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Overview
This information sheet provides ideas for protesting and counteracting the arrival of the replica Endeavour ship and any other 'colonially centred events' which were part of Tuia – Encounters 250, the New Zealand government’s nationwide programme of events intended to celebrate Aotearoa’s Pacific voyaging history while commemorating the 250th anniversary of the first collisions between Māori and Captain James Cook and the Endeavour crew in 1769.
Activists dubbed it the 'death ship'. With its weapons of war and military crew, HMB Endeavour exacted a violent and deathly toll on indigenous populations. Nine Māori were killed by Cook’s men when they visited Aotearoa in 1769.
This fact sheet provides information on the Doctrine of Discovery which European monarchies used to legitimise colonisation of lands inhabited by indigenous peoples under the guise of 'discovery'. Many felt that the government did not fully realise ‘the depth of ill-feeling towards the arrival of Cook from a Māori perspective’ (Moera Brown quoted in The Spinoff, 5 October 2019), and the problems of an event largely promoting a Pākehā history.