the deal with Russia, the discovery of gold, and later petroleum, repaid this investment many times over. Thirty years later, as a result of the 1898 Spanish-American War, the United States paid Spain $20 million for the Philippines, acquired Guam as a territory, and annexed the Hawaiian Islands, which became the fiftieth state in 1959. After World War II (1939–1945), the United States retained bases in the Philippines through 1992, on Guam, and especially on Okinawa, which still hosts many of the U.S. forces in Japan.

Most colonies in East Asia were given their independence after World War II, including the Philippines in 1946, India in 1947, Indonesia in 1949, Malaysia in 1957, and Papua New Guinea in 1975. By 1980, almost all of the Pacific Islands had achieved their political independence, with Palau becoming independent in 1994. Trade, however, remains vitally important to the world economy, and beginning in the 1990s the United States for the first time traded more with Asian nations than with Europe.

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK

Born on October 27, 1728, the English explorer, navigator, and cartographer Captain James Cook is famous for his voyages in and accurate mapping of the Pacific Ocean, and for the application of scientific methods to exploration. After gaining experience with a local shipowner and undertaking several voyages to the Baltic Sea, Cook enlisted in the Royal Navy at the onset of the Anglo-French war in 1755. He was promoted to master's mate after only one month, and by the war's end in 1763 was in command of a flagship on the St. Lawrence River.

Cook's career is marked by three significant voyages. The first voyage was initiated when the Royal Society asked the British government to send a ship to the Pacific to study the transit of Venus across the sun, and to explore new lands in that area. Cook was placed in command of the vessel Endeavour, which set sail on August 26, 1768, with a crew that included an astronomer, two botanists, a landscape artist, and a painter of fauna.

After witnessing the transit of Venus, Cook arrived at New Zealand and made an accurate chart of the waters of the two islands, which took six months. He then sailed along the east coast of Australia. After landing at Botany Bay, near present-day Sydney, he named the region New South Wales and claimed it in the name of the king. He eventually reached England on June 12, 1771. For circumnavigating the globe, charting new waters, and discovering new land, Cook was promoted from lieutenant to commander.

Cook's second voyage began on July 13, 1772. Sailing in the Resolution and accompanied by the Adventure, he explored the New Hebrides, charted Easter Island and the Marquesas, visited Tahiti and Tonga, and discovered New Caledonia and the islands of Palmerston, Norfolk, and Niue. Cook also proved that if properly fed, a crew could make a long voyage without ill effects. From a crew of 118, he lost only one man to disease. For this feat, the Royal Society presented him with the Copley Gold Medal and elected him as a fellow.

After reaching the rank of captain in August 1775, Cook embarked upon a third and final voyage on July 12, 1776, in search of a passage around North America to the Atlantic Ocean. Sailing in the Resolution and accompanied by the Discovery, Cook was unable to find a northern passage. However, this voyage did feature the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands.

Cook's life came to a tragic and sudden end when, after returning to Hawaii for much-needed repairs, fresh supplies, and sunshine, he was clubbed and stabbed to death in a skirmish with Hawaiian natives on February 14, 1779. In 2002 History Today reported the possibility that Captain Cook's relatives might undergo DNA testing to determine if an arrow contained in the Australian Museum—given by Hawaii's King Kamehameha II to one of King George IV's doctors—was made from his thighbone.

see also Indigenous Responses, the Pacific; Occupations, the Pacific.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barratt, Glynn. Russia in Pacific waters, 1715–1825: A Survey of the Origins of Russia's Naval Presence in the North and South Pacific. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1981.

Dunmore, John. Who's Who in Pacific Navigation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991.

Gibson, Arrell Morgan, and John S. Whitehead. Yankees in Paradise: The Pacific Basin Frontier. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993.

McDougall, Walter A. Let the Sea Make a Noise …: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur. New York: Basic Books, 1993.