ON THIS DAY: 28 April 1789 – Acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian organised a mutiny on HMS Bounty, which was transporting breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies.
Relations had become strained between Christian and Captain William Bligh during a five-month layover in Tahiti, ultimately resulting in Bligh being forced from his ship and set adrift in the Pacific Ocean near the island of Tonga with eighteen of his loyal sailors. A few of the mutineers chose to remain in Tahiti, but Christian—along with eight other mutineers, as well as six Tahitian men and eleven Tahitian women—soon sailed off to settle on a remote and uninhabited island: Pitcairn.
Christian’s family originated from the Isle of Man, but he was born in 1764 on a small estate near Cockermouth in Cumberland. However, the family lost the estate and was forced to move back to the Isle of Man to escape mounting debts. Christian joined the navy at 17 and worked his way up the ranks. On HMS Bounty, he was hired as master’s mate; however, Bligh promoted him to acting-lieutenant and made him his second-in-command.
Why did the mutiny occur? One report claimed it was due to Bligh’s harsh regime; another suggested the mutineers had grown too fond of life in Tahiti and (as the painter Paul Gauguin discovered a century later) the sexual freedom it offered. It should be noted that there were no Royal Marines to enforce security on board, and there were no commissioned officers on board other than Bligh.
After Bligh was set adrift in a small boat with 18 loyal crew, no charts, only a compass, and very little food and water he sailed towards Tofua. After hostile natives attacked the men and killing one of the crew, Bligh sailed 4,164 miles to Timor, taking 47 days. In 1790 Bligh was honourably acquitted at a court-martial examining the loss of the Bounty.
As for Christian, back in Tahiti he married Maimiti, the daughter of a Tahitian chief. He later attempted to establish a colony on the island of Tubuai, but the group was met with hostility from the islanders. After dropping off sixteen crew members back in Tahiti, Christian set sail again—this time for Pitcairn Island.
Once on Pitcairn, the mutineers stripped their ship of everything useful and then—in an indication of their resolve—set it alight. Life on Pitcairn proved far from idyllic. The gender imbalance of eleven women to fifteen men led to unrest, insurrection, and the enslavement of the Tahitian men. Ultimately, most of the men died from infighting and disease.
By 1808, only one man—John Adams (alias Alexander Smith)—remained. He was discovered by the American seal-hunting ship Topaz, living with nine Tahitian women and numerous children born from the unions between the mutineers and the women.
Fletcher Christian was allegedly killed by two fellow mutineers after he attacked them. He was survived by his wife, Maimiti, and their three children: Thursday October, Charles, and Mary Ann. Interestingly, nearly everyone with the surname Christian on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands is descended from Thursday and Charles, and there are an estimated 1,000 descendants of the original mutineers worldwide. As for Pitcairn, it has a population today of fewer than 40 people.
For an ‘rosy’ vision of the Pitcairn island and its inhabitants, take a look at this 1962 documentary (25 mins) held by the BFI.