American Colonies: The Settling of North America

by Alan Taylor

In 1768–71 and again in 1772–75, Cook crisscrossed the South Pacific.

He rediscovered and more thoroughly probed the coasts of Australia and New Zealand,

More methodical and thorough than any other mariner, Cook developed maps and charts of unprecedented precision, defining the Pacific in print for distant Europeans.

in January 1778, Cook was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon the Hawaiian Islands,

For the first time, Europeans basically understood the entire coastal arc from Siberia to California. In the process, Cook demolished the myth of an accessible Northwest Passage.

1810 the last independent chiefdom (on Kauai) submitted, completing the unification of the islands under the new monarchy established by Kamehameha.

They lacked the commitment to entrepreneurial commerce that drove the European penetration of the Pacific after Cook and his scientists showed the way.

By contrast, the British and especially their spawn the Americans dedicated their governments to promoting commerce. And trade drew native peoples into imperial

webs more smoothly than did missions.

During the early nineteenth century, the Americans crossed their continent to invade the Pacific. They absorbed half of the Pacific raincoast in 1846 (leaving the other half to British Canada), conquered California in 1846–48, purchased Russian Alaska in 1867, and subverted the Hawaiian monarchy in 1898.