The Fatal Impact: An Account of the Invasion of the South Pacific, 1767-1840When Captain Cook entered the Pacific in 1769, it was a virgin ocean, pristine and savage, and its inhabitants lived a life of primeval innocence. Seventy years later, firearms, disease and alcohol had hammered away at this way of life until it crumbled before them, and where satan had sown. the protestant missionaries reaped. In this work, Alan Moorehead tells the tragic story of a great adventure which turned sour, in which good intentions led to disaster, corruption and annihilation. And ironically it was Cook, the greatest and most humane explorer of his day, who was to cause the fatal impact. |
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aborigines Adventure Alan Moorehead animals Antarctic arioi artist ashore Australia Banks Beaglehole Bellingshausen birds Bligh boats Botany Bay Bougainville boys breadfruit British bush canoes Captain civilization clothes coast coloured convicts Cook Cook's coral Daisy Bates dancing Dolphin EDWARD JOHN EYRE Endeavour Endeavour's crew England English European explorers Eyre feet fire fish Flinders French George Forster girls ground guns hunting huts kangaroo killed King George Sound La Pérouse land lived marines Matavai Bay Melville miles missionaries months natives natural never night noble savage Obarea ocean Omai Pacific painting Papeete Phillip Port Jackson reef Resolution sailed sailors savage seals seemed settlement ship shore skin soon South Sea island southern spears Sydney Tahiti Tahitians Tasmania thing took trees tribal tribes tropical voyage Wales wanted Watkin Tench whales wild women wrote Wylie young Zealand