Researchers have confirmed that the 18th-century British explorer Captain James Cook‘s lost ship found its final resting place in Rhode Island’s Newport Harbor, solving a decadeslong mystery, according to the Australian National Maritime Museum.
Two Australian historians, Mike Connell and Des Liddy, originally pinpointed the location of the ship, called HMS Endeavour in 1998, the museum said in a report released earlier this month. The museum’s report detailed how a 26-year archival and archaeological research program ultimately determined that the Endeavour was, in fact, at the bottom of Newport Harbor as Connell and Liddy had thought.
Captain Cook famously sailed the Endeavour across the Pacific Ocean multiple times in the mid-1700s. He is remembered for his voyage to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia, which he claimed for Britain, as well as Hawaii, where he ultimately met his fate in a dispute with indigenous residents. Cook’s exploration of the islands laid the foundation for British colonization in those areas, which is why, for different reasons, it’s an important part of Australian history, according to the museum’s report.
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“For some, the Pacific voyage led by James Cook between 1768 and 1771 embodies the spirit of Europe’s Age of Enlightenment,” the executive summary of the report reads, “while for others it symbolises the onset of colonisation and the subjugation of First Nations Peoples.”
After Cook’s death, the Endeavour returned to England, which went on to use it for transporting British troops and detaining prisoners during the American Revolutionary War. It was sold to private owners, who renamed the ship Lord Sandwich, and deliberately sunk in Newport Harbor in the midst of war in 1778.
When Australian maritime experts initially announced in 2022 that they believed the Endeavour was among a number of ancient shipwrecks still scattered across Newport Harbor, the claim was widely debated. But a partnership between the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission and the Australian National Maritime Museum forged ahead with the research that eventually led to the wreck’s identification. They are working to ensure that the wreck site is protected from now on.
“Given Endeavour’s historical and cultural significance to Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, England, the United States of America and First Nations peoples throughout the Pacific Ocean, positive identification of its shipwreck site requires securing the highest possible level of legislative and physical protection,” the report says.
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