The Mutiny That Founded A Nation (Bounty Mutiny of 1789), Part 2

Transcript

Ahoy my friends, you've just tuned into Anthology of Heroes, the podcast sharing tales of heroes

from across the ages.

And this is part two, the final part, of the story of Fletcher Christian and his mutiny

that led to the founding of a new nation on a tiny rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

In part one, I covered the events leading to the mutiny itself.

We explained the mission of the HMS Bounty to collect fruit trees from Tahiti to replant

in the West Indies as a source of cheap food.

We talked about the early life of the two main characters, Captain William Bligh and

his close friend and mentee, Fletcher Christian.

We walked through the conditions aboard the cramped ship and the contrasting, hedonistic,

relaxed living the sailors got used to once they arrived in Tahiti.

But most importantly, we spoke about the souring temperament of the HMS Bounty's crew towards

Captain Bligh, who were all well and truly sick of his tongue lashings, paranoid rants

and threats.

We left the episode with a chaotic but ultimately successful mutiny led by Fletcher Christian.

Captain Bligh and the majority of his loyalists have been lowered into a small lifeboat and

cut adrift, with the ever vengeful captain swearing justice if he ever reached the shores

of England.

You know the deal now, I'd recommend listening to part one for context first, but anyway,

let's get into it.

Here we go for part two of the story of Fletcher Christian and the mutiny that created a nation.

As Christian walked the deck of the ship he now captained, he was aware of just how precarious

his position was.

Military order had been dashed to the wind.

The crew had been taught by him that if they were unhappy with the rules, just break them.

He cleverly called for a vote.

All crew could nominate whoever they wished to be captain of the vessel.

Christian of course won the vote, but the empty gesture served to wash away any doubts

from all the men about his worthiness to lead.

Even so, Christian never felt at ease.

He carried a loaded pistol with him at all times that was visible on his person.

Next up, the cursed breadfruit.

The items of contention that had pushed Bligh into their personal space were dumped overboard.

The men now had more than enough space to sleep, but there wasn't too much time for

that.

With a reduced crew, every man worked hard out of sheer necessity.

Christian took on the duties of captain, navigator, and a few others.

He didn't really have a choice.

Almost half his crew were deckhands, with the majority of the officer class leaving

with Bligh.

Knowing that the heavy workload would sour the crew's mood quickly, Christian decided

that the mutineers would settle on the island of Toubouis, one of the islands that make

up modern French Polynesia.

They landed to a frosty reception with the natives.

As mentioned in part one, Tahiti was a bit of an oddity in being so open to westerners.

Many of these islands were downright hostile to outsiders.

A skirmish broke out when the natives turned on the sailors, trying to fleece them of all

their valuables, including the ship itself.

Eleven native men and a woman were killed in the fighting.

Christian's men held strong with their far superior technology.

Despite this, Christian was determined to make the location work.

He figured that eventually the locals would be cowed into acceptance of their new neighbors.

But what kind of life would this be?

Twenty men who tolerated each other but not much more, living in constant fear of a much

larger native population.

This wouldn't do it all.

An expedition was launched to return to Tahiti, which sat due north of their current position.

The Tahitians were surprised to see the bounty returning just a couple of months after it

had left.

They were probaBligh not expecting another visitor for around five years or so.

Christian concocted a story to foolish, generous hosts about how he had transported the breadfruit

to Captain Cook, who was very grateful to them.

Remember, Captain Cook was long dead at this point, and that they had been sent back to

return by the revered captain who now required much more food and supplies.

The generous Tahitians held Cook's memory in great honor, and they dug deep to help

him out.

By the time the crew departed, the bounty was full to the brim.

Four hundred and sixty pigs, fifty goats, and a bunch of chickens, dogs, and cats.

But the deceitful crew went a step further.

Knowing full well they would struggle to convince the Tahitians to leave their earthly paradise,

they invited them on board for a party, a goodbye celebration, and then just left.

Once the kidnapped men and women figured out they were being abducted, they begged to return

home, but it was to no avail.

Once they arrived back on Tabui, Christian found out that he didn't quite possess Bligh's

skills in diplomacy.

He eventually came to an agreement with the local chieftain to let his band settle on

a piece of land, but soon decided the land was no good and moved onto more fertile fields

that belonged to another chief.

The new chief wasn't as receptive, especially when Christian let their pigs loose, destroying

the settlement's crops.

Christian had upset not just the natural ecosystem of the small island, but also the political

one, as both chiefs began to argue, blaming each other for the problems these white visitors

had bought.

The settlers themselves were not even unified as a group.

It was like Lord of the Flies, but instead of food, it was sex.

Resentment simmered as one man watched another man laugh and chat with his new wife.

There simply weren't enough women for everyone to couple up.

For the Tahitian men, they were okay with sharing their partner.

This arrangement was normal in their society, but the Europeans still found this unacceptable.

They all wanted their own monogamous partner, regardless of whose wife that woman may have

been originally.

In addition to this friction, scouting parties were ambushed by the island's native inhabitants.

The men came stumbling back into camp, bruised, battered, and robbed of all their valuables,

especially things made out of iron.

Christian also began to find his authority tested more and more, and after an order of

his was disobeyed, he grabbed one of the sailors by the scruff of his collar, pushed a cocked

pistol against his temple, and spat at him that if he ever disobeyed him again, he'd

blow his brains out.

Things were unraveling fast.

The native Tahitian men, whose language was similar enough, plotted with the new Tabuans

to kill all the Europeans, rightfully a little pissed off that they'd been forciBligh abducted

and then had their wives stolen by them.

This led to another battle between the Europeans and the locals.

It was a victory for the Europeans, but a costly one.

One sailor died, and their musket powder was starting to run low.

Once it was out, the natives held the advantage with their numbers.

But still, Christian stuck to his guns, insisting they make the new colony work.

But when he suggested dismantling the ship, the Bounty, to construct a fortification,

I was when he overstepped his authority.

Faced with the very real possibility of being forced to spend the rest of their life on

an island full of women and men who wanted them dead, the crew confronted Christian that

this was not happening, this settlement was no good and it was time to face the facts.

It was decided that it would return to Tahiti.

Originally, most of the crew were set on remaining there, but Christian, with his natural gift

in theatrics, got in a soapbox and wistfully waxed lyrical about his dreams of sailing

off into the sunset and accepting whatever destiny the universe had for him.

His romantic speech won a good deal of support back to him, and four days later, once the

ship had again returned to Tahiti, a good majority of the crew pledged their allegiance

to Christian, come whatever may.

After unceremoniously dumping those who wished to return to Tahiti on the beaches, the HMS

Bounty, with a skeleton crew of Taboons, Tahitians, and Europeans, sailed forth into the great

unknown.

But first, a quick message from one of our friends of the show.

Along the way, we'll talk about the Inca culture, religion, architectural feats, and

military conquests.

You can find the show on all major podcasting platforms and at our website, ahistoryoftheinca.wordpress.com.

And thank you for listening.

From the original crew of 40 men, nine now remained.

Using this meagre number were six Polynesians, 12 women, and one baby.

Making matters worse were the seasonal winds.

The seas were rough, and many of the crew had almost no sailing experience whatsoever.

For the next few weeks, they sporadically hopped from island to island looking for something

suitable.

This portion of the journey has been painstakingly put together from diary fragments and bought

alive by Google Earth from a man named Donald Albert.

I've put the link to his fascinating interactive session on our website.

It's well worth a look.

While the crew gathered fresh water in Fiji, Christian busied himself in Bligh's journals

and maps.

Bligh had specifically requested that these were given to him when they jettisoned him

on the lifeboat, so perhaps there was something in them that could help them.

Christian came across a small footnote that mentioned an uncharted island that had been

sighted some 100 years ago by a 15-year-old midshipman named Robert Pitcairn.

Though other captains had confirmed the rough location of the island when passing through

the area, none had charted or explored it.

The only murky details of the island mentioned that it was rocky, with a shallow reef, tough

swell, and seemingly no safe place to drop anchor.

Any of these, Christian knew, was a big red flag to any potential Royal Navy captain.

Who would put his ship at risk for the sake of a tiny island?

There was not a single island in the Pacific Ocean that the British Crown would want to

visit less than this one.

It was perfect, but now they had to find it.

Navigational technology had jumped ahead significantly in the last 100 years.

Naval ships in the 18th century relied on what's called a chronometer, a kind of timekeeping

device that determined the position by comparing the time zone where the ship was currently

in against the time zone in Greenwich, London.

This time zone today is referred to as GMT 00 or Greenwich Mean Time.

But when the island was sighted by young Robert Pitkin, the main device used for navigating

was the sextant, which gave an accurate longitude based on the sun and the horizon.

But the device on board for determining latitude, the chronometer, hadn't been invented back

then.

So Pitkin's notes on latitude could have just been a best guess.

Well, it took them two miserable and bitterly cold months, tracking back and forth, but

finally the distinctive shaped island came into view.

For the Polynesians, the coldness and the monotony of ship life would have been something

they'd never experienced, and you can bet they had no objection as to dropping anchor.

After locating the single suitable bay for disembarking, the ragtag crew unloaded and

began to explore their new home.

Though the decision to find the island had been a shot in the dark, the crew could not

have picked a better place to call home.

The island was far away from others in the Pacific Ocean.

In fact, it sat so far west that its closest neighbour was Easter Island off the coast

of Chile.

Not only that, but the island was a virtual fortress, shielded from the outside wall by

rocky coastline and unpredictable swell.

Onshore things were equally rugged.

While the island flattened out further inland, on the outer perimeter were high cliffs pockmarked

with a heap of caves that could be used to take shelter if anyone came looking.

But most promising of all, though it showed signs of habitation in the past, it was now

deserted.

It seemed that finally, their long search was complete.

They had found their home, warm, fertile and safe, their very own Garden of Eden.

As the crew disembarked the HMS Bounty for the last time, they were sure the hard times

were finally behind them.

They could not have been more wrong.

Every man had an axe to grind with another.

Tension simmered below the surface and the worst was yet to come.

While his old crew had found refuge, thousands of kilometres away, a scruffy, thin and dark

Captain Bligh stumbled onto the docks of Kupang, an Indonesian colony ran by the Dutch.

Against all odds, he had guided his overcrowded rowboat through the perilous endeavor straits

between northern Australia and Indonesia.

Navigating from memory and skill alone, Bligh had reached civilization.

Uniforms torn and ragged, he and his sailors looked more like out-of-work pirates than

sailors of the Royal British Navy.

Whatever you may think of the captain's conduct, the 47-day, 6,701 kilometres or 4,164 mile

journey in an open-top boat is nothing short of stunning and speaks wonders about his ability

not just as a navigator but as a leader.

The first of the outside world to learn about the events that took place was Bligh's wife

in a letter written to her, quote,

Know then, my own dear Betsy, that I have lost the Bounty.

On the 28th of April at daylight, in the morning, Christian having the morning watch, he and

several others came into my cabin while I was asleep and seized me, holding naked bayonets

at my breast, tied my hands behind my back and threatened instant destruction if I uttered

a word.

I, however, called loudly for assistance, but the conspiracy was so well laid that the

officers' cabin doors were guarded by sentinels, so Nelson, Peckover, Samuels or the master

could not come to me.

I was now dragged on deck in my shirt and closely guarded.

I demanded of Christian the case of such a violent act and severely degraded him for

his villainy, but he could only answer, not a word, sir, or you are dead.

I dared him to the act and endeavoured to rally someone to a sense of their duty but

to no effect.

He goes on to say, I have now reason to curse the day I ever knew a Christian or a Haywood.

Or, indeed, a Manx man."

Manx meaning a person originating from the Isle of Man, like Christian did.

With vengeance on his mind, just like he said he would, Bligh reached England and was dragged

through a court-martial to determine exactly what went wrong.

His extensive, bordering on obsessive, journaling meant that he had every detail ready to go.

The court cleared him and the public hailed him as a hero, a righteous defender of the

British law on the high seas.

Bligh had told the judges that he banked on many of the men still being on Tahiti and

as a result, a ship was sent to apprehend the mutineers.

A few months later, it arrived.

Upon seeing the welcome sight of the Union Jack, three men swam out to greet the boat.

These were three of Bligh's loyalists, men who were forced to stay behind with the mutineers

due to lack of space in the rowboat.

They were banking on Bligh's testimony clearing them of wrongdoing, but the same could not

be said for many others on the island.

Those who actively supported Christian in the mutiny hid, but were eventually caught.

All English sailors left alive on Tahiti were dragged back to England and the trial was

the talk of the century.

Bligh wasn't present, however.

He was leading another expedition and yes, before you ask, he had finally been elevated

to captain, a promotion that, in his mind, was very, very overdue.

In the end, out of the total of ten defenders, three were hung, the remaining seven being

found innocent or acquitted.

And with that, the book was closed.

The public assumption was that Christian and whatever was left of his crew had probaBligh

eked out a living on some rocky barren island before succumbing to the elements.

Eighteen years passed.

The world turned and the story of the HMS Bounty faded from public mind.

The Battle of Trafalgar had checked the power of Spain and now Great Britain ruled the waves

with no equal.

Thousands of miles east, in its recently established Australian colony, an American whaling ship

came across an island.

It was an island that, according to the charts, should not exist.

The only record of anything close by was a little known landmass chartered by someone

called Robert Pitcairn over a hundred years ago.

As the island grew closer, the crew noticed smoke billowing up through the tree line.

The island was inhabited.

Pulling in towards the coastline, the captain was startled by a rowboat of muscular young

men paddling out to greet them, bearing fresh coconuts as gifts.

The crew was further surprised that the men spoke to them in near perfect English.

Judging by their tanned skin, the captain figured they'd stumbled across a Spanish

colony.

But when one of the men called out, did you know my father?

He sailed with Captain Bligh.

Then suddenly, everything became clear.

The American crew disembarked at the island's jetty, now named Bounty Point, and came ashore.

Guided by the young men in canoes, they found a thriving population of around 35 people,

mostly women, teenagers, and young children.

They were strong, healthy, and happy.

Living in thatched houses were the middle-aged wives and young children of the original mutineers,

including Christian Fletcher's son, Thursday October Christian, who was named after the

day he was born on the island.

Snaking through the winding streets of the small community, the visitors met the de facto

king of the island.

He was 40 years old but looked much older.

Hunched, bald, and stooping, though covered in Tahitian tattoos, his whiter skin stood

in stark contrast to the darker young generation that surrounded him.

His name was John Adams, aka Alexander Smith, the sole surviving member of the Bounty's

original crew that had set off from England almost two decades ago.

Even after all this time, Adams was at first reluctant to greet the visitors, aware there

was no statute of limitations on mutiny.

He had taught the younger generation the word of God using the Bible left behind on the

Bounty.

He taught them how to read and write, and spun many tales about the mystical land of

England, a place he called home long ago.

Though the children spoke English, they spoke it with a distinctive Polynesian twist, creating

a sort of Creole language that still exists to this day.

But what had happened to the rest of the mutineers and the Tahitian men?

What of Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutiny?

Taking a seat in the village square, now named Adams Town, the whalers listened intently

to the twisted story.

It's worth noting that the only written source of this comes from a Polynesian woman

called Tehatuwetuna, or Jenny as the Europeans called her.

Jenny, like all the Polynesians, was taught to write by Adams.

As the only man from the original crew still living, he could obviously spin this story

to paint him in a more favourable light.

Chances are we'll never know exactly what happened, but here's the best guess we have.

Once the Bounty was unpacked, and it was clear that the initial danger had passed, old rivalries

fled up again based on, you guessed it, sex.

The first point of contention was what to do with the Bounty.

The settlers were very, very wary of being captured and dragged back to England.

I mean, all dogs that they had bought with them were killed in case their barking was

heard by a passing vessel, so a tall ship bobbing in the harbour was a very big problem.

Christian, going back on his previous wishes, didn't want to destroy the ship.

But in a sign that his authority was already waning, one night an Englishman named Matthew

Quintal swam out and took it upon himself to torch the ship.

It would be the first of several actions by Quintal that would go down to make him the

most hated man in the community.

As they watched their only connection to the outside world disappear beneath the swell,

some felt that this was the right course of action, but others sobbed loudly, cursing

themselves that they had not left with Captain Bligh when they had the chance.

The settlers began cultivating yams and other vegetables and made their first tents out

of the sails of the ship.

Christian grew depressed and distant, building himself a small hut on the coast and disappearing

into it for days on end.

He spent hours staring off into the distance, lamenting the choices he'd made.

In this power gap, trouble began to brew.

One of the sailor's wives had died shortly after arrival on the island, and he didn't

think it was fair that everyone else got a wife except for him, and somehow decided he

should be given one by the Polynesians.

Putting aside the horrendous treatment of women just being passed around regardless

of their own desires, many of the Polynesians were already living habitually.

Two or three men had been sharing a single wife.

The sailor protested and implored the other Europeans to back his claim, but they turned

him down saying that it would stir up too many problems.

But this changed when Adam's wife died from falling from the cliffs while picking bird

eggs.

Adam, who was more popular and physically stronger than the other sailor, demanded he

be compensated for his loss with another woman.

With the backing of the Europeans, two of the Tahitian wives were taken and given to

Adam's and the other sailor.

Rightfully, this sparked outrage among the Polynesians.

No one knew who would be next, and all hated this racial subservience that they'd been

forced to endure.

They worked just as hard as the European men did, so why were they being discriminated

against?

A plot began to slowly form to murder the white settlers and carry on this settlement

without them.

Christian's wife overheard one of the Polynesian women humming a kind of war song about killing

white men, and immediately she went to her husband who alerted the other Europeans.

The three ringleaders, knowing that they were sprung, fled to the interior, and the others

were caught and bound by the Europeans.

They pleaded their innocence, stating that they had no knowledge of the plot.

Who knows whether this was true, but Christian and the other white settlers knew that they

could not run society without them.

Every bit of manpower was needed here to till the fields and just keep things moving.

Christian told the men that they could prove their loyalty by tracking down the three ringleaders

and murdering them, which they did.

Bludgeoned to death with a rock or shot in the head, soon all three men were dead.

The rebellion was over, but it wouldn't last.

Some time later, things had devolved again.

It seems as if the Polynesian men were being treated more and more like slaves.

They were beaten excessively for minor offenses, and in some occasions having salt rubbed into

their wounds to increase their suffering.

Routinely, they were permitted to borrow firearms to hunt pigs in other game, and once they

had learned to use them, they turned them on their cruel overlords.

Christian, perhaps one of the least deserving, was killed first.

Bending to his fields, he was shot in the back and finished off with an axe blow to

the head.

So died the 29-year-old Englishman and mutineer Fletcher Christian on a tiny, uncharted speck

of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The massacre continued, and when it became clear what was happening, two white settlers

fled to the interior.

Quintal, the one that burned the ship, was one of them.

Adams was ambushed and shot through his shoulder with the bullet endowping his neck, but full

of adrenaline he managed to fight off the attackers and he too disappeared into the

forest.

At the urging of the Polynesian women, who liked Adams, Polynesian men agreed to spare

him and he was taken to a bed to recover.

Left in the jungle were two Europeans and one Polynesian who would join their ranks

after being rejected by one of the women.

For three uneasy weeks, these men lived in the jungle, looking into Adams' town, waiting

for a chance to strike.

It must have been a horrible existence for both parties, with death potentially stalking

behind every rock, every fern.

In the end, it was the Polynesian women who proved decisive.

Apparently preferring the company of the European men compared to the Polynesian men, they turned

to the outlaws and agreed to ensnare their countrymen for them.

With their help, all the remaining Polynesian men were murdered.

The affair was brutal, the women themselves taking part in smashing the brains out of

one of the men.

Covered in blood and gore of their townsfolk, the settlers of Adams' town again joined hands.

The adult population of Pitcairn Island was now four white men and 10 Polynesian women.

For a period of time, some women now rightfully untrusting of the remaining men chose to live

in their own community, but eventually they rejoined Adams' town.

One of the men, Robert Young, managed to steal moonshine from the root of a plant and seems

to have tried to enjoy it in moderation.

The three other men had different ideas.

Drinking to near lethal levels on a daily basis, it seemed all wanted to escape from

the reality that they themselves had created.

One of the men, McCoy, drank himself into such a stupor that he went mad.

And after several days alone in the jungle, his mangled body was found below the high

cliffs.

He had tied his hands and feet together to ensure that if the fall did not kill him,

drowning would.

His death sobered up Adams, who grew closer to Young, while Quintal continued swigging

the brew daily.

He became increasingly belligerent and beat his wife often, especially if he was unhappy

with the meals she cooked.

Eventually pressured into finding more food for her hateful husband, she too fell to her

death on the cliffs collecting bird eggs.

After her death, Quintal demanded Young's wife as compensation for his loss, which even

from a logistical perspective made no sense as there were now more than enough wives for

three men without having to break up another couple.

Young was a sickly man and by this point he was on death's door, his untreated asthma

worsened by the day in the hot tropical air.

Knowing that one day soon Quintal would come for he or his wife, he approached the only

one that could help, Adams.

Adams agreed that Quintal needed to die and for the last time the two grizzled British

sailors picked up the hatchet.

Quintal did not go down quietly, he was a big man and Young was not much help.

Ambushed in one of the huts, they pinned him down and Adams bashed his brain in with an

axe until he stopped resisting.

It was only once a grizzly deed was done that the two men noticed a nine year old girl that

had been in the corner of the hut.

Too terrified to scream, she had witnessed the whole horrible affair and was covered

in gore and warm blood.

Not long after, Young's asthma finished him off and Adams said goodbye to the last

white man he would see for the next 15 years.

Finally, at long last, a single man was left alive and there was peace.

With the island equivalent of the purge taking place, the new generation grew up in comparative

peace.

The women had no desire to bring up the past and the children had no knowledge of it.

One had memory of another completely different life they longed to return to.

Over time, the children began to speak a Creole language we now call Ahoy my friends, you've just tuned into Anthology of Heroes, the podcast sharing tales of heroes

from across the ages.

And this is part two, the final part, of the story of Fletcher Christian and his mutiny

that led to the founding of a new nation on a tiny rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

In part one, I covered the events leading to the mutiny itself.

We explained the mission of the HMS Bounty to collect fruit trees from Tahiti to replant

in the West Indies as a source of cheap food.

We talked about the early life of the two main characters, Captain William Bligh and

his close friend and mentee, Fletcher Christian.

We walked through the conditions aboard the cramped ship and the contrasting, hedonistic,

relaxed living the sailors got used to once they arrived in Tahiti.

But most importantly, we spoke about the souring temperament of the HMS Bounty's crew towards

Captain Bligh, who were all well and truly sick of his tongue lashings, paranoid rants

and threats.

We left the episode with a chaotic but ultimately successful mutiny led by Fletcher Christian.

Captain Bligh and the majority of his loyalists have been lowered into a small lifeboat and

cut adrift, with the ever vengeful captain swearing justice if he ever reached the shores

of England.

You know the deal now, I'd recommend listening to part one for context first, but anyway,

let's get into it.

Here we go for part two of the story of Fletcher Christian and the mutiny that created a nation.

As Christian walked the deck of the ship he now captained, he was aware of just how precarious

his position was.

Military order had been dashed to the wind.

The crew had been taught by him that if they were unhappy with the rules, just break them.

He cleverly called for a vote.

All crew could nominate whoever they wished to be captain of the vessel.

Christian of course won the vote, but the empty gesture served to wash away any doubts

from all the men about his worthiness to lead.

Even so, Christian never felt at ease.

He carried a loaded pistol with him at all times that was visible on his person.

Next up, the cursed breadfruit.

The items of contention that had pushed Bly into their personal space were dumped overboard.

The men now had more than enough space to sleep, but there wasn't too much time for

that.

With a reduced crew, every man worked hard out of sheer necessity.

Christian took on the duties of captain, navigator, and a few others.

He didn't really have a choice.

Almost half his crew were deckhands, with the majority of the officer class leaving

with Bly.

Knowing that the heavy workload would sour the crew's mood quickly, Christian decided

that the mutineers would settle on the island of Toubouis, one of the islands that make

up modern French Polynesia.

They landed to a frosty reception with the natives.

As mentioned in part one, Tahiti was a bit of an oddity in being so open to westerners.

Many of these islands were downright hostile to outsiders.

A skirmish broke out when the natives turned on the sailors, trying to fleece them of all

their valuables, including the ship itself.

Eleven native men and a woman were killed in the fighting.

Christian's men held strong with their far superior technology.

Despite this, Christian was determined to make the location work.

He figured that eventually the locals would be cowed into acceptance of their new neighbors.

But what kind of life would this be?

Twenty men who tolerated each other but not much more, living in constant fear of a much

larger native population.

This wouldn't do it all.

An expedition was launched to return to Tahiti, which sat due north of their current position.

The Tahitians were surprised to see the bounty returning just a couple of months after it

had left.

They were probably not expecting another visitor for around five years or so.

Christian concocted a story to foolish, generous hosts about how he had transported the breadfruit

to Captain Cook, who was very grateful to them.

Remember, Captain Cook was long dead at this point, and that they had been sent back to

return by the revered captain who now required much more food and supplies.

The generous Tahitians held Cook's memory in great honor, and they dug deep to help

him out.

By the time the crew departed, the bounty was full to the brim.

Four hundred and sixty pigs, fifty goats, and a bunch of chickens, dogs, and cats.

But the deceitful crew went a step further.

Knowing full well they would struggle to convince the Tahitians to leave their earthly paradise,

they invited them on board for a party, a goodbye celebration, and then just left.

Once the kidnapped men and women figured out they were being abducted, they begged to return

home, but it was to no avail.

Once they arrived back on Tabui, Christian found out that he didn't quite possess Bly's

skills in diplomacy.

He eventually came to an agreement with the local chieftain to let his band settle on

a piece of land, but soon decided the land was no good and moved onto more fertile fields

that belonged to another chief.

The new chief wasn't as receptive, especially when Christian let their pigs loose, destroying

the settlement's crops.

Christian had upset not just the natural ecosystem of the small island, but also the political

one, as both chiefs began to argue, blaming each other for the problems these white visitors

had bought.

The settlers themselves were not even unified as a group.

It was like Lord of the Flies, but instead of food, it was sex.

Resentment simmered as one man watched another man laugh and chat with his new wife.

There simply weren't enough women for everyone to couple up.

For the Tahitian men, they were okay with sharing their partner.

This arrangement was normal in their society, but the Europeans still found this unacceptable.

They all wanted their own monogamous partner, regardless of whose wife that woman may have

been originally.

In addition to this friction, scouting parties were ambushed by the island's native inhabitants.

The men came stumbling back into camp, bruised, battered, and robbed of all their valuables,

especially things made out of iron.

Christian also began to find his authority tested more and more, and after an order of

his was disobeyed, he grabbed one of the sailors by the scruff of his collar, pushed a cocked

pistol against his temple, and spat at him that if he ever disobeyed him again, he'd

blow his brains out.

Things were unraveling fast.

The native Tahitian men, whose language was similar enough, plotted with the new Tabuans

to kill all the Europeans, rightfully a little pissed off that they'd been forcibly abducted

and then had their wives stolen by them.

This led to another battle between the Europeans and the locals.

It was a victory for the Europeans, but a costly one.

One sailor died, and their musket powder was starting to run low.

Once it was out, the natives held the advantage with their numbers.

But still, Christian stuck to his guns, insisting they make the new colony work.

But when he suggested dismantling the ship, the Bounty, to construct a fortification,

I was when he overstepped his authority.

Faced with the very real possibility of being forced to spend the rest of their life on

an island full of women and men who wanted them dead, the crew confronted Christian that

this was not happening, this settlement was no good and it was time to face the facts.

It was decided that it would return to Tahiti.

Originally, most of the crew were set on remaining there, but Christian, with his natural gift

in theatrics, got in a soapbox and wistfully waxed lyrical about his dreams of sailing

off into the sunset and accepting whatever destiny the universe had for him.

His romantic speech won a good deal of support back to him, and four days later, once the

ship had again returned to Tahiti, a good majority of the crew pledged their allegiance

to Christian, come whatever may.

After unceremoniously dumping those who wished to return to Tahiti on the beaches, the HMS

Bounty, with a skeleton crew of Taboons, Tahitians, and Europeans, sailed forth into the great

unknown.

But first, a quick message from one of our friends of the show.

Along the way, we'll talk about the Inca culture, religion, architectural feats, and

military conquests.

You can find the show on all major podcasting platforms and at our website, ahistoryoftheinca.wordpress.com.

And thank you for listening.

From the original crew of 40 men, nine now remained.

Using this meagre number were six Polynesians, 12 women, and one baby.

Making matters worse were the seasonal winds.

The seas were rough, and many of the crew had almost no sailing experience whatsoever.

For the next few weeks, they sporadically hopped from island to island looking for something

suitable.

This portion of the journey has been painstakingly put together from diary fragments and bought

alive by Google Earth from a man named Donald Albert.

I've put the link to his fascinating interactive session on our website.

It's well worth a look.

While the crew gathered fresh water in Fiji, Christian busied himself in Bly's journals

and maps.

Bly had specifically requested that these were given to him when they jettisoned him

on the lifeboat, so perhaps there was something in them that could help them.

Christian came across a small footnote that mentioned an uncharted island that had been

sighted some 100 years ago by a 15-year-old midshipman named Robert Pitcairn.

Though other captains had confirmed the rough location of the island when passing through

the area, none had charted or explored it.

The only murky details of the island mentioned that it was rocky, with a shallow reef, tough

swell, and seemingly no safe place to drop anchor.

Any of these, Christian knew, was a big red flag to any potential Royal Navy captain.

Who would put his ship at risk for the sake of a tiny island?

There was not a single island in the Pacific Ocean that the British Crown would want to

visit less than this one.

It was perfect, but now they had to find it.

Navigational technology had jumped ahead significantly in the last 100 years.

Naval ships in the 18th century relied on what's called a chronometer, a kind of timekeeping

device that determined the position by comparing the time zone where the ship was currently

in against the time zone in Greenwich, London.

This time zone today is referred to as GMT 00 or Greenwich Mean Time.

But when the island was sighted by young Robert Pitkin, the main device used for navigating

was the sextant, which gave an accurate longitude based on the sun and the horizon.

But the device on board for determining latitude, the chronometer, hadn't been invented back

then.

So Pitkin's notes on latitude could have just been a best guess.

Well, it took them two miserable and bitterly cold months, tracking back and forth, but

finally the distinctive shaped island came into view.

For the Polynesians, the coldness and the monotony of ship life would have been something

they'd never experienced, and you can bet they had no objection as to dropping anchor.

After locating the single suitable bay for disembarking, the ragtag crew unloaded and

began to explore their new home.

Though the decision to find the island had been a shot in the dark, the crew could not

have picked a better place to call home.

The island was far away from others in the Pacific Ocean.

In fact, it sat so far west that its closest neighbour was Easter Island off the coast

of Chile.

Not only that, but the island was a virtual fortress, shielded from the outside wall by

rocky coastline and unpredictable swell.

Onshore things were equally rugged.

While the island flattened out further inland, on the outer perimeter were high cliffs pockmarked

with a heap of caves that could be used to take shelter if anyone came looking.

But most promising of all, though it showed signs of habitation in the past, it was now

deserted.

It seemed that finally, their long search was complete.

They had found their home, warm, fertile and safe, their very own Garden of Eden.

As the crew disembarked the HMS Bounty for the last time, they were sure the hard times

were finally behind them.

They could not have been more wrong.

Every man had an axe to grind with another.

Tension simmered below the surface and the worst was yet to come.

While his old crew had found refuge, thousands of kilometres away, a scruffy, thin and dark

Captain Bly stumbled onto the docks of Kupang, an Indonesian colony ran by the Dutch.

Against all odds, he had guided his overcrowded rowboat through the perilous endeavor straits

between northern Australia and Indonesia.

Navigating from memory and skill alone, Bly had reached civilization.

Uniforms torn and ragged, he and his sailors looked more like out-of-work pirates than

sailors of the Royal British Navy.

Whatever you may think of the captain's conduct, the 47-day, 6,701 kilometres or 4,164 mile

journey in an open-top boat is nothing short of stunning and speaks wonders about his ability

not just as a navigator but as a leader.

The first of the outside world to learn about the events that took place was Bly's wife

in a letter written to her, quote,

Know then, my own dear Betsy, that I have lost the Bounty.

On the 28th of April at daylight, in the morning, Christian having the morning watch, he and

several others came into my cabin while I was asleep and seized me, holding naked bayonets

at my breast, tied my hands behind my back and threatened instant destruction if I uttered

a word.

I, however, called loudly for assistance, but the conspiracy was so well laid that the

officers' cabin doors were guarded by sentinels, so Nelson, Peckover, Samuels or the master

could not come to me.

I was now dragged on deck in my shirt and closely guarded.

I demanded of Christian the case of such a violent act and severely degraded him for

his villainy, but he could only answer, not a word, sir, or you are dead.

I dared him to the act and endeavoured to rally someone to a sense of their duty but

to no effect.

He goes on to say, I have now reason to curse the day I ever knew a Christian or a Haywood.

Or, indeed, a Manx man."

Manx meaning a person originating from the Isle of Man, like Christian did.

With vengeance on his mind, just like he said he would, Bly reached England and was dragged

through a court-martial to determine exactly what went wrong.

His extensive, bordering on obsessive, journaling meant that he had every detail ready to go.

The court cleared him and the public hailed him as a hero, a righteous defender of the

British law on the high seas.

Bly had told the judges that he banked on many of the men still being on Tahiti and

as a result, a ship was sent to apprehend the mutineers.

A few months later, it arrived.

Upon seeing the welcome sight of the Union Jack, three men swam out to greet the boat.

These were three of Bly's loyalists, men who were forced to stay behind with the mutineers

due to lack of space in the rowboat.

They were banking on Bly's testimony clearing them of wrongdoing, but the same could not

be said for many others on the island.

Those who actively supported Christian in the mutiny hid, but were eventually caught.

All English sailors left alive on Tahiti were dragged back to England and the trial was

the talk of the century.

Bly wasn't present, however.

He was leading another expedition and yes, before you ask, he had finally been elevated

to captain, a promotion that, in his mind, was very, very overdue.

In the end, out of the total of ten defenders, three were hung, the remaining seven being

found innocent or acquitted.

And with that, the book was closed.

The public assumption was that Christian and whatever was left of his crew had probably

eked out a living on some rocky barren island before succumbing to the elements.

Eighteen years passed.

The world turned and the story of the HMS Bounty faded from public mind.

The Battle of Trafalgar had checked the power of Spain and now Great Britain ruled the waves

with no equal.

Thousands of miles east, in its recently established Australian colony, an American whaling ship

came across an island.

It was an island that, according to the charts, should not exist.

The only record of anything close by was a little known landmass chartered by someone

called Robert Pitcairn over a hundred years ago.

As the island grew closer, the crew noticed smoke billowing up through the tree line.

The island was inhabited.

Pulling in towards the coastline, the captain was startled by a rowboat of muscular young

men paddling out to greet them, bearing fresh coconuts as gifts.

The crew was further surprised that the men spoke to them in near perfect English.

Judging by their tanned skin, the captain figured they'd stumbled across a Spanish

colony.

But when one of the men called out, did you know my father?

He sailed with Captain Bly.