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Captain Cook Part II
This is a continuation of
Captian Cook Part I
More tension grew as the repairs were being made. Captain Cook was grew very upset when some Hawaiians had stolen a rowboat from the British because they wanted the nails. On February 14, 1779 he went ashore with a plan. He was going to trick the chief into coming aboard his ship where he would keep him until the stolen boat was returned. As he was carrying out his plan, a gun was fired. It turned out that an Englishman had killed another important chief. Other shots were fired. As Cook was turning around to call for cease fire, he was struck on the head and then stabbed. Enraged, other Hawaiians jumped on him stabbing him over and over again.
There is a lot of speculation over what truly happened to Captain Cooks body. One story is, that the Hawaiians were horrified that they had killed someone they once thought was a god. As a tradition carried out for great men who had died, they scraped the flesh off of the bones. The bones were put together in a bundle and burned or buried in secret so they wouldn't be disturbed. Since Cook was respected by the Hawaiians, his body parts were split amongst chiefs. His head went to the King, his scalp to a high ranking chief, etc.
The other story is simply that the Hawaiian Chiefs ate him. This makes sense because many of the aboriginals, ate their enemies to gain their power. Either way, a small group of Hawaiians brought Captain Cook's remains to the British ship, and gave it to his fellow sailors. Shocked and angry, the sailors begged their captain to let them go ashore for revenge. The captain did not allow them, but of course some snuck off anyway. Most of Cooks bones went back to the British in the end, and he was buried in Kealekekua Bay.
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Liliuokalani
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