Captain James Cook at Mercury Bay, Aotearoa New Zealand | Transit of Mercury 1769

Travel with me to Mercury Bay on New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula, where James Cook anchored the HMS Endeavour in 1769 to observe the rare Transit of Mercury. This video explores the expedition’s scientific mission, Cook’s encounters with Ngāti Hei Māori, and how this brief stop shaped European mapping and the history of Aotearoa. Historic Trails is a history channel that explores Indigenous histories, colonial North America, and the early Atlantic World through place-based storytelling. Hosted by historian Dr. Scott Berthelette, the channel goes on the ground – along trails, ruins, waterways, and port cities – to connect archival research with the landscapes where history unfolded. I want to extend special thanks to Kathryn Lauvstad for helping me film some segments of this video. Bibliography Cook, James. Captain Cook’s Journal during His First Voyage Round the World, made in H.M. Bark “Endeavour,” 1768–71: A Literal Transcription of the Original MSS. Edited by W. J. L. Wharton. London: Elliot Stock, 1893. Salmond, Anne. Between Worlds: Early Exchanges Between Māori and Europeans, 1773-1815. Auckland, N.Z.: Viking, 1997. O’Malley, Vincent. The Meeting Place: Māori and Pākehā Encounters, 1642-1840. Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press, 2012.