Cook Islands History
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Wed 16 Jun 2010 02:14
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I forgot to do a bit of history about the
Cook Islands, so here goes:
Christened after the South Pacific's most
famous explorer, a certain Captain James Cook, the tiny 15 specks of land that
collectively make up the Cook Islands are just about as far as you'll ever get
from the outside world. Sprinkled over two million square kilometres of empty
sea, slap bang in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, these isolated islands have
long been a haven for real-life runaways and wannabe Robinson
Crusoes.
The Cook Islands are the classic South
Seas paradise, a nation of tiny tropical islands cloaked in coconut trees,
encircled by cerulean-blue lagoons and fringed by sweeping arcs of powder white
sand. Each island is unlike the other and they all have their own special
features. From the majestic peaks of Rarotonga to the low lying untouched coral
atolls of the northern islands of Manihiki, Penrhyn, Rakahanga, Pukapuka, Nassau
and Suwarrow. The latter, inhabited only by a caretaker and his family. Cook Islanders have their own Maori language and each of the
populated islands a distinct dialect. It has a population of around 13,000.
The islands were initially known as the
Hervey Islands in honour of a British Lord of the Admiralty, but in
an atlas published in 1835 the Russian cartographer Admiral Johann von
Krusenstern renamed them in honour of Captain Cook. The islands became a British
protectorate in 1888, in response to fears of French colonialism. In 1901 the
islands were annexed to New Zealand and the Southern and Northern Groups
together became known as the Cook Islands. During WWII the US built airstrips on
Penryhn and Aitutaki, but the Cooks escaped the war largely unscathed, unlike
many of their South Pacific neighbours, in 1965 the Cook Islands became
internally self-governing, although foreign policy and defence were left to New
Zealand.
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