Unknown

Cooktown, July, 1770  c.1900

This nineteenth century colour lithograph depicts the shipwreck on the Endeavour at Cooktown in 1770. It is most likely that the postcard was printed as part of a tourism campaign to encourage British citizens to visit Australia. The postcard is an object that captures layers of historical information about advances in lithography, the environment as a cultivated landscape that counters terra nullius, nautical references to managing a wreckage upon the Great Barrier Reef and the narrative of Cook’s longest recorded stay onshore in the voyage of the Endeavour, which lead to the naming of the Endeavour River.