The Endeavour during Cook’s Voyage of Discovery. Image: Samuel Atkins//National Library of Australia//Public Domain
In 1768, Captain James Cook set sail aboard the HMS Endeavour from England on the first leg of his now-famous Voyage of Discovery. The plan was for the Endeavour to sail to Tahiti first. In an attempt to figure out the scale of our solar system (a pretty big ask), he was to track the transit of the planet Venus. The next task was chart the coasts of what are now called New Zealand and Eastern Australia. The HMS Endeavour would continue sailing until 1778, when it was scuttled off the coast of Rhode Island in Narragansett Bay. The exact location of its final resting place, however, has been up for debate. Until now.
The Australian National Maritime Museum, after a quarter century of historical research, has come to the conclusion that the wreckage is at a site called RI 2394, a muddy, unassuming little chunk of the seafloor in Newport Harbor, Rhode Island.
After Captain Cook either became one of the world’s great explorers or kicked off the brutal colonization of an vast swathe of Indigenous peoples, depending on your outlook, the HMS Endeavour went through a few more hands before it came to the end of its road.
“For some, the Pacific voyage led by James Cook between 1768 and 1771 embodies the spirit of Europe’s Age of Enlightenment,” a report on the Endeavour‘s location from Australian Maritime Museum reads, “while for others it symbolises the onset of colonization and the subjugation of First Nations Peoples,” the report reads.
After Cook brought the ship back to Britain, it was sold to a private owner, renamed the Lord Sandwich (a truly terrible name by today’s standards), and used by the British to transport soldiers in 1776 to fight against the American colonists who wanted out from under the heavy thumb of the British.
Two years later, the Lord Sandwich, neé HMS Endeavour, was purposefully sunk along with twelve other ships to try and stop a fleet of French warships sailing into the Newport Harbor to help the Yanks.
Since ships don’t come generally back from being scuttled, the wreckage remained there until now, its exact location slowly being lost in the sands of time. In 1999, though, the Australian National Maritime Museum partnered with the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) to try and pinpoint where amongst the detritus of a long-finished war it lay. In 2022, the Australian National Maritime Museum thought it knew for sure that RI 2394 was indeed the spot, but RIMAP disagreed. The statement it released at the time hints at the fact that its relations with the Australian National Maritime Museum were not exactly great.
“RIMAP recognizes the connection between Australian citizens of British descent and the Endeavour,” RIMAP representatives wrote at the time, “but RIMAP’s conclusions will be driven by proper scientific process and not Australian emotions or politics.”
Now, though, the Australian National Maritime Museum says this time it’s definitely for sure 100 percent positive that it was right.
“This Final Report marks our definitive statement on the project,” Daryl Karp AM, Director and CEO of the museum, said in a statement. “We want to acknowledge the work of the museum’s archaeological team over the past 25 years, the work of Dr Kathy Abass in Rhode Island, the Rhode Island authorities, and the many subject specialists who have provided expert information and guidance over the years.”
As of this writing, RIMAP hasn’t commented on the museum’s latest statement, but the Australian National Maritime Museum hopes that it has enough proof to protect the wreck.
“Given Endeavour’s historical and cultural significance to Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, England, the United States of America and First Nations peoples throughout the Pacific Ocean,” researchers wrote, “positive identification of its shipwreck site requires securing the highest possible level of legislative and physical protection for RI 2394.”
