James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
Native Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians (Hawaiian: knaka iwi, knaka maoli, and Hawaii maoli), are the Indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaii was settled at least 800 years ago with the voyage of Polynesians from the Society Islands. The settlers gradually became detached from their original homeland, developing a distinct Hawaiian culture and identity in their new isolated home. This included the creation of new religious and cultural structures, mostly in response to the new living environment and the need for a structured belief system through which to pass on knowledge. Hence the Hawaiian religion focuses on ways to live and relate to the land, instilling a sense of communal living as well as a specialized spatial awareness.
The Hawaiian Kingdom, was formed in 1795, when Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island of Hawaii, conquered the independent islands of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, and Lnai and unified them. In 1810, the whole Hawaiian archipelago became unified when Kauai and Niihau joined the Kingdom. The Kingdom saw an influx of immigrants from the United States and Asia. The Kingdom became a Republic following its overthrow in 1893, and was annexed by the United States in 1898. An ongoing Hawaiian sovereignty movement exists seeking autonomy or independence for the state of Hawaii.
In the 2010 U.S. Census, 527,000 people identified as Native Hawaiian, which is closer to the roughly 750,000 who lived on the island before European contact, and a significant increase from the low of 50,000 in the early 19th century. This growth has been attributed to a high fertility rate and the allowance of multiple race identification in the census: 371,000 people identified themselves as being "Native Hawaiian" combined with one or more other races or Pacific Islander groups, while 156,000 (33%) identified themselves as being "Native Hawaiian" alone.
Two-thirds of Native Hawaiians (roughly 238,000) reside in the state of Hawaii, and the rest are scattered among other states, especially in the American Southwest and California.
James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia in particular. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.
Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec, which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a crucial moment for the direction of British overseas exploration, and it led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HMS Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.
In these voyages, Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale not previously charted by Western explorers. He surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.
Cook was attacked and killed in 1779 during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific while attempting to kidnap the ruling chief of the island of Hawaiʻi, Kalaniʻōpuʻu, to reclaim a cutter taken from one of his ships after his crew took wood from a burial ground. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge that influenced his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him.