MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY: It happened on this day in 1789. And if what you know about the mutiny is what you saw in the 1935 movie or the 1962 movie, then you may be surprised that the acerbic William Bligh was more the hero of the story than the villain. It was complicated.
The HMS Bounty had been sent on its long journey to Tahiti to collect breadfruit trees and transport them to the British West Indies. But when it arrived it turned out that, among other things, the trees needed to be dug up, potted, and allowed to take root before they could be taken away. As a result of all the delays, for a period of five months, the crew of 45 had to remain on Tahiti and be entertained by the … uh … extremely hospitable ladies of the island. The men—especially Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian—really hated to leave. He was in love.
Contrary to the early 20th “history,” the 33-year-old Bligh was not physically cruel to his men—not by late 18th century standards anyway. He used the lash rather less than most captains. That is not to say that he was Mr. Congeniality. He could give humiliating tongue-lashings with the best of them. But the mutiny, which occurred about three weeks after leaving Tahiti, was more about a rash group of fools who desperately wanted to go back to the lovely ladies of Tahiti than it was about unreasonably harsh treatment.
And they were vicious. As leader, Christian’s plan was to cast Bligh and the men who were loyal to him adrift in the Pacific, where the odds that they would survive were very slim. One problem was that it turned out half the crew were loyalists and there was not enough room in the launch for all of them. Several therefore stayed with the ship, some of them begging Bligh to remember that they were not among the mutineers. “Never fear, lads,” he told them. “I’ll do you justice if ever I reach England.”
The launch, which held 19, was equipped with only five days of food and water, a sextant, a compass, a few tools and cutlasses, nautical tables and little else. It was only Bligh’s impressive seamanship skills through stormy seas that saved their lives. Or at least some of their lives. An early effort to get food and water on the island of Tongatapu resulted in one crewmember getting stoned to death by the natives. They dared not stop in the Fiji Islands given their reputation as a home to cannibals. Instead, they headed for the Dutch settlement at Kupang some 3500 (yes, that’s 3500) miles away, requiring them to navigate their way through treacherous parts of the Great Barrier Reef and through a maze of other hazards.
Miraculously, they made it. On June 14th they arrived Kupang, although several of the men were in such poor health they ultimately died before making it home.
Bligh arrived in London in March of 1790 where he was hailed as a hero. He was formally court martialed for the loss of the Bounty, but it was a foregone conclusion that he would be acquitted. (Of course, no mutineer was there to testify.)
Meanwhile, the mutineers had made it back to Tahiti (in a somewhat roundabout way). There, the group broke up. Fearful that British authorities would catch up with them and aware that many Tahitians had begun to view them with hostility, Christian and eight others essentially abducted 20 Tahitians (14 women and 6 men) and headed for faraway, uninhabited Pitcairn Island. If there was anyplace they could successfully hide, Pitcairn was it.
The rest of the crewmembers, including several loyalists, were allowed to remain on Tahiti, where ultimately they were arrested by British authorities. Some died in a shipwreck on the way back to London. After a trial (at which, fairly or unfairly, Bligh’s reputation was somewhat tarnished), four were acquitted, three were pardoned, and three were hanged.
The Pitcairn Island contingent was not discovered until 1808. By that time, things there had long since come undone. Five of the mutineers, including Christian, had been killed in 1793 by the Tahitian men, who themselves were killed later on. Violence and alcoholism had ravaged the island for more than a decade. In 1808, only one mutineer was alive—John Adams—along with several women and children. It is a ghastly story, softened only by Adams’ efforts to ensure the children would learn to read and become good Christians.