Founder Lecturer – Into Native Seas: Europeans encounter an Indigenous Ocean

Pro Vice-Chancellor – Pacific, University of Auckland, Damon Salesa presented a powerful summary of a long history of pre-European interaction between Pacific Island peoples, drawing on the earliest reports from Dutch navigators to reinforce anthropological studies of ancient trading patterns and warfare. His talk, entitled “Into Native Seas: Europeans encounter an Indigenous Ocean”, provided a stimulating challenge to the traditional view of European exploration into an “uncharted” South Pacific.

This Founder Lecture, held in the National Library Auditorium, is part of the 80th birthday celebrations of the  Friends of the Turnbull Library. It acknowledges the Turnbull Library’s founding benefactor, Alexander Turnbull, who died in Wellington on Friday 28 June 1918.

Full details of the event are available here.