The Bounty Mutiny - Part 2

The Bounty Mutiny Part 2

Rich: [00:00:00] It is a pleasant late winter morning, the 17th of September, 1814. Captain Phillip Pipon stands on the deck of his Majesty's ship. Tagus. Lying before him is an unexpected and uncharted island. Pipon along with Captain Thomas Staines of HMS Britton had been tasked with tracking down the USS Essex, which had been raiding British shipping in the Pacific.

By serendipity alone, the ships have stumbled across this mysterious island. At daybreak, the ships pull closer to the island where they observe well-maintained plantations and neatly built huts. Pipon does not believe the island to be Pitcairn as it was charted several degrees further to the west, and such a margin of error seemed unlikely.

Besides that, Pitcairn was uninhabited. After a short time, canoes launched from the shore and approached the royal Naval vessels, the first of the visitors boards, the Britton. He is a [00:01:00] tall young man with a cheerful disposition. He has a light complexion, somewhat European, and is wearing only a loin cloth and a straw hat decorated with feathers, with a cheerful smile.

The man introduces himself in clear English. I am Thursday, October. Christian, pleasure to meet you. Mr. Christian's wife is next on board, a woman much older than him with a darker complexion like that of the people of nearby islands. Another young man follows by the name of George Young and he too spoke perfect English.

After some discussion and many questions, Christian escorts the visitors to the island and to a house in the village. Inside they find an old man lying in bed. He is unwell, but sits up to greet his guests. Mr. John Adams. He says, weekly. And who might you gentlemen be to the surprise of the Captains they discover Mr.

Adams is an [00:02:00] Englishman. Over the next several hours, Adams tells of the mutiny on the Bounty, the abandonment of William Bligh in the discovery of their new home here on this remote island. He is now old, sick, and tired, and the only remaining mutineer from the ship. All the others on the island are wives, children, and grandchildren of the original settlers.

He doesn't give much thought anymore about the Bounty. All of his efforts lie in the welfare of his island colony. The officers supplied the islanders with muskets, gunpowder, cooking utensils, and other items of need. And in exchange were given hogs, yams, coconuts, and bananas. At 3:00 PM Captain's Staines and Pipon bid the island folk farewell and departed.

Though it was not their mission, they had found Pitcairn Island and the Colony, founded by the Bounty Mutineers. The Mutiny on the Bounty part two [00:03:00] today on Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs.

Hello and welcome to Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs, tales of Mishaps, misfortune, and Misadventure. I'm your host, rich Napolitano. This is part two of the Mutiny on the Bounty. So if you haven't listened to part one, I suggest you go back and do so. During Part one, we track the voyage of the Bounty from England to Tahiti, up to the point of the Mutiny by Fletcher Christian.

Lieutenant Bligh and 18 other men were sent away in a small cramped launch with only limited supplies. This is where we will pick up the story in part two.

A quick note, before getting started, since releasing part one of this episode, I've discovered some information about one of the Bounty crewman, Matthew Quintal.

In part one, I pronounced his name as Quintal, but I have since learned that his birth name was actually Quintrell and his family originated from Cornwall. At some [00:04:00] point in time, his surname was recorded incorrectly as Quintel. For this reason, I will use the surname, Quintrell here. If you read more about the Bounty elsewhere or watch the movies, you'll probably see or hear the name Quintel.

So please understand that Quintal is the same man. As Fletcher Christian and his mutineers sailed off with a Bounty, Bligh and the 18 others began rowing for the island of Tofua, roughly 30 miles to the northeast. The launch was designed for 15 men, just 23 feet in length with 19 men plus their stores of supplies.

The small vessel was cramped, uncomfortable, and sitting very low in the water with less than a foot of freeboard or clearance from the water surface. Bligh was a highly skilled navigator, but being stranded in the South Pacific in a small overcrowded boat with insufficient equipment and few provisions was a formidable challenge.

Gunner William Peckover was able to [00:05:00] smuggle his pocket watch on board, and he kept time in order for Bligh to determine their longitude. The day after the mutiny, April 29th, the exiled men reached the island of Tofua and took refuge at a small cave. The men gathered what water and food they could. While the natives became curious and suspicious.

On May 2nd, the island's chief insisted Bligh remain on shore or give them his magnifying glass. A tool they knew could be used to make fire Bligh refused, causing the natives to begin clacking stones together and screaming. He retreated to the launch, just narrowly escaping the grasp of the natives. Four sailors with Cutlasses met the natives on shore, attempting to slow their advance.

Large stones were hurled at the sailors and quartermaster. John Norton was struck squarely in the head, causing him to fall. Norton was quickly set upon and bludgeoned to death to the horror of his comrades. Watching from the launch, Bligh and his men hastily rode [00:06:00] for their lives while the natives boarded their canoes to pursue.

Bligh dumped articles of clothing overboard, which fascinated the natives, and they slowed to pick them up out of the water, allowing the launch to escape. Captain Bligh

came to the conclusion that without a ship and the threat of its guns, he would almost certainly not be a respected or welcomed guest on any of these islands.

He personally witnessed the death of Captain James Cook in 1779 at the hands of native Hawaiians and did not wish to have a similar fate. He set course for the closest European settlement on the island of Timor, 3,600 miles to the West. He didn't know exactly where the settlement was located or if it was even still in existence.

Carpenter William Purcell used a log to fashion, a triangular piece of wood with a lead weight and attached it to a line with knots marking intervals for speed. This along with the gunner's pocket watch assisted Bligh to navigate by dead reckoning. Which is essentially an [00:07:00] educated estimation of the ship's location.

Bligh wrote of the dismal daily conditions, made note of the islands they observed, encounters with terrible storms, and of rationing their meager portions of water, rum, wine, coconuts, meat, and rotten bread. The men occasionally caught a fish or a bird, which was shared equally among them.

On May 6th, 1790, the men passed between the islands of Fiji and Bligh recorded remarkably detailed charts of the islands, especially given his circumstances.

The launch passed the Great Barrier Reef in late May, and came upon the eastern shores of the Cape York Peninsula of Modern Day Queensland, Australia. Their base of operations

was named Restoration Island as this is where his men would recover their strength. Bligh sent search parties to replenish their wood and to collect oysters, birds, turtles, clams, water, and other food as could be found.

The men foraged for several days [00:08:00] taking turns, sleeping on shore with the comfort of a fire. While their fortunes were improving, morale was declining.

Bligh found several men to be insolent, refusing to participate in search parties and other work. The longtime thorn in his side carpenter, William Purcell once again was particularly troublesome and challenged Blighthe's authority saying, I am just as good as man as you to retain what was left of his authority.

Bligh picked up a Cutlass and demanded Purcell to do the same, urging him to have it out. The carpenter cried out that Bligh was trying to kill him, and asked Bosa and William Cole to arrest Bligh. In no uncertain terms. Bligh threatened Cole with execution. If he interfered, Cole backed down and calmer heads prevailed.

But Bligh kept a Cutlass with him at all times for the rest of the journey. On the 2nd of June while out hunting for Birds Butcher, Robert [00:09:00] Lamb ran off alone and approached a group of birds too quickly, scaring them off. In addition, it was discovered that lamb had earlier separated from the rest of the party.

Caught and ate, nine Raw birds by himself. Bligh wrote of this on the return of the offender. I gave him a good beating.

the launch rounded Cape York Peninsula on June 3rd and headed west for Timor through constant rain. It was then that William Peckover's pocket watch, a valuable tool for navigating stopped working as a result of saltwater damage.

On June 14th, 41 days after leaving Tofua, the men miraculously reached the Dutch settlement of Kupang on the island of Timor. Some were extremely sick and all were wet, cold, exhausted, weak, and suffering from malnutrition. Our bodies were nothing but skin and bones, wrote Bligh. Our limbs were full of sores, and we were clothed in rags.

In [00:10:00] this condition with the tears of joy and gratitude flowing down our cheeks, the people of Timor beheld us with a mixture of horror, surprise and pity. Nevertheless, Bligh boasted of his accomplishment, thus, happily ended through the assistance of divine providence without accident, a voyage of the most extraordinary nature that ever happened in the world.

Let it be taken in its extent, duration, in so much want of the necessaries of life. Of the 19 men who boarded the launch, only John Norton was lost during the journey when he was killed on Tofua, the Dutch residents of Kupang opened their doors and their hearts. The men were provided with dry clothes, warm beds, and regular meals of nutritious food, and were regaining their strength.

That was until the heat and diseases of the tropics came calling, almost all of the men contracted malaria during their stay in Timor. David Nelson died on July 20th, and the rest of the men were [00:11:00] weakened considerably. Bligh purchased the 34 foot schooner resource and the remaining men departed on August 20th, 1789, reaching Batavia on the 1st of October.

Ships Cook. Thomas Hall died of dysentery on October 10th, an illness he had been suffering from since his arrival at Timor. That same day, Bligh departed on the Vlydt on August 16th with his clerk, John Samuel and servant John Smith, forcing the remaining men in Batavia to return to England with the Dutch East India company fleet.

At a later time in the coming weeks, masters mate, William Elphinstone and Quartermaster, Peter Linklater died most likely of malaria or some other fever. Lieutenant Bligh, Mr. Samuel and Mr. Smith arrived in Portsmouth, England on March 14th, 1790 and two days later, Bligh officially reported the mutiny to officials in London of the 18 men who joined Bligh on the launch Following the [00:12:00] mutiny 11 eventually made it safely back to England.

Bligh was for a time, a national hero after publishing his account, narrative of the mutiny on the Bounty and the voyage of the ship's launch. The admiralty dispatched HMS, Pandora for Tahiti in November of 1790 under Captain Edward Edwards, with the intention of tracking down and arresting Fletcher Christian and the other mutant ears. While Bligh and his men struggled through their epic journey for survival.

The 25 men aboard the Bounty set off on their own. Christian first scouted the Island of Tubuai from May 28th to May 31st, 1789. And despite finding unfriendly natives determined it was suitable for their new settlement. Christian then took the Bounty back to Tahiti for supplies where a number of Tahitians joined the Mutineers, and they arrived back at Tubuai.

On June 23rd, the Mutineers built a fort and began to dig a moat around their settlement, which angered the local [00:13:00] chief. Hostilities escalated until a full scale battle erupted on September 13th, resulting in several injuries, realizing the dangers of remaining on oui. Christian and his band of followers chose to leave and return to Tahiti for the next three weeks.

The Bounty crew resupplied and formulated another plan because they could not remain at Tahiti Royal Navy. Ships would arrive before long in search of Christian and the other mutineers. On October 22nd, William Brown, Fletcher Christian, Isaac Martin, William McCoy, John Mills, Matthew Trell, Alexander Smith, John Williams, and Edward Young left Tahiti on the Bounty, along with six Tahitian men and 12 Tahitian women.

It is probable that at least some of the Tahitians were tricked into leaving the island believing they would return. Christian didn't yet have a specific destination, but he had no [00:14:00] intention of returning to Tahiti. 16 men from the Bounty remained on Tahiti, including four men who did not participate in the Mutiny.

These were Joseph Coleman, Michael Byrne, Thomas McIntosh and Charles Norman in his log Bligh wrote of them, these men are deserving of mercy being detained against their inclinations. Over the next two years, these 16 men melded into Tahitian culture. They had children, wrote a history of the island, wrote a dictionary of the local language, and built a schooner that they named the resolution.

They even participated in wars with neighboring islands. Two of the men, Matthew Thompson and Charles Churchill were often intoxicated. And Quarrelsome Churchill was one of the men who had deserted the Bounty and had to be tracked down. In April of 1790, Matthew Thompson killed Charles Churchill during an altercation over a stolen musket.

The Tahitian [00:15:00] subsequently killed Thompson in retribution for the murder. After a four month journey, HMS Pandora arrived in Tahiti on March 23rd, 1791. Within 48 hours, eight of the 14 remaining crew of the Bounty willingly turn themselves in to Captain Edwards. Search parties were dispatched and the remaining six were apprehended within days.

All of them were imprisoned in a specially designed cell on the deck of the Pandora measuring roughly 11 feet by 18 feet and just five feet high. The men were in irons and could not stand up straight inside the cramped, makeshift prison, which was referred to as Pandora's Box. It was extremely hot inside the miserable cell and armed guard surrounded them at all times.

Captain Edwards spent time gathering information before setting out to search for Fletcher Christian and the Bounty. On May 10th, Edwards renamed the Mutineer schooner to the Matavay and placed masters mate William Oliver in [00:16:00] command with a crew of nine men. Edwards spent the next three months searching various islands for any sign of the Bounty, but only recovered its lost anchor at Tabuai.

During this time, the ship's jolly boat was lost with all five crewmen. A month later, the Matavay became separated from the Pandora and by August 1st, Edwards abandoned the search for the Bounty and set course for Java, which was the predetermined rendezvous point making for the Torres Straight Pandora ran a ground on the Great Barrier Reef on August 28th, 1791, and sank in the surf The following day, 31 of the crew and four of the prisoners were killed.

The survivors of Pandora escaped on the ship's boats and arrived at Timor. Two weeks later, Edwards and his crew boarded the Dutch vessel Rembang and were transported to Java where they were reunited with the crew of the schooner Matavay, which had arrived a day earlier. The crew of the Pandora and the prisoners were placed on [00:17:00] board and old rotting vessel in Batavia's Harbor.

Diseases of the tropical climate and conditions of their quarters took the lives of 16 more of the Pandora's crew from various illnesses. Captain Edwards wrote of his disdain of the Dutch settlement. All the morality of that place originates from Marsh Effluvia arising from their stagnant canals and pleasure grounds.

Edwards departed Batavia with a portion of his crew and all of the prisoners in December of 1791 aboard the Dutch ship Vreedenberg. The remaining crew departed aboard the gorgon four months later of the 134 men who left England on HMS Pandora, only 78 made it back to England. Edwards was later court marshed for the loss of Pandora, but he was acquitted of all charges.

The 10 surviving Mutineers who were captured by Edwards at Tahiti were court-martialed. Six of them were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. [00:18:00] While the four men designated as innocent by Pipon were acquitted. However, at the court's request for Mercy King George II granted Royal pardons to midshipman Peter Hayward and Boatswain's Mate, James Morrison, Cook's assistant William Muspratt was granted a stay of execution and was eventually pardoned on the 28th of October, 1792.

Thomas Burke, Thomas Ellison and John Millward were hanged from the yard arm of HMS Brunswick at Portsmouth. The three men maintained their innocence until the very end

Carpenter William Purcell, who was with Bligh during the miraculous voyage of the launch was also court-martialed. After Bligh filed charges against him, he was found guilty, not of mutiny but of insolence.

Purcell was reprimanded, but continued service with the Royal Navy. After retiring, Purcell suffered from dementia and died at the age of 71. In 1834, he was the last remaining [00:19:00] survivor who had sailed on the Bounty

when the Bounty departed Tahiti Fletcher Christian did not have a specific destination in mind.

However, his goal was to find a remote uninhabited island suitable for settlement and was unlikely to be found by the Royal Navy. Of the items kept on board the Bounty. Lieutenant Bligh's charts and maps proved to be most useful. Christian found a reference to Pitcairn Island found by Philip Carteret in 1766.

He read Carteret's description of the island. It appeared like a great rock rising out of the sea. It was not more than five mile in circumference and seem to be uninhabited. It was, however, covered with trees, and we saw a small stream of fresh water running down one side of it. I would've landed upon it, but the surf, which at this season broke upon it with great violence rendered it impossible.

This was an ideal location as it was uninhabited had a source of fresh water, and its [00:20:00] coordinates happened to be improperly charted on British maps. James Cook had attempted to find it using Carteret's coordinates, but could not. Christian assumed Carteret's calculation error was in longitude, as it was much more difficult to determine.

Christian took the Bounty to 25 degrees south latitude, and then sailed east until he found the island matching the description. The Bounty arrived at Pitcairn Island on January 15th, 1790. While the island had been home to a population of Pacific Island peoples previously, it had been abandoned for centuries when the mutineers arrived a week after arriving on January 23rd, the Bounty was burned by Matthew Quintrell

At what is now named Bounty Bay, seemingly this was to hide any evidence of the ship and to prevent anyone from leaving the island. Strangely, Quintal burned the ship before all items of value could be removed. The first

evidence of what happened to the Pitcairn Islanders came in [00:21:00] February of 1808 when the American ceiling ship Topaz arrived at the island under Captain Mayhew Folger.

Folger found a thriving settlement led by a man named Alexander Smith, who was one of the mutineers from the Bounty. He was surrounded by seemingly happy women, children, and younger men. And Smith gave Captain Folger the K 2 chronometer that had been issued to Bligh for use on the Bounty, which provided definitive proof of a connection to the Bounty.

It wasn't until 1814 that British ships found the shores of Pitcairn Island. When HMS Briton under Sir Thomas Staines and HMS Tagus commanded by Philip Pipon arrived, the captains were greeted to the island by Fletcher Christian's son, Thursday, October. Christian and George Young, the son of Edward Young.

They found 46 people on the island, most of a relatively young age, led by a man calling himself John Adams. Alexander Smith's actual name was John Adams, [00:22:00] while he was listed as Alexander Smith on the Bounty's muster. He had started using his real name of John Adams with the other Pitcairn colonists. The younger islanders all referred to Adams as father.

The captains reported back to the admiralty that the Pitcairn Islanders were self-sufficient, peaceful, and happy. No action was taken and Pitcairn Island was left in peace. In 1825, Frederick w Beechey led an expedition to Pitcairn Island and spoke with Adams and others for 16 days. Beechey published an extensive account from John Adams of the entire story of the Bounty and its crew, entitled, narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering Strait.

According to Adams, the Pitcairn Colony struggled at first, but survived relatively well. Fletcher Christian took a Tahitian woman named Mauatua as his wife. She also went by the names Maimiti and Isabella. Their son Thursday, October. Christian was born in [00:23:00] 1790 and was the first of the Pitcairners to be born on the island, but there was a clear hierarchy in place with the white mutineers at the top, and the tahitians below.

Disagreements became more frequent, and the Tahitians were extremely resentful of having their women taken from them and given to the white men. In September of 1793, a full scale rebellion erupted. Fletcher Christian, William Brown, John Mills, Isaac Martin and John Williams were ambushed and killed.

Fletcher Christian died from a gunshot wound to the neck while he was tending to his plot of yams. John Adams and Edward Young were spared as they were hidden away and protected by the women. Matthew Quint and William McCoy, however, were two of the most ill mannered toward the Tahitians, and they escaped to the mountains where they were forced to forage for survival for a time.

Not long after the massacre, a violent disagreement among the Tahitian men took place over who would claim the women [00:24:00] and two of the Tahitian men were killed. The women who lamented the loss of their white husbands launched a plan to kill the two remaining Tahitian men. One of them was killed in asleep with an axe while the other was shot by Edward Young.

In 1798, William McCoy constructed a still to make liquor of a local route. He and Matthew Quintrell became terrible alcoholics and in a drunk induced delirium. McCoy fell off a cliff, possibly intentionally, and was killed. When Matthew Quintrell's wife died in 1799. He insisted on taking a wife from Adams or Young and threatened to kill them if they did not agree.

Fearing Quintrell would carry through with his threat. Adams and Young killed Quintrell with an axe. A year later, Edward Young died of natural causes, possibly an asthma attack, leaving John Adams as the lone survivor of the Mutineers on Pitcairn Island. At the time of Frederick [00:25:00] Beechey's visit in 1825, there were 66 residents of Pitcairn Island.

Of these 20 were the children of the Bounty mutineers, and 37 were their grandchildren. John Adams died in 1829. Most likely of natural causes at age 61. His is the only known grave site of the Mutineers on Pitcairn Island. Bligh was court-martialed in October of 1790 as his customary when a ship is lost.

The court read a letter from Bligh that he wrote while on Timor and heard testimony from Midshipman Thomas Hayward Midshipman, John Hallett, and Sailing Master John Fryer. The court found the loss of the Bounty was entirely due to the secret mutiny planned by Fletcher Christian and Lieutenant Bligh was exonerated of any wrongdoing.

Bligh was promoted to captain and assigned to HMS Providence for a second attempt to transport breadfruit to the West Indies. This mission lasting from 1791 [00:26:00] to 1793 was successful for his part, but the enslaved people in the West Indies disliked the breadfruit and refused to eat it. Bligh expected to again be welcomed back as a hero, but found to a surprise that his reputation had suffered a significant decline while he was away as Bligh's crew from the launch and the prisoners captured at Tahiti returned to England, more court marshals were held During the testimony of those trials, evidence of Bligh's antagonizing behavior came to light.

Bligh was described as a petulant and cruel task master who held petty grudges. Often issued threats of bodily harm and imprisonment and belittled his officers at every opportunity. Master. John Fryer wrote much of Bligh's behavior. Bligh often used phrases such as you can all go to hell and God damn you. On one occasion, Bligh pointed a bayonet at Fryer and shouted, I'll run you through during a separate incident with Fryer.

Bligh threatened, I'll [00:27:00] break every bone in your skin. Boatswain's mate, James Morrison Recounted While at Tahiti, Lieutenant Bligh took personal possession of hogs, rightfully purchased by the crew, claiming he owned everything brought on board and would do with them as he pleased. On another occasion, Bligh accused the crew of stealing from his cabin, calling them all thieves and rascals, only to find the items in question in his cabin, exactly where his clerk had left them.

Fletcher Christian and other officers were often the target of Blis verbal abuse. Of particular annoyance was a loan that Bligh had given to Christian at some point prior, Bligh frequently used this arrangement to insult Christian publicly and belittle him for the debt. Christian's name appears only a handful of times on the logbook prior to the mutiny.

In fact, Bligh wrote frequently of having a healthy and happy crew performing Sunday services, ordering daily exercise, seeing that sick men were cared for, and taking personal pride in the good conditions on [00:28:00] board. ​The fate of the Bounty's voyage took a decided turn. While at Tahiti Bligh gradually lost control of the men as they became more comfortable on the island and with their female consorts.

Discipline was lacking and the poor condition of the ship's, boats, and other equipment, the theft of supplies and an increasing frequency of insubordination are indicative of this. As for Bligh, he commanded numerous vessels until 1805 when he was once again, court-martialed. In a familiar refrain charges by Bligh's.

Second, Lieutenant John Frazier accused Bligh of indecency. In his complaint, Frazier claimed Bligh, quote, called me a rascal scoundrel, and shook his fist in my face. Bligh was acquitted technically, but was reprimanded and told to use language more suitable for an officer. In 1806, Bligh was [00:29:00] named as Governor of New South Wales, Australia.

His problematic tenure lasted until 1808 when he was deposed by a military coup of the New South Wales Corps. During the RUM Rebellion, Bligh went on to achieve the rank of Vice Admiral of the Blue in 1814, although never again commanded a ship. Bligh died of cancer in 1817 at the age of 63 and is buried at the Garden Museum in the Lambeth District of London.

He remains a popular if controversial figure in the history of the Royal Navy. So was Fletcher Christian justified in mutiny? I don't often interject my opinions, but in this case, the Bounty mutiny has been discussed and debated for over 200 years, and so I'll offer my thoughts. A commanding officer of a naval ship is expected to handle insubordination in the proper manner as a gentleman, including issuing appropriate discipline.

At all times, the officer should maintain [00:30:00] dignity, authority, and avoid knee jerk overreactions. A captain's authority should generate from a proper demeanor and charisma, not just simply from rank. Bligh often raised and shook his fists and called men scoundrels and rascals, and made threats of flogging and imprisonment and threatened to throw man overboard and court martial them.

Author of many naval themed novels, Patrick O'Brian wrote of Bligh. The captain of the Bounty's abuse was of a different nature, bad in the sense of wrong, the language of one who is foreign to the community. Why never learn the common language of sea officers addressing their equals or inferiors language in its widest sense of words, stress, intonation, facial and body expression, tone.

Pitch and all the rest. Whether this arose from his rather squalid early years or whether he merely had a tin ear, makes little difference to the result. Bligh seemed to have taken even the [00:31:00] slightest inconvenience as a personal attack and allowed his emotions and pride to get the better of him.

The personal insults and worse threats of violence, including death was unprofessional and out of line. Blis authority turned into petulant revenge and his officers had simply had enough. It's understandable. Bligh was unjust, mean-spirited, and unnecessarily hostile. However, I do not believe Muny was justified.

Bligh did not actually commit any of the violence that he threatened, aside from an occasional flogging, but he did not excessively punish any of the men, nor was the ship or their lives in peril. In fact, their time at Tahiti had been quite pleasurable. Had the mutiny not occurred, the Bounty almost certainly would've made it to the West Indies and then back to England safely with possibly only carpenter William Purcell facing court-martial.

Despite all of this controversy and shortcomings as a leader, it is without [00:32:00] question that Bligh was a brilliant Mariner, an expert navigator, and for that he should be remembered. The Pitcairn Island Group remains a British overseas territory today. Its population grew steadily in the early 19th century, reaching 193 in 1856 before the entire population was moved to Norfolk Island.

16 residents returned in 1859 and the population again grew reaching a height of 250. In 1936, the outbreak of war, an interruption of shipping and economic factors caused another population decline reaching a low of 40 in 1997. The 2020 census revealed 47 people living on the island, and as of 2025, that number is estimated At 50, its sole village.

A tiny settlement named Adamstown is the home of Bounty Square, where one of the anchors of the legendary ship is on display. Of those currently living on Pitcairn Island, today, almost all are [00:33:00] descendants of the Bounty, mutineers and their Tahitian wives. About half of Norfolk Island's population are descendants of the Mutineers as well.

Olive Christian, a descendant of Fletcher Christian who runs the Islands General Store, stated, everybody is so close. You are one big family. Regardless of whether you might be a young Warren or Christian, referring to the island's original family names. A unique language called Pitkern has developed and its people often enjoy community dinners, birthday celebrations, and holidays, such as Bounty Day on January 23rd.

The annual celebration includes the building of a mock replica of the Bounty, which is set on fire and drifted out into the bay. Some artifacts from the Bounty are in existence today. In addition to the anchor at Adamstown, researchers have found a number of items in the Shallow Cove where the Bounty was burned.

Including a heavily encrusted cannon, mounds of iron, ballast, copper sheathing, nails, rope, and other small [00:34:00] items. The K two chronometer assigned to Bligh was given to American Captain Mayhew Folger by John Adams at Pitcairn Island in 1808. Folger was later imprisoned on Juan Fernandez Island and K two ended up under Spanish control.

It was then purchased in Chile and later purchased again by Sir Thomas Herbert. He presented K 2 to the United Services Institution and it now resides at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

The story of the Bounty has been depicted on the big screen on three occasions, 1935's Mutiny on the Bounty.

Starred Clark Cable as Christian and Charles Laughton as Bligh 1962's movie of the same name, with Marlon Brando, portraying Christian and Trevor Howard as Lieutenant Bligh. And 1984's film called Simply the Bounty, starring Anthony Hopkins as Bligh and Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian, which I personally find the most enjoyable.

It's largely accurate, but does take some creative [00:35:00] license. On occasion Of interesting note is the enlarged replica of HMS Bounty built in 1960 for MGMs 1962 film after filming was wrapped on the subsequent promotional tour in 1965. The Bounty was stationed at St. Petersburg, Florida. Which happens to be my hometown.

I have fond memories of seeing this incredible sailing ship up close, walking its decks and exploring the ship. As a young boy, I didn't quite understand the significance at the time, but I enjoyed seeing the cannon, hearing the creek of the wood and smelling the freshly polished decks.

The Bounty replica additionally appeared in movies and television throughout the years, including a 1965 episode of the TV show Flipper.

The 1983 film, yellow Beard, and the 1989 film, treasure Island Media Mogul. Ted Turner purchased the MGM Library in 1986, which included the replica ship, and in 1993, the ship began spending [00:36:00] its summers in Fall River, Massachusetts while wintering in St. Petersburg, Florida. In October of 2012, the Bounty left New Haven, Connecticut, bound for St.

Petersburg, and was caught in Hurricane Sandy. The Bounty sank off the coast of Hatteras, North Carolina on October 29th, 2012. 14 of its crew were subsequently rescued by the US Coast Guard, but sadly, captain Robin Walbridge was never found. Crew member Claudine Christian was recovered, but was unresponsive and pronounced dead at the hospital.

Claudine Christian was, according to her own statements, the fifth great-granddaughter of Fletcher Christian.

That's going to do it for the Mutiny on the Bounty. Thank you so much for listening. Officers, club members on Patreon and subscribers to Into History can hear the bonus episode about William and the Rum Rebellion in the next edition of Flotsam and Jetson.

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Rich Napolitano original theme music is by Sean Siegfried, and you can find him@seansiegfried.com. Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs merchandise is available shop.shipwrecksandseadogs.com. T-shirts are only $15. Can't beat that these days, so check it out. Get yourself a shirt or a hat and enjoy the feeling of supporting an independent podcaster, specifically me.

Please join me again next time. But until then, don't forget to wear your life jackets. You scoundrels you rascals. I'll run you through you lubbers.