Famous Mutiny onboard the H.M.S BOUNTY

HMS Bounty Known for a maritime mutiny that took place over 200 years ago, Bounty remains famous and infamous. Thousands cross her ample decks during port visits wondering what life was like then and now. You know her from her modern movies as well. In 1960, it was Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty. Today, it is Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man's Chest

There is much more to the story than that. Over 250 books, thousands of magazine articles, five major movies, and hundreds of original manuscripts have helped to document the story from almost every conceivable perspective. And, one of the best results of the story is the vast library of literature that enables present and future students, scholars and friends to study, learn, understand, and enjoy the continuing Bounty and Pitcairn Island saga.

There was a lot happening in the world in 1789. The Constitution of the United States of America was ratified. The French Revolution occurred. In England, King George III was influenced by the members of the Royal Society in their quest for scientific and economic expansion, and the King had authorized the Bounty expedition. The mutiny onboard HMS Bounty happened in the remote South Pacific. We may consider the mutiny as the spark of an epic saga, or an isolated incident in history.

Life in the Royal Navy was harsh. The majority of crewmembers of each ship were pressed into service, that is, they were forced onto the ship and then not allowed to leave, sometimes for years at a time. The English author Dr. Samuel Johnson once wrote “No man will be a sailor who had contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in jail…. with the chance of being drowned. A man in jail has more room, better food and commonly better company.”

The Mutiny:

The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny aboard a Royal Navy ship on 28 April 1789 which has been made famous by several books, films, and other media such as songs. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the captain, William Bligh. Bligh was then cast adrift in a small open boat with 18 loyal men.
A typical mutiny in the Royal Navy during the 18th century involved sailors simply refusing to obey certain orders until some condition was met, such as the receipt of overdue pay, and they most commonly took place when a ship was in port — essentially, a mutiny was the naval equivalent of a labour strike, and although technically punishable by death, often resulted in no punishment at all. The Spithead and Nore mutinies that took place several years after the Bounty were along the same line, but were larger and better organized. The mutiny on the Bounty, involving no demands from the crew, the seizure of a ship by violence, and setting the captain and loyal crew members adrift, was extremely unusual

In her ill-fated voyage, The Bounty left Tahiti on 4 April 1789. On 28 April 1789, in the Friendly Islands, Fletcher Christian led the famous mutiny. From all accounts, Christian and several of his followers entered Bligh's cabin, which he always left unlocked, awakened him, and pushed him on deck wearing only his nightshirt, where he was guarded by Christian holding a bayonet. When Bligh entreated with Christian to be reasonable, Christian would only reply, "I am in hell, I am in hell!" Despite strong words and threats heard on both sides, the ship was taken bloodlessly and apparently without struggle by any of the loyalists except Bligh himself. Of the 42 men on board aside from Bligh and Christian, 18 joined Christian in mutiny, 2 were passive, and 22 remained loyal to Bligh. The mutineers ordered Bligh, the ship's master, two midshipmen, the surgeon, and the ship's clerk into Bounty's launch. Several more men voluntarily joined Bligh rather than remaining aboard, as they knew that those who remained on board would be considered de facto mutineers under the Articles of War.
In all, 18 of the loyal crew were in the launch with Bligh; the other 4 were forced to stay and man the ship with the mutineers. The mutiny took place about 30 nautical miles (56 km) from Tofua. In a remarkable feat of seamanship and navigation, Bligh navigated the overcrowded 23 foot (7 m) open launch on an epic 47-day voyage first to Tofua and then to Timor equipped only with a sextant and a pocket watch, with no charts or compass. He recorded the distance as 3,618 nautical miles (6710 km). He passed through the difficult Torres Strait along the way and landed on June 14.[2] The only casualty of his voyage was a crewman, John Norton, who was stoned to death by the natives of Tofua, the first island on which they attempted to land. At Tofua (Bligh spelled it Tofoa), Bligh and eighteen loyalists had sought refuge in a cave (which they called "Murderers' Cove") in order to augment their meager provisions. [3]
Meanwhile, the mutineers sailed for the island of Tubuai, where they tried to settle. After three months of terrorizing the natives, however, they returned to Tahiti to put 16 of the crew ashore. Christian, eight other crewmen, six Tahitian men, and 11 women, one with a baby, set sail in Bounty hoping to elude the Royal Navy. According to a journal kept by one of Christian's followers, the Tahitians were actually kidnapped when Christian set sail without warning them, the purpose of this being to acquire the women.
The mutineers passed through the Fiji and Cook Islands, but feared that they would be found there. Moving on, they rediscovered Pitcairn Island, which had been misplaced on the Royal Navy's charts. On 23 January 1790, they burned the ship in what is now Bounty Bay. Some of her remains, such as her ballast stones, are still partially visible in its waters. Her rudder is displayed in the Fiji Museum in Suva.

Aftermath of the mutiny

Lieutenant Bligh returned to England and reported the mutiny to the Admiralty on 15 March 1790. HMS Pandora, under the command of Captain Edward Edwards, was dispatched on 7 November 1790 to search for Bounty and the mutineers. Pandora carried twice the normal complement, as it was expected that the extras would man the Bounty when it was recovered from the mutineers. Pandora reached Tahiti on 23 March 1791. Four of the men from Bounty came on board Pandora soon after its arrival, and ten more were arrested in a few weeks. These fourteen, mutineers and loyal crew alike, were imprisoned in a makeshift cell on Pandora's deck, which they derisively called "Pandora's Box". On 8 May 1791, Pandora left Tahiti, spending about three months visiting islands to the west of Tahiti in search of Bounty and the remaining mutineers, without finding anything except flotsam (including some spars and a yard). Heading west through the Torres Strait, Pandora ran aground on a reef (part of the Great Barrier Reef) on 29 August 1791. The ship sank the next day, and 31 of the crew and four of the prisoners were lost. The remaining 89 of the ship's company and ten prisoners (released from their cage at the last moment) assembled in four small boats and sailed for Timor, arriving there on 16 September 1791.
After being repatriated to England, the ten prisoners were tried by a naval court. During the trial, great importance was attached to which men had been seen to be holding weapons during the critical moments of the mutiny, as under the Articles of War, failure to act when able to prevent a mutiny was considered no different from being an active mutineer. In the judgment delivered on 18 September 1792, four men whom Bligh had designated as innocent were acquitted. Two were found guilty, but pardoned; one of these was Peter Heywood, who later rose to the rank of captain himself. Another was reprieved due to a legal technicality, and later also received a pardon. The other three men were convicted and hanged. In other trials, both Bligh and Edwards were court-martialled for the loss of their ships (an automatic proceeding under British naval law, and not indicative of any particular suspicion of guilt), and both were acquitted.
Bligh resumed his naval career and went on to attain the rank of Vice Admiral. However, his career was marked by another challenge to his authority when he was a Governor of New South Wales; in 1808 the troops of New South Wales arrested Bligh in an incident known as the Rum Rebellion.
Even before Edwards had returned from his search for Bounty, HMS Providence and her tender Assistant began a second voyage to collect breadfruit trees on 3 August 1791. This mission was again championed by Joseph Banks and again commanded by Bligh, now promoted to Captain Bligh. The second voyage they considered a complete success, collecting 2,126 breadfruit plants and hundreds of other botanical specimens and delivering them to the West Indies. Departing Tahiti on 19 July 1792, Bligh once again successfully navigated the Torres Strait.

The mutiny in literature and cinema

A trilogy of novels, (Mutiny on the "Bounty", Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairn Island), as well as the movies and television shows based on them, relate fictionalized versions of the mutiny. The 1962 movie has Fletcher Christian dying in the fire aboard Bounty.

The first movie version was the Australian film In the Wake of the Bounty (1933), starring Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian. The next movie was Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), which won the Oscar for Best Picture that year. It starred Charles Laughton as Bligh and Clark Gable as Christian.

Another Mutiny on the Bounty was released in 1962, starring Trevor Howard as Bligh and Marlon Brando as Christian. (This version was considered definitive for at least a generation.)

A fourth film, The Bounty (1984), starred Anthony Hopkins as William Bligh and Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian. Of all the films portraying the mutiny, the 1984 version is generally agreed to hold the most historical accuracy.

C.S. Lewis's book Prince Caspian features a race of humans allegedly descended from lost survivors of a mutiny in the real (i.e., non-magical) world. While it is never stated in the book itself, it is implied that they are originally from the Bounty.

The Simpsons portrayed the "Mutiny on the Bounty" story in the episode The Wettest Stories Ever Told.
In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Admiral James T. Kirk and the crew of the late Starship Enterprise decide to return to Earth to face a court martial for having stolen the Enterprise to rescue their friend Captain Spock. They return to earth in a captured Klingon Bird-Of-Prey, which Cmdr Leonard McCoy names "HMS Bounty."
Val McDermid explores the fate of Fletcher Christian in her novel The Grave Tattoo.

Modern reconstructions

When the 1935 film was made, sailing vessels were still in wide use: existing vessels were adapted to play Bounty and Pandora.
The Royal Navy's Bounty has been reconstructed twice. MGM commissioned a replica of Bounty for their 1962 film, named the Bounty II. This vessel was built to the original plans and in the traditional manner in a shipyard in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. However, all the dimensions were increased by approximately one third to accommodate the large 70 mm cameras used. MGM kept this vessel in service. When Ted Turner bought MGM he used this vessel for entertaining. Eventually MGM donated the vessel to a charity.
Although expensive maintenance caused the vessel to lose her United States Coast Guard license for a time, Tall Ship Bounty was restored, initially at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard in 2002, with restoration of the vessel's bottom planking. Moored in its winter home in St. Petersburg, Florida, it again became available for charter, excursions, sail-training, and movies (most recently in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and the adult film Pirates). In April 2006, the Bounty again arrived in Boothbay Harbor for further renovation, a refurbishing of the ship's front end, and topside decking. Following this renovation, the Bounty was scheduled to repeat the famous voyage of the original Bounty [5]
The second reconstruction was built for the 1984 Dino de Laurentiis film The Bounty. That vessel was built of steel, is clad in wood, and has modern conveniences. It is currently located in Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia, where it serves the tourist excursion market.

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