Motuara Island

The island of Motuara is a scenic and historical reserve that lies at the entrance to Totaranui / Queen Charlotte Sound. It is notable for the actions of James Cook. During the HMS Endeavour's stay at nearby Meretoto / Ship Cove, Cook climbed to the summit of Motuara, and formally (and controversially) claimed it and the adjacent lands in the name of and for the use of the sovereign of the British Empire.

Motuara Island

The wooden lookout tower on the summit of Motuara Island, near to where, in 1770, Captain Cook proclaimed British sovereignty over Queen Charlotte Sound
Geography
Location	Marlborough Sounds
Coordinates	41°05.5′S 174°16.5′E
Highest elevation	128 m (420 ft)
Administration
New Zealand
Demographics
Population	0
Additional information
Bird sanctuary

Te Ao Māori (Te Ao Māori translates as “the Māori World”)

The entrance to Totaranui / Queen Charlotte Sound area was an important point of arrival and departure for the steady flow of trading waka crossing Ruakawa Moana / Cook Strait and the Motuara was a staging post for people and good crossing the strait, as well as a trading post for pounamu (jade) and pakohe (argillite).

People resided in kianga (unfortified villages) near food gathering and growing places. Although the residents enjoyed long periods of peace, due to its strategic location over the years different tribal groups contested, fought and merged there; hence, the fortified pā upon a partly attached rocky islet off the south east point of the Motuara. Whenever trade opportunities or strife loomed, people gathered at the pā. Today this islet is called Hippah Island, after the early British use of the word Hippah for any fortified Māori site. The islets cliffs provided protection in times of skirmishes.

At the time the HMS Endeavour sailed into the sound, Motuara’s chief was an elderly man named Topaa. He and his people paddled waka out from the pā and encircled the ship. In terms of first contact, it was friendly and prolonged encounter, smoothed by Tupaia, the Tahitian priest and interpreter.

As Cook put it in his journal:

The inhabitants of this place invited us ashore with their usual Marks of Friendship, and shew'd us all over the place; which indeed was soon done, for it was very small, yet it contain'd a good number of people, and they had in it, Split and hanging up to dry, a prodidgious quantity of various sorts of small fish, a part of which they sold to us for such Trifles as we had about us.

— James Cook, Cook's Journal: Daily Entries, http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/cook/17700126.html

During one of Topaa and Tupaia’s conversations, Topaa said his ancestors came from Hawaiki. This is the same place that Tupaia came from.

James Cook exploring and claiming

During the Endeavour’s stay at nearby Meretoto / Ship Cove, James Cook and his crew explored and charted the sound, including Motuara Island. On 31 January 1770, Cook and his officers, put up a flag post on the summit of the island, hoisted the Union Jack and claimed Queen Charlotte Sound for his king. With their telescopes and insignia and muskets, planting a flag here was symbolic, and strategic.

Prior to the flag raising ceremony, Cook sought and gained permission from the Topaa and his people, to put a mark on the island to prove that the British has been there. It is a matter of conjecture as whether or not Cook overstepped his sealed orders from the British Admiralty, which read:

You are also with the Consent of the Natives to take Possession of Convenient Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of Great Britain: Or: if you find the Country uninhabited take Possession for his Majesty by setting up Proper Marks and Inscriptions, as first discoverers and possessors

— British Admiralty, Cook's secret orders, http://jamescook250.org/cooks-secret-orders-revealed/

The way this act was commemorated its 150^th, 200^th and 250^th, is a micro-illustration Cook’s changing legacy in New Zealand.

On the 150^th anniversary, a cairn was unveiled on the summit Captain Cook Memorial Committee to mark the occasion. The plaque on the cairn records that:

On 31st January 1770, the famous circumnavigator, in the presence of the native chief of the island raised the British Flag, took possession of the mainland in the name of King George III and named the inlet Queen Charlotte Sound after the King’s consort

Fifty years after that, around the time of the 200^th anniversary, working parties from various local clubs built a lookout tower. The platform grants panoramic views over the sound and out to strait.

A century later, signage put up as part of the 250^th commemorations (presumably the Department of Conservation and in consultation with local iwi, tells the wider story, acknowledging all peoples “who have travelled to this special place”.

After the flag raising ceremony, the party drank a toast to Queen Charlotte’s health and gave the empty bottle to Topaa, who, in Cook’s words, “was highly pleased”. “You have to wonder though”, poses the signage, “if Tapaa ever dreamed of what Cook’s actions would eventually mean for his people”. Its goes on the say that Cook revisited the sound five times. He and other voyagers, such as Fabian von Bellingshausen, used Motuara as a lookout, observatory, signal station and garden.