After the Bounty

The Mutiny on board the Bounty was the most famous mutiny to occur in history.

It came to pass that in 1787 Captain William Bligh was sent on an expedition from England to Tahiti with a crew of 46 men in total. Bligh was provided an old ship, previously named the ‘Bethia’; but was converted for its new mission which was to accommodate hundreds of breadfruit sapling from Tahiti. The ship was remained ‘The Bounty’ and all of the crew were volunteers.

The expedition was to transplant the breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies, where it was thought that they would be an economical food source for the Negro slaves who worked there.

After living with, and working for Captain Bligh for over nine months, the majority of the crew could no longer take his harsh rules and contemptuous manner. They dreaded the journey back to England with Bligh, and true to his form, Bligh sustained his verbal abuse and outrageous temper from the outset of the return voyage. Thus, in April 1789, one month into the return journey to England there was a mutiny on board the ship ‘Bounty’