1786 Bowen Antique Map 3 x Cook Islands & 1 x Society Island - Cooks Voyage 1777

Cartographer : Thomas Bowen

  • Title : Wanooaette Isl; Wateeoo I; Mangeea Island Toobouai Island
  • Size: 13 1/2in x 9 1/2in (345mm x 240mm)
  • Ref #:  21697
  • Date : 1786
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description:
This fine original copper-plate engraved antique map of three of the Cook Islands, Takutea (Wanooaette) Atiu (Wateeoo) and Mangaia (Mangeea) and a 4th map of the Island of Tubuai (Toobouai) in French Polynesia near Tahiti, visited by Captain Cook in HMS Resolution & Discovery in September 1777, during his 3rd & last Voyage of Discovery, was published in George Andersons A New, Authentic, and Complete Account of Voyages Round the World, Undertaken and Performed by Royal Authority. Containing a New, Authentic, Entertaining, Instructive, Full and Complete History of Captain Cooks First, Second, Third and Last Voyages.. ... published by Alexander Hogg, London 1786.

These maps of three Cook Islands :
1.Wanooaette, (Takutea)
2. Wateeoo (Atiu)
3. Mangeea ( Mangaia)
4. inset map of Toobouai (Tubuai) in the Society Islands in French Polynesia
All maps were charted by James Cook in 1777 while sailing for the Society Islands (French Polynesia) with livestock he carried aboard the Discovery and the Resolution. As he sailed toward Tahiti he discovered Toobouai (Tubuai) Island on 13 August 1777 where they stayed for 6 weeks. Relief shown by hachures and soundings.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 13 1/2in x 9 1/2in (345mm x 240mm)
Plate size: - 13 1/2in x 9 1/2in (345mm x 240mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

Background: 
George William Anderson
A Collection of voyages round the world : performed by royal authority : containing a complete historical account of Captain Cooks first, second, third and last voyages, undertaken for making new discoveries, &c. ... : to which are added genuine narratives of other voyages of discovery round the world, &c. viz. those of Lord Byron, Capt. Wallis, Capt. Carteret, Lord Mulgrave, Lord Anson, Mr. Parkinson, Capt. Lutwidge, Mess. Ives, Middleton, Smith, &c published by Alex. Hogg, 1786.
The Cook Islands is a self-governing island country in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand. It comprises 15 islands whose total land area is 240 square kilometres.
Spanish ships visited the islands in the 16th century; the first written record of contact with the islands came in 1595 with the sighting of Pukapuka by Spanish sailor Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, who called it San Bernardo (Saint Bernard). Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, a Portuguese captain working for the Spanish crown, made the first recorded European landing in the islands when he set foot on Rakahanga in 1606, calling it Gente Hermosa.
British navigator Captain James Cook arrived in 1773 and 1777 and named the island of Manuae Hervey Island. Later, the name Hervey Islands came to be applied to the entire southern group; the name Cook Islands, in honour of Cook, first appeared on a Russian naval chart published in the 1820s

Takutea, in the Cook Islands, is a small uninhabited island 21 kilometres northwest of Atiu in the southern Cook Islands.
Takutea is the only island in the Cook Islands that never had a permanent population. When Captain James Cook sighted the island on 4 April 1777, and some crew members went ashore, they found some huts, but no evidence of a permanent settlement. 

Atiu, also known as Enuamanu (meaning land of the birds), is an island 187 km northeast of Rarotonga, in the Southern Islands group of the Cook Islands Archipelago.
The first recorded European to arrive at Atiu was Captain Cook. He sighted the island on March 31, 1777 and made tentative contact with some of the people over the next few days.

Mangaia (traditionally known as A ua u Enua, which means terraced) is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga.
The first recorded European to arrive at Mangaia was Captain James Cook on 29 March 1777.

Tubuai part of the Society Islands is located 640 km south of Tahiti. Tubuai was first viewed by Europeans when it was mapped by Captain James Cook in 1777, although his party did not disembark. Cook discovered the islands name, Toobouai, from the natives who surrounded his ship in their canoes (a Tahitian named Omai, who was part of Cooks group, translated)
The next Europeans to arrive were the mutineers of the HMS Bounty in 1789. Mutineer Fletcher Christian, in looking for an island on which to permanently hide, had scoured Blighs maps and nautical charts and decided on Tubuai.
Upon arrival at Tubuai, a conflict arose while the mutineers were still on their ship and several islanders were killed in their canoes. The site of this event in the lagoon on the north side of the island is called Baie Sanglant (Bloody Bay)
$150.00