Kidnapping of Kalaniʻōpuʻu by Captain James Cook Kidnapping of Kalaniʻōpuʻu by Captain James Cook Captain James Cook's 1779 attempted kidnapping of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the ruling chief of the island of Hawaii and the decision to hold him in exchange for a stolen long boat (lifeboat) was the fatal error of Cook's final voyage, ultimately leading to Cook's death. Cook's arrival in Hawaii was followed by mass migrations of Europeans and Americans to the islands that ended with the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the aboriginal monarchy of the islands. James Cook led three separate voyages to chart unknown areas of the globe for the British Empire. It
Captain Cook Hotel became a major node since these were the major routes in and out of the area. The site of the Captain Cook hotel was owned by the Australian Gas Light Company in 1860. A photo dated 1864 by the Freeman Bros shows the site to be vacant and the ground level is somewhat lower than the road indicating some local quarrying. The State Heritage Inventory datasheet notes that there was a small timber cottage on the site in the late 1860s in which a Henry Labat lived in 1868. The buildings were occupied by a Mrs McBride in 1873. This