After the Mutiny on the Bounty: Fletcher Christian

The American seal-hunting ship Topaz visited Pitcairn in 1808 and found only one mutineer, John Adams (who had used the alias Alexander Smith while on Bounty), still alive along with nine Tahitian women. The mutineers who had perished had, however, already had children with their Tahitian wives. Most of these children were still living.

Adams and Maimiti claimed Christian had been murdered during the conflict between the Tahitian men and the mutineers. According to an account by a Pitcairnian woman named Jenny who left the island in 1817, Christian was shot while working by a pond next to the home of his pregnant wife. Along with Christian, four other mutineers and all six of the Tahitian men who had come to the island were killed in the conflict. One of the four surviving mutineers fell off a cliff while intoxicated and was killed. Quintal was later killed by the remaining two mutineers, Adams and Ned Young, after he attacked them. Young became the new leader of Pitcairn.

Christian's consort, Isabella

This intimate portrait seeks to be of a vision only a lover holds in his mind. There is little evidence Fletcher Christian was ever deeply in love with anyone but himself - but then again that is supposedly a pre-requisite for the real thing. The cloth that drapes the girl’s glistening coconut scented body is woven with European colours. A gift from Christian.
 
The islanders kept  a detail log which included the

By John Shillibeer, c. 1814Christianson

true fates of the Englishmen and the Tahitians. Disputes over women, authority and slavery had torn the group apart, with murders having taken place on both sides. Fletcher Christian had been killed by two of the Tahitians on the island's bloodiest day in 1793 on which four of the Englishmen died. Christian was survived by his Tahitian wife Maimiti and three children: Thursday, Charles, and Mary Ann. Thursday, the oldest, was not quite three years old when his father was killed, so Adams (and one other who had died in the interim) were the only Englishmen any of them ever really knew. Maimiti witnessed her husband's death and later recounted it in great detail. This was the true history of Pitcairn Island's colonists according to all of them who were ever asked.

Captain's Diary: A Personal Review of Troubled Waters

The Rev. Jerry Jecewiz

FROM THE PASTOR...

Dear Parishioners,


One of our active parishioners, John DeSilva, is a Marine Captain, who is currently commanding a ship a half-a-world away. John newest book (he's published several) is Troubled Waters: Mv Adventures at Sea. John and his wonderful family arrived in L.I.C. from Sri Lanka a few years ago.

Although I enjoyed skimming the volume and noting how John keeps his Catholic faith in focus, I invited another parishioner (and bibliophile) Brenda Frenette to offer us a report on this work. 




In this memoir, Captain John DeSilva describes daily life aboard a cargo vessel at sea for months at a time, traveling to numerous exotic ports in faraway lands, during its voyage around the Cape of Africa.

The crew of 23 consists of various ethnic backgrounds and languages, and runs the gamut from able-bodied seamen to incompetent and villainous troublemakers who must be dealt with.

As the tropical temperatures soar, fights break out and machines break down. An infestation of rats and roaches forces the men to abandon ship for a few days for fumigation.

Much of the Captain's time is spent dealing with local petty officials who demand bribes be- fore handing over important documents, permits and passes. The foundering shipping company can- not cope and is unresponsive to all these problems. It is clear that all these responsibilities are on the Captain's shoulders. Luckily, he is up to the task.

Meanwhile, the sea can be both beautiful and hazardous; the voyage continues. In one harrowing scene we see Captain DeSilva berthing a 485 foot-long ship in an unmarked and uncharted channel. It is then that we see the Captain's knowledge and precision in navigating his vessel.

Throughout the four-month voyage, Captain DeSilva is sustained by his strong faith in God. He constantly asks for God's guidance whether in mediating among various groups, or in advising young men who want to consider the seafaring life, or in restoring a young prostitute to the bosom of her family.

The journey concludes with Captain DeSilva's return to his loving family. You will be pleased to note that Captain DeSilva and his family have been members of St. Raphael's for several years. We are blessed!


Thank you, Brenda. Captain John looks forward to obtaining his U.S. citizenship in the near future and, hopefully, commanding local vessels in nearby waters. Hope you get to meet this fine man at St. Raphael's. As they say, one never knows who is worshipping with you in the next pew!

- Father Jerry Jecewiz

Pitcairn Island

Photograph by Luis Marden

Bounty was run ashore and burned in the shallow water of this rocky inlet. Christian and his followers destroyed the ship in 1790 to hide from searchers. The grid of logs and timbers (at right) helps oarsmen haul their craft up to the thatched boathouses beyond reach of the smashing surf.

Photograph by Andrew Christian

Fletcher Christian's cave is where the lead mutineer is said to have watched for approaching ships and/or hid from his ruthless fellow settlers when necessary.  

House of Fletcher Christian, Pitcairn Island

The Mutiny on the Bounty: Mutineers in Tahiti

 

Mutineers Landing at Pitcairn Island
Painting by Richard Beechey, c.1825

After the mutiny, Christian and his sailors returned to Tahiti, where sixteen of the twenty-five men decided to remain for good. Christian, along with eight others, their women, and a handful of Tahitian men then scoured the South Pacific for a safe haven, eventually settling on Pitcairn on January 23, 1790.

An isolated volcanic island 1,350 miles southeast of Tahiti, it was named after British midshipman Robert Pitcairn, who first sighted the island on July 2, 1767. Its location had been incorrectly charted by the explorer Carteret, who missed the mark by 200 miles, and was therefore the ideal refuge for the mutineers. Although a British ship spent three months searching for them, the mutineers eluded detection. Those who had remained on Tahiti were not so lucky. They were swiftly captured and brought to trial in England, where seven were exonerated and three were hanged.

A Narrative of the Mutiny, on board His Majesty's Ship Bounty by Lt. William Bligh

"The most famous voyage in recent history was that made by Lieutenant William Bligh in HMS Bounty. Everyone knows that the Bounty's crew, led by Fletcher Christian, mutinied and set Bligh and eighteen loyal crewmen adrift in a 23-foot launch shortly after the ship had left Tahiti in April 1789. In their small boat Bligh and his companions made a remarkable journey of more than three and a half thousand miles from Tofoa to Timor in six weeks over largely uncharted waters.

William Bligh, pictured in his 1792 account of the Mutiny voyage, A Voyage to the South Sea

What is not so well known is that in the course of this hazardous journey Bligh took the opportunity to chart and name parts of the unknown north-east coast of New Holland as he passed along it, an extraordinary feat of seamanship. Bligh's account of the mutiny and his journey in the launch was published in London the following year as A Narrative of the Mutiny, on board His Majesty's Ship Bounty.

The Mutiny on the Bounty: Captain Bligh's Chronometer

Why was the captain of the Bounty so desperate to save the ship's chronometer? 

Timepiece that held the key to the most infamous mutiny in British naval history.

Dragged from his cabin, bewildered and wearing only a nightdress, Captain William Bligh of the HMS Bounty was facing a nightmarish scenario.

Half of his ship's crew, emboldened by the rallying cries of traitorous first mate Fletcher Christian, were in mutiny.

About to be cast off by his own men, his thoughts must have been panicked - stranded more than 1,300 west of Tahiti, his prospects of survival appeared bleak.

And yet, in the midst of one of the most notorious incidents in British naval history, Captain Bligh did not plead for his life.

Instead, he demanded the mutineers hand over the ship's chronometer.

Alongside his clerk John Samuel, Bligh pleaded with the mutineers to let him take K2, a timekeeping device that allowed the crew to determine their longitude.

Documents held by the University of Cambridge reveal for the first time how Bligh interrupted the chaotic mutiny in 1789 to try and save the valued timepiece.

In his account of events he wrote: 'Mr Samuel attempted to save the time-keeper but he was hurried away by the mutineers with: "Damn your eyes: you are well off to get what you have".'

Why was Captain Bligh, facing such unprecedented catastrophe, so desperate to leave with the chronometer?

Was it a symbolic gesture, did he simply wish to cling on to something which helped maintain a sense of order?

The answer may in fact have been much less romantic. The chronometer was worth a serious amount of money.

Bligh had made a promise to the Admiralty that he would look after K2 which had cost £200 (around £11,000 in today's money).

He wrote to the Board of Longitude on October 18, 1787, acknowledging receipt of the device 'which I promise to return to (the maker) on their order or demand.'

Admission: Captain Bligh's letter to the Admiralty explaining that the chronometer was 'pirated from my command'

And K2's value was more than just monetary, in 18th Century seafaring it was a key tool of survival.

Fed up with Bligh's floggings and hungry to return to the kind of idyllic life they had enjoyed in Tahiti, Christian and his mutineers lowered the deposed captain and his loyalists into a rowing boat and left them for dead.

They then used K2 to navigate their way to Pitcairn Island which they believed would be the perfect place to hide out.

Simon Schaffer, Professor of History at Cambridge University, told The Times that the watch enabled the crew to work out that Pitcairn was inaccurately marked on the Admiralty's maps.

They then set fire to the Bounty to cover their tracks.


Read more

The Mutiny on the Bounty: Bligh's epic voyage

As the world well knows, in the year 1789, Lt. William Bligh lost his ship Bounty at the hands of one Fletcher Christian and a handful of miscreants on a voyage back to England from Tahiti, where the Bounty had been sent to collect breadfruit and other useful plants of the South Pacific.

The mutiny not only deprived Bligh of his ship, but defused a grand botanical enterprise. Dumped into a lifeboat with 18 members of his crew, and with food sufficient for a week.

After the mutiny, Bligh’s crew had initially headed for the nearby island of Tofua, hoping to secure food. Armed only with four cutlasses, the crew were forced to flee when the Tofuans attacked. The Tofuans started to pull the crew's boat back in by its line when quartermaster John Norton got out of the boat, ran to untie the line so the vessel could leave and was killed in doing so. Abandoning their last hope of food supplies, what remained of the Bounty crew embarked across the Pacific.

Bligh's Attempt to Land after Mutiny on Tofua
Painting by Robert Cleveley, 1790.

Exposed to severe weather, starving and stuffed into a vessel only made to accommodate 15, they drifted for weeks. According to the Pitcairn Islands Study Center, “Death by starvation was a constant threat, the ration, served twice daily, being only one twenty-fifth of a pound of bread and a gill (quarter pint) of water with occasional additions of half an ounce of port and a teaspoonful of rum.”

Arrival of Bligh and Loyalists at Timor after Mutiny
Painting by Charles Benazech.

Bligh navigated through high seas and perilous storms over a period of 41 starving days, drawing on his memory of the few charts he had seen of the mostly uncharted waters. His completion of the 3,618-mile voyage to safety in Timor is still regarded as perhaps the most outstanding feat of seamanship and navigation ever conducted in a small boat.

The HMS Bounty Organization argues that although Bligh has been depicted as cruel, he “may be one of the greatest seamen who ever lived” as he navigated over “3600 nautical miles to safety in 41 days using only a sextant and a pocket watch.” 



 

HMS Bounty

HMS Bounty on her visit to Savannah, May 2012.

Awards and recognitions.

Interior views – Above: The rear parlor.

Painting from the parlor.

Reposted from Gallery Ludwig

Mutiny on the Bounty: The Mutiny

Mutiny on HMS Bounty

From the 'Bounty Chronicles' (by John Hagan), 28 original oil paintings depicting characters and scenes of the HMAV Bounty

The mutiny occurred on 28 April 1789, some 23 days out and 1,300 miles west of Tahiti.

Fletcher Christian had that morning contemplated making a raft and deserting the ship by paddling around 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 mi) to the nearby island of Tofua. Instead he and several of his followers entered Bligh's cabin, which he always left unlocked. They awakened Bligh and pushed him on deck wearing only his nightshirt, where he was guarded by Christian holding a bayonet. When Bligh entreated Christian to be reasonable, Christian would only reply: "I am in hell, I am in hell!" Despite strong words and threats 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 the mutiny, two were passive, and 22 remained loyal to Bligh.

The mutineers ordered Bligh, the ship's master, two midshipmen, the surgeon's mate (Ledward), 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 jure mutineers under the Articles of War.

 Several facts that bear on the mutiny are generally agreed by all authorities:

•     Captain Bligh was a harsh disciplinarian, a man of flaring temper, seemingly mindless of the cut of his words on others. His civility, though, returned as quickly as his temper flared.
•     Once at sea on April 4, 1789, after gathering the breadfruit plants on Tahiti, most of the ship's crew sorely missed the feminine companionship they had enjoyed at the hands of the Tahitian women, and they sought ways they could influence the Bounty's return to the island.
•     Royal Navy rules of the time called for blind obedience of a ship captain's orders. As the Bounty left Tahiti both officers and men began to ignore or disobey their captain's orders.

In all, 18 of the loyal crew were in the launch with Bligh; 4 other loyalists were forced to stay with the 18 mutineers and 2 passive crew. Bligh and his crew headed for Tofua (in a bay that they subsequently called "Murderers' Cove") to augment their meager provisions. The only casualty during this voyage was a crewman, John Norton, who was stoned to death by some natives of Tofua.