The Kiwis are giving AOC a run for her money with this one
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That was the Hawaiians.
Yeah, it was the Hawaiians, and they totally didn't eat him, they just cooked him to make it easier to remove the fesh from his bones (out of respect for the great man he was, after they were not savages).
Cook's mistake was being too humane, and thinking he could treat natives as children, instead of feral beasts.
Men who preceded him in the exploration of the Pacific (like Captain Samuel Wallis for example) didn't die by the hands of natives because they would bombard and set fire to their villages to make it clear who the boss was.
I'd say Cook spread venereal diseases and discovered the Hawaiians didn't like that. They welcomed him as a trader, and he fired cannons at them to show dominance. The same method was used by Commodore Perry to open up Japan.
The reality was, that the traders who opened areas up were going into areas that wanted to open up anyway. Those who decided not to trade ate the traders. Trying to show it was some European dominance does not show up in any record or remark from the people at the time. Heck, Japan closed its doors several times to traders, and the attempts to open it up found a sharp response. Tongans and Samoans had tried to open up Hawaii to the rest of the world and were told off.