Was Captain James Cook was the first landing in Australia?

Answer 1

No. James Cook came to Australia in 1770. He was preceded by English pirate, explorer and naturalist William Dampier, who explored northwestern Australia in 1688, and again in 1699.

Dampier was most unimpressed by the flat, barren countryside of the northwest, and his negative reports deterred further English exploration for another 70 years.

Answer 2

No, Cook was not the first to discover Australia. Aborigines had inhabited the continent for thousands of years, and Macassan traders from Asia had been visiting for years to collect sea-slugs, a valued delicacy in Asia, long before the first European sighted the continent.

The first recorded European visitor was Dutch explorer Willem Jansz/ Janszoon, who landed on the shores of Cape York Peninsula on 26 February 1606. However, there are reports that the Portuguese found Australia as early as 1522, but all records have been lost.

The first Englishman to visit Australia was William Dampier, in 1688. Captain Cook charted the eastern coast and claimed it in the name of Britain in 1770.

Answer 3

No, Captain Cook was not the first European to land in Australia. We have 16th Century CE French maps taken from pirated Portuguese charts which clearly demonstrate that Portuguese expeditions mapped the north and east coasts of Australia in the 1520s. There is also a map of 1597 showing Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, years before Torres, a Portuguese in Spanish service, 'discovered' the strait named after him. His log indicates he already knew of its existence before he passed through it. Over 150 years before English explorer Captain James Cook ever sighted eastern Australia, Willem Janszoon (also known as Willem Jansz) in the Duyfken mapped the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1606. He landed on Cape York, and suffered the loss of several of his crewmen through altercations with the hostile Aborigines. However, Jansz believed that Cape York was actually a part of New Guinea, and this error was reflected in Portuguese maps for many years. Dutch skipper Dirk Hartog sailed too far whilst trying out Henderik Brouwer's recently discovered route from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, via the Roaring Forties. Reaching the western coast of Australia, he landed at Cape Inscription on 25 October 1616. Cook was not even the first Englishman to land in Australia. William Dampier became the first Englishman to explore and map parts of "New Holland" when, on 4 January 1688, his ship the Cygnet was beached on the northwest coast of Australia for maintenance, at King Sound near Buccaneer Archipelago. He was unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population. However, Cook has provided the first known written account of a European to land on the eastern coast of Australia. We don't have the Portuguese accounts as they were kept secret in the archives of the Indian affairs office in Lisbon. The office was destroyed by a tidal wave in the mid 18th Century.

Answer 4

No. James Cook was not even the first Englishman to reach Australia.

Apart from the Australian Aborigines, the first visitors were Asian people. They visited the northern coast regularly for hundreds of years before Europeans set foot on the continent, to collect sea-slugs (trepang), a valued delicacy in Asia.

Willem Jansz/Janszoon was a Dutchman seeking new trade routes and trade associates, who became the first recorded European to step foot on Australia on the western shore of Cape York Peninsula in 1606.

Then, in 1616, Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog sailed too far whilst trying out Henderik Brouwer's recently discovered route from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, via the Roaring Forties. Reaching the western coast of Australia, he landed at Cape Inscription on 25 October 1616. His is the first known record of a European visiting Western Australia's shores.

The first Englishman to visit Australia was William Dampier, in 1688.

James Cook (not yet a Captain) charted the eastern coast and claimed it in the name of the British in 1770, and for this reason, Cook is often wrongly credited with discovering Australia.

Answer 5

No, James Cook was not the first person to land in Australia. Apart from the indigenous people, the first known European to land on Australia's shores was Willem Jansz, who did so in 1606, which was 164 years prior to Cook.

Answer 6

Yes. Lieutenant James Cook (not yet a captain) was the first Englishman to sail along Australia's eastern coast, doing so between April 1770 and July 1770.

He was not, however, the first Englishman to visit Australia. William Dampier preceded him by 82 years.

Answer 7

Not even remotely.

James Cook came over 160 years after the first white men in Australia, who were Dutch traders.