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Captn. James Cook, F.R.S by Francesco Bartolozzi 1727-1815
From the IMAGES1 collection of the National Library of Australia.
Note: This image is provided for research purposes only and cannot be reproduced without the prior consent of the National Library of Australia.
In 1770 Captain James Cook finally ended the mystery of Terra Australis Incognita for the European world. Although partly discovered and mapped to the west and north by Dutch and Portuguese traders and explorers and by English pirate, William Dampier, until Cook's four-month cruise on the Endeavour up the east coast of what he called New South Wales in 1770, the maps of the time showed a blank - the east coast was unknown to, and uncharted by, the European world.
Of course the local Aboriginal inhabitants had, over tens of thousands of years, mapped the land their way - through their Dreaming, a complex intertwining of land, culture, language, family relations and spiritual selves. This was to be put under pressure from the first moment of Cook's landing at Botany Bay in 1770.
On 22 August 1770 on Possession Island, off what is now northern Queensland, Cook claimed all eastern Australia for King George III...