April 28th: Mutiny on the Bounty

The infamous Mutiny on the Bounty took place on this date in 1789. Here are 10 facts about it:

1. The Bounty was built in 1784 in Yorkshire and originally went under the name of Bethia. The Royal Navy bought it for £1,950 on 23 May 1787, refurbished it and renamed it Bounty.
2. Bounty's mission was to go to Tahiti and acquire breadfruit plants, which would be taken to the West Indies where it was hoped they would become a cheap and plentiful food for slaves.
3. Bounty weighed 215 tons, was 24 feet 3 inches long and 9 feet 10 inches wide. The figurehead was a woman in a riding habit.
4. The crew complement was listed as 45, although one of these didn't actually exist. It was common practice in those days for a fictitious sailor to be included in the manifest, known as a "widow's man". The fictitious person's salary would be put towards supporting the widows of sailors lost at sea.
5. As well as the crew, there was a botanist on board, David Nelson, and his assistant. Nelson had been a gardener at Kew Gardens before accepting the Bounty job. During the mutiny, he sided with the captain and was cast adrift with him and several others in a small boat, surviving the arduous 3800 mile journey to Timor. Sadly, when he got there, he almost immediately took himself off on a botany expedition to the mountains, and as a result, died of a cold.
6. The crew of the Bounty spent several months on Tahiti before the mutiny happened. They lived ashore and learned to cultivate the plants they were to transport. Many of them "went native" during that time, getting tattoos like the locals and fraternising with the local women. It was during this time that Fletcher Christian married the Tahitan woman, Maimiti.
7. Of the 42 men on board, 22 joined Christian in mutiny, 18 remained loyal to Bligh. Two abstained.
8. The Royal Navy didn't take it lying down. They sent another ship, HMS Pandora, to round up the mutineers and bring them back to justice in England. Fourteen of them were captured and referred to their prison as "Pandora's Box". Pandora was wrecked off the Great Barrier Reef with the loss of 35 lives, including four of the mutineers.
9. Some of the mutineers set off in the Bounty with 18 Tahitians (including 11 women and a baby) and tried to settle on Pitcairn Island. When they got there, they burned the Bounty so the Royal Navy wouldn't find it, and to stop people escaping. The remains of the ship were discovered in 1957 by Luis Marden, who braved very dangerous waters to dive to the wreck and retrieve things like a rudder pin, nails, a ships boat oarlock, fittings and an anchor. Marden wore cuff links made of nails from Bounty. Marden also dived on the wreck of HMS Pandora and left a Bounty nail with Pandora.
10. In 1962, a replica Bounty was built in Nova Scotia for a film. After the film, the replica was owned by a not for profit organisation sailing the world with a volunteer crew and paying passengers. This ship was wrecked during hurricane Sandy. Crew members who died in the disaster were the captain, Robin Walbridge, and Claudene Christian, the great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Fletcher Christian.