250 years ago
James Douglas 14th Earl of Morton
begs for mercy, restraint, peaceful contact:
Exercise the utmost patience [and] respect for the Natives…shedding the blood of these people is a crime of the highest nature…every effort should be made to avoid violence; if it becomes inevitable then [they] should be treated with distinguished humanity, [so] the Crew still considers them as Lords of the Country
this is a scientific endeavor
tracking Venus’s transit across the sun
establishing our exact place
in the scheme of things
it’s a boat full of scientists
and the Royal Society of London
guards against making men murderers
reminds them to be civil
and
almost immediately, they kill
Te Maro lies splayed on the sand –
these studious men prove
no better than conquistadors
and it all adds up to the same story again:
arrival means death
