Confronting Captain Cook: Memorialisation in museums and public spaces

Although this course is run by the Maritime Museum, I consider that it missed opportunities and made errors of judgement.

Captain Cook's exploration, discoveries, circumnavigation of the globe both ways and his cartography of New Zealand, the east coast of Australia and North America was covered briefly. Thereafter it was about the indigenous populations of NZ and Australia. The section on Monuments seemed to be encouraging people who gloated about defacing statues of Captain Cook and other monuments. At the end we were asked if we had changed our minds about Captain Cook. (comments showed 18 still for Cook and 5 who had changed).

Captain Cook's maps were used for 250 years and nobody can undo his achievements or accuse him of colonisation (which started well after his murder in Hawaii.)

A section on Maori canoes had promise (the replica that was built looked interesting. ) Somebody in the UK had rigged it up as a sailing boat and tried it out.

Given the interest in sailing and boats/ships in general in Britain and in NZ this should have taken a more prominent position in the course.

Confronting was an important aspect of the course. It would have been infinitely better as a straightforward history course. If they wanted confrontation it would have been better kept to the last section of the course.

I have not seen the Exhibition. It may be better than I imagine from doing the course.

If you are a political activist who looks at history through a 21st century perspective, you will probably love this course.

The unexpected survey asked questions about whether the participant had experienced anger, annoyance, frustration and fear during this course!