Bounty - Legendary sailboats. Fictional and real. The history of the rebellious "Bounty": how it was (20 photos) Bounty history

“Tahiti, Tahiti... And they feed us well here too!” - declares the cat in the cartoon “Return of the Prodigal Parrot”. But the crew of the English ship "Bounty", who went to Tahiti at the end of the 18th century to buy breadfruit seedlings, fell in love with the island so much that the sailors did not want to leave it. Instead, they staged a riot, allowed the captain to sail freely on the ocean, and they themselves captured a couple of Tahitian women and colonized the island of Pitcairn. Ekaterina Astafieva will tell about the famous rebellion, similar to the plot of an adventure novel.

Bread is the head of everything

Late 18th century, American War of Independence. The British Empire is losing vast colonized territories in North America. There remain, of course, a few colonies, for example in Jamaica and St. Vincent, where sugar cane is grown. But the volumes are no longer the same, and incomes are decreasing. The fact is that black slaves from Africa working on plantations needed to be fed with something, and with America’s declaration of independence, the routes for cheap grain supplies were blocked.

The Bounty ship was supposed to deliver seedlings to Jamaica

And paying Americans or importing it from Europe is not a cheap pleasure. The English businessmen became thoughtful and leafed through travel notes James Cook and found a cure for their diseases: breadfruit. The traveler wrote that for the inhabitants of Tahiti, these large fruits with hearty pulp form the basis of the diet for most of the year. We decided: we will plant breadfruit in Jamaica and save on our daily needs.

Tyrant on board

It was decided to equip an expedition for breadfruit seedlings to the mysterious and alluring island of Tahiti. William Bligh was appointed captain of the ship, who accompanied Cook on his last voyage. The young but experienced sailor, according to contemporaries, was strict and sometimes even cruel without reason. It was rumored that he beat his sailors for no apparent reason. But logbooks show that the captain resorted to punishment no more often than was required by the charter. In addition, he took care of his crew: there was a large supply of means on board to save them from seasickness and scurvy. All of Bly's charges were simple sailors: due to the small size of the ship, there were no more officers on it.

Replica of the Bounty ship

All the circles of the ocean

In December 1787, the three-sail ship Bounty left Portsmouth. It is important to note that, due to the fault of the Admiralty, the ship departed with a delay and missed a convenient time for travel. The Bounty headed for Cape Horn, but it was during this season that severe storms raged there.

Captain Bligh and the rest of his crew crossed the ocean in a boat without a compass.

Then the ship had to turn to the Cape of Good Hope, crossing the Atlantic. Then the path lay through Indian Ocean along the dangerous forties latitudes to Tasmania, and, finally, Tahiti. We had to stop here for 5 months: the fruits on the trees had not yet ripened in the quantity required for seedlings. The crew, tired after a long voyage, indulged in all the joys life had to offer them. exotic island Tahiti: they started eating fruit, swimming in the sea and chasing after Tahitian women.

Paul Gauguin "Tahitian Pastorals", 1893

Riot on the ship

When the time came to return to Britain, the team was clearly in a bad mood. The seedlings taken on board required constant attention, and they also had to be regularly watered with fresh water. The sailors grumbled that the plants on the Bounty were better cared for than the people. And the memories of the beautiful islanders stirred my soul. On April 27, 1789, a rebellion broke out on the ship, led by assistant captain Fletcher Christian. William Bligh was disarmed and put into a boat with a small supply of food, a sextant and a pocket watch. Several sailors who remained loyal to the captain were sent along with him. In total there were 7 people on the boat.

Rebels with Tahitians founded a settlement on Pitcairn Island

Bligh and the remnants of his team made an incredible journey: they sailed almost 7,000 kilometers without maps, only from memory, managing to not die during the 47 days of the journey. Bligh arrived at Timor, where he was met by the British, having lost only one sailor to a native attack. “I invited my companions to go ashore,” says Bligh. “Some could barely move their legs. All that was left of us was skin and bones: we were covered with wounds, our clothes turned into rags. In this state of joy and gratitude brought tears to our eyes, and the people of Timor looked at us in silence, with expressions of horror, surprise and pity. So, with the help of Providence, we overcame the hardships and difficulties of such a dangerous journey!” Captain Bly soon nevertheless delivered breadfruit seedlings to Jamaica.

Robert Dodd "The mutineers disembark Captain Bligh and part of the crew from the Bounty into a boat"

Head off the shoulders

The rebels went back to Tahiti. Christian appealed to his comrades, trying to persuade them to leave the island: a British ship could arrive at any moment, and for overthrowing the captain they would certainly be sent to the gallows. Some sailors chose to stay in Tahiti, which they probably regretted later: everything happened as Christian predicted. In 1791, the British ship Pandora arrived on the island. The rebels were captured and sent to England, but on the way most of them died in a shipwreck. The three survivors were sentenced to death.

Heaven on earth

But a small group of nine rebels managed to leave the island in advance, taking with them 12 Tahitians and 6 Tahitians as slaves. They sailed to Pitcairn Island, burned the ship, and, as at first it seemed, found their paradise on earth. All the problems started because of women. When one of the sailors' Tahitian wife died, the British came up with nothing better than to take the woman away from the native. He killed his beloved's new friend, the sailors avenged their comrade. The Tahitians killed five whites, but the women went to avenge their English husbands and killed all the natives. As a result, not a single Tahitian remained on the island, only four sailors, several women and children.

Still from the film "Mutiny on the Bounty", 1935

Here, perhaps, we could calm down. But two sailors learned how to distill moonshine, began drinking and rowdying, so that one fell drunkenly into the sea, and the enraged second was hacked to death by his comrades with an axe. The remaining Smith and Young began to live in peace and harmony. Young, who suffered from asthma, taught Smith to read before his death, and people on the island regularly held Bible readings and worship services.

On Pitcairn Island they speak a mixture of 18th-century English and Tahitian

In 1808, the island was discovered by a British ship. Smith was still alive and considered the sole ruler of Pitcairn. The atmosphere on the island was extremely friendly. Smith died in 1829, and in 1831 the English government attempted to resettle all of his offspring in Tahiti. But far from home, 12 people died, so 65 islanders returned to Pitcairn. Later, some of them moved to Norfolk Island.

Now the descendants of those same rebels from the Bounty ship still live on Pitcairn Island. About 50 people speak a strange language, a mixture in English XVIII century and Tahitian. The island is considered a British overseas territory, has a democratic system of government and lives mainly through tourism and the sale of postage stamps.

Far, far away, at the very edge of the world, in the center of the vast Pacific Ocean lies the tiny island of Pitcairn. Here, in the middle of nowhere, live 69 people (2013). This small unique people are the descendants of the rebels from the legendary sailing ship "Bounty".

In the last entry I mentioned this tragic-romantic story, now I want to tell it in its entirety.

It all started with breadfruit. The birthplace of this plant is considered New Guinea, from where the Polynesians brought it to the islands of Oceania. The breadfruit reaches 20-26m in height, the diameter of the fruit is up to 30cm, and the weight is 3-4kg. Ripe fruits have cream or yellow flesh and a sweetish taste. This is one of the most productive fruit plants in the world: one tree bears from 100 to 300 fruits per year. The pulp of ripened fruits is baked, boiled, dried, eaten raw, and even made into dough for flatbreads. The fried fruit tastes more like potatoes than bread. Fresh pulp spoils quickly, but there is a way to store breadfruit for a long time: they are peeled, cut, then tightly wrapped in banana leaves and buried in the ground. The fruits ferment, turning into a dough-like mass (masi), but do not rot, remaining edible for several years. This mass is fried in coconut oil, and the resulting product tastes just like bread.

Those of you who have been to Thailand or other countries South-East Asia, you have probably seen or even tried jackfruit - it is also called “Indian breadfruit”, or “bread for the poor”; This close relative breadfruit, but they should not be confused.

After his first trip around the world and a visit to Tahiti, Captain James Cook brought breadfruit to England. Here it aroused great interest among West Indian planters - after the famine in Jamaica, they were looking for cheap sources of food for slaves working in the sugar cane fields. The planters wrote a letter to King George III, and he ordered a ship to be sent to Tahiti to deliver seedlings of this amazing plant to England. Lieutenant William Bligh, who had previously visited Tahiti as the helmsman of one of Cook's ships, was appointed commander. On November 29, 1787, the ship set sail.

Bligh, the head of the expedition, needed to select a crew that was to make a long voyage pacific island. But the captain himself recruited only a few people. The only one he really wanted to take with him was Fletcher Christian, a tall, well-mannered young man from the family of a wealthy landowner in the south of England. At first, Christian served under Bligh during his voyages to the West Indies, then, thanks to the patronage of the captain, he became his first mate.

Bly was the complete opposite of Christian. He was harsh to the team, but did not forgive himself for weaknesses. Extremely suspicious, Bligh did not understand his subordinates and often, perhaps without meaning to, insulted them. From the very beginning of the voyage, the captain found himself alone.

And the expedition turned out to be very difficult. Three months later, the brig approached Cape Horn, the southernmost ledge South America. Bligh wanted to circumnavigate Cape Horn in order to circumnavigation, and for three weeks tried unsuccessfully to break through the stormy sea.

However, incessant storms and storms forced him to eventually turn back to the shores of Africa.

The crew was exhausted, there were few fish, and the sailors were forced to catch albatrosses, whose meat has a pungent, unpleasant odor. However, general hostility surrounded the captain after one of the barrels of food was opened, in which two heads of cheese were missing. Bligh did not hesitate to declare that someone from the team had stolen them, and prohibited the distribution of cheese until the culprit was found. But then the cooper Hillbrant, who was responsible for the safety of the container, reminded Bligh that the ill-fated barrel had already been opened once on the orders of Bligh himself, and the two heads that were now missing were then taken to the captain’s cabin. And since what the cooper said was confirmed by another sailor, the captain was publicly exposed in a lie. However, instead of yielding, Bligh threatened the cooper with severe punishment “for insult and false accusation.” This was not an empty threat: even during the voyage to Cape Horn, by order of the captain, sailor Matthew Quintala was severely beaten with whips for disobedience.

While Bligh was losing the respect of his subordinates, Fletcher Christian, now his senior mate, on the contrary, was winning the sympathy of the entire crew. He knew how to communicate with people. The ship had been at sea for about a year, and the mood on board the Bounty was fraught with explosion. Fortunately, on October 26, 1788, the sailing ship finally dropped anchor in Matavai Bay.

Tahiti and the Tahitians did not disappoint the hopes of the sailors from the Bounty. The romantic legend about the “last paradise”, which began to emerge from the stories of Cook’s sailors, turned out to be true. People from the Bounty knew the world; most of them wandered the seas and oceans for many years. However, the amazing beauty of Tahiti and the warm hearts of Tahitian women exceeded all their expectations.

John Weber's portrait shows the Tahitian princess Poetua. John Weber was Captain Cook's official draftsman and was with him on his third and final trip around the world. I saw this painting, along with a portrait of Cook himself, on a temporary exhibition at Te Papa in Wellington.

The Tahitians received the Bounty sailors as cordially as the crews of all the so far few European ships that visited the island. Within a few hours, almost all the sailors fraternized with the Tahitians. Many Englishmen, according to Polynesian custom, exchanged taio names with their new friends. And the Tahitian girls greeted the sailors even warmer. Bligh, that unbearable man during the voyage, even allowed lovely Tahitian women to spend the night on board the ship. The long days of hardship, hunger, and the dangerous journey across endless expanses of water are over.

Most of the worries now fell to the head of the expedition, who was supposed to ensure the success of Operation Breadfruit, and also, in the interests of the British crown, to establish closer contact with the leaders of Tahiti. During his first visit to the island, he met Pomare, the future All-Tahitian king Pomare I.

At that time, Pomare ruled only in the neighboring land of Pare, and Matavai Bay was not yet part of his domain. Nevertheless, Bligh decided that he was the supreme leader of the island, and sent his ambassadors to him. Pomare and his wife visited the Bounty and accepted numerous gifts from Bly. In response, they invited Bligh to their place, where, at a dinner accompanied by flutes and drums covered with crocodile skin, Captain Bligh informed the host that his sovereign, George III, would like to receive breadfruit seedlings as a gift from his royal colleague. Pomare happily agreed to fulfill this modest request of the guest.

At first, the crew of the Bounty collected seedlings right on the shore of Matavai Bay, owned by Poin, the chief of the neighboring territory. The entire Cape Venus, where Poin's hut stood, was covered with numerous breadfruit trees. A group of four people, commanded by Fletcher Christian, was tasked with collecting the seedlings. None of the sailors could have dreamed of a more wonderful vacation. They wandered around the island, looking for seedlings and tasting all the joys of Polynesian hospitality.

Each of the sailors acquired a “brother” on the island, who, according to Polynesian customs, offered him not only his home, but also his wife. But this was not even necessary: ​​to the camp at Cape Venus - what a surprisingly appropriate name! - every evening girls from all over the area came together to sing and dance. All this resembled some kind of sentimental dreams and at the same time was reality.

Not only Tahitian beauties, but also leaders showed interest in the British. The ambitious Pomare demanded that Bligh prove his affection for him by transferring the brig from Matavai Bay directly to the Pare coast. The captain agreed, and the Bounty's new anchorage was Toaroa Bay, which, however, was in many ways inferior to Matavai.

On board the Bounty there were more than half a ton of nails, four thousand axes, five hundred knives and many saws. The sailors exchanged nails and tools with the men, and more than ten thousand glass beads, three hundred mirrors and other items of ladies' clothing were stored for the women. The sailors also exchanged their personal belongings - clothes, combs, etc., receiving in return coconuts, poultry and pigs.

It is interesting that all the first white people who sailed to Tahiti gave the inhabitants of the island various animals. Thus, Captain Samuel Wells, who visited Tahiti in 1767, gave the islanders a cat, and James Cook in 1778 gave Pomara a bull and three cows. Bligh, who was present when these animals were handed over to Pomare, asked what happened to them. It turned out that they had long disappeared from the royal barn: two cows were stolen by residents neighboring island Moorea, the third were representatives of the Papara tribe, and a wild bull wandered somewhere in the forests of eastern Tahiti. Bligh bought the remaining cow on the island and dealt with an impatient and ferocious bull. As a result, the first calf was finally born in Polynesia.

The required number of seedlings had long been collected, and the Bounty was brought into exemplary condition by the pedantic Bligh even before the brig changed moorings. Therefore, after the move, no one did anything else except love to the accompaniment of melodies and dances.

Staying on this island until the end of his days was what every sailor thought about. Soon three crew members disappeared. Among the fugitives was one of the best sailors, who was precisely tasked with ensuring that no one escaped - Charles Churchill.

With the help of locals, Bligh soon found the fugitives. The captain punished two with forty-eight lashes, the third with twenty-four. Bligh also treated his former deputy Friar rudely, and the midshipmen also suffered. To top it all off, Bligh confiscated the pigs that the sailors had purchased from the Tahitians, causing further discontent among the crew. This wonderful navigator and surprisingly bad psychologist did everything to make as many enemies as possible among his crew members.

Almost all crew members did not want to leave these blessed places. But after six months in Tahiti, the Bounty finally set sail and set sail for the return journey.
Ordinary sailors and most officers had long hated the captain. But now, to everyone's surprise, Bly began to pursue the one whom he himself had appointed as his senior assistant - Fletcher Christian.

Christian's situation became more and more intolerable. The straw that broke his cup of patience was the following story. On Nomuka - last island Tonga archipelago - Bligh purchased from local residents a large number of coconuts, which were piled on the main deck. On the second day after sailing from Nomuka, it seemed to the captain that there were fewer nuts. Bly accused Christian of the theft. The latter admitted that he actually took one single nut. The rest of the crew stated that they did not even touch the coconuts. Bligh stood his ground, continuing to blame all the sailors and immediately announced punishments: he banned the issuance of grog, and the amount of yams, the main food product, was halved.

Everyone was offended, but Fletcher Christian most of all. An officer, who came from a wealthy English family, was accused of theft in front of the team! And all because of one single nut!

Driven to despair, Christian first decided to put together a raft in order to secretly leave the Bounty that same night and stay forever on one of the Polynesian islands. But a conversation he accidentally overheard among the sailors forced him to come up with a better plan - to capture the ship!
Poor, eternally exploited sailors, eking out a miserable existence on the Bounty, supported Christian. Nothing good awaited them at home. The most active among the conspirators were those sailors whom Bligh had once ordered to be punished with whips.

This drama, which was not planned in advance, played out very quickly. First of all, the rebels seized weapons stored in a special chest on the deck. Lifting the lid of the chest, to their surprise, they found Hellet there, one of the midshipmen on watch, who, it turns out, slept there while on duty. Christian pushed him away and sent him on some errand, and distributed weapons to his supporters. Then, accompanied by Churchill and another sailor, he entered Bligh's cabin and arrested the captain, who was serenely sleeping. Meanwhile, Matthew Quintal arrested the second mate, Frayer.

Thus the sailing ship ended up in the hands of the rebels. The brig was captured so quickly and so silently that some crew members slept through the event. The rebels won, and now the leader, who the day before had not even thought about revolt, had to decide what to do next. What fate awaits him, the vanquished and the victors?

The sailors who were most angry with Bligh wanted to deal with the hated captain right on the spot, but Christian forbade killing anyone. He only allowed the no longer needed breadfruit seedlings to be thrown into the water.

Bligh and his supporters received a seven-meter lifeboat at their disposal. It turned out, however, that the boat was too small for everyone who wanted to return to good old England, and the rebels themselves did not want to let some of the loyal crew members go, for example, the ship's master Morrison and the ship's carpenters.

As a result, the boat turned out to be severely overloaded, especially after Christian gave the exiles food and water, designed for several days of travel. It should have been quite enough, since the Bounty was close northern islands Tonga archipelago. Far on the horizon were the sullen peaks of the volcanic island of Tofua, and a hundred miles to the south lay the largest of the Tongan islands, Tongatabu.

However, Bligh had no intention of staying on this archipelago. He sought to get to England as soon as possible, get a new ship there and return to Polynesia to deal with the rebels. But to the nearest settlement- the Dutch and Portuguese colonies in Indonesia, where the captain and his supporters could board a ship to go to Europe, were five and a half thousand kilometers away. This journey had to be made on a small boat with nineteen people on board and only a week's supply of food and water!

Driven by a thirst for revenge, Bligh nevertheless completed this unprecedented heroic 42-day journey of 3618 nautical miles. He gave his people thirty grams of crackers and a glass of water per day. The voyage from the Tonga Islands to Timor has gone down in history as one of the greatest and most daring voyages in history. Forty-two days later they reached Timor. Not a single person died at sea off Bligh, although in the end only 12 out of 19 managed to reach their native England.

© wiki; Route of the Bounty expedition under Bligh's command; Bligh's voyage by boat to Timor; The rebels' route through Oceania and the founding of a colony;

Twenty-four mutineers remained on board the Bounty, including those whom the mutineers had forcibly detained. Fletcher Christian was well aware that the English punitive expedition would look for the rebels in Matavai Bay. Therefore, instead of Tahiti, dear to his heart, after much deliberation, he chose for colonization the island of Tubuai, which is now part of French Polynesia, located approximately five hundred kilometers from Tahiti.

The sailors from the Bounty hoped that they would find a new Tahiti on Tubuai. But the local residents received the rebels rather coolly, and the girls from Tubuai, from whom the sailors expected warm expressions of sympathy, were in no hurry to entertain them. In addition, there were no domestic animals on Tubuai, not even pigs, so common in Tahiti.

But in all other respects, this abandoned island corresponded to Christian's plans. Therefore, the rebel captain decided to remain on Tubuai. But for this it was necessary to go to Tahiti again for a short time in order to acquire everything necessary for complete happiness in the new home: pets and, mainly, women.

After a short and pleasant passage, the Bounty again dropped anchor in Matavai Bay. The Tahitians showed their English brothers the usual hospitality. Christian had to somehow explain to Pomara the disappearance of Bly and some other crew members. Christian said that along the way they met Captain Cook (who had been dead for several years) and he allegedly took Bligh and breadfruit seedlings on board.

The Tahitians naturally believed Christian. The idyll continued. The organizers of the rebellion and its unwitting participants rushed into the arms of their Tahitian friends with sincere delight.

Christian, meanwhile, was preparing the colonization of Tubuai. He purchased about five hundred pigs, acquired several goats and cats left over from Wells's visit to the island, and even received the last cow and bull that Cook gave to the islanders.

Finally, the Bounty left Matavai Bay again and headed towards Tubuai. But this island prepared only trouble for the sailors. The fact is that two warring tribes fought for the territory of Tubuai. And Christian, despite the fact that he was invited by the leader of a more powerful group, began to build a fortress - the cornerstone of his policy - on the territory of weaker neighbors.

Tinarau, the offended leader of a powerful tribe, declared real war on the crew of the Bounty. In the end, most of the rebels were forced to return to the ship, abandoning the unfinished fortress. The sailors carried all the tools onto the sailboat and began to look for the domestic animals that the aborigines had stolen from them. The bull, which was very old by that time, could not withstand the stress of recent times and died. Now both sides began to fight for the last remaining cow. As a result, about sixty islanders died. And when the Bounty sailors finally managed to return the cow, they killed and ate the unfortunate animal right there on the battlefield.

Christian's plan to colonize the island completely failed. A few days after the events described above (now for the third time!) the Bounty found itself in Matavai Bay.

The rebels understood that Bligh was a stubborn man, and that if he managed to get to England, he would definitely return to Tahiti and look for the rebels here, in Matavai Bay. But some of the sailors believed that they were innocent of the mutiny and that they had nothing to fear. Christian invited everyone to make a choice, and 16 rebels went ashore. The remaining nine decided to leave the island as soon as possible. They had enough provisions, the only thing missing was women. Then the sailors organized an imaginary “farewell party” on the ship, to which they invited a group of girls. As night fell, they carefully raised anchor and, together with their captives, left Tahiti, this time for good.

There were now eighteen girls and three Polynesians on board. Each man chose a girlfriend. The rest - the ugliest ones - were landed on the island of Moorea, and they themselves continued their journey across the Pacific Ocean.

Fletcher's wife Christian Mauatua. Christian preferred to call her Isabella (possibly in memory of his first lover Isabella Curwen)

They carried them along the waters of Polynesia for a long time, until finally the rebels found themselves near an island that met all the necessary requirements: it was uninhabited, breadfruit, bananas and yams grew on it. All this, apparently, was once brought here by the Polynesians.

Christian soon determined that they had ended up on the islet of Pitcairn, which had once been discovered by the English navigator Carteret. However, when putting the island on the map, Carteret was mistaken by as much as three hundred and fifty kilometers. Because of this cartographic error, the refuge of the Bounty crew was not discovered either by the punitive expedition, which the English Admiralty actually sent to the South Seas in search of the mutineers, or by the crew of any other ship.

Christian had at his disposal the island he had long dreamed of. The rebel leader decided that he would remain here until the end of his days. The rebels who rediscovered Pitcairn built huts in the center of the island, divided the entire territory into nine sections and began to cultivate the land. And so that the memory of Tahiti would not push any of his people to try to return to Matavai Bay, Christian burned the Bounty!

And again, the new residents of the island began to feel the lack of women. Twelve men and twelve women arrived on the Bounty; the British landed the “extra” on the island of Moorea. Then, when three more natives hiding there crawled out of the hold, everyone regretted it. In addition, shortly after moving to Pitcairn Island, two women - the wives of Smith and Williams - died. The British immediately appropriated the wives of the Polynesians.

And now the Tahitians, who at first rejoiced at the voyage on the Bounty as a magnificent adventure, realized that they were in the position of slaves. Naturally, they did not want to accept such a fate. The first two fugitives, hiding in the mountains, were tracked down and killed. The peace that followed was short-lived: now the Polynesians were better prepared and carried out a real massacre. As a result, Williams, Martin and even the quiet gardener Brown were killed. He was friends with the Tahitian Teimua, and he shot Brown with a blank charge, telling him to pretend to be dead. But Brown did not succeed, and another Tahitian, Manaria, finished off the gardener. Twice they tried to finish off the wounded Smith, but the musket misfired twice, and then Smith, with the last of his strength, ran away into the jungle.
Finally, the one who brought them all to the lonely island, Fletcher Christian, was also killed.

After a few days of survivors, the whites and their loyal women struck back. All Polynesian men were destroyed. Now there were four sailors left on the island (midshipman Young and sailors McCoy, Quintal and Smith) with several women and children.
There was a lull for some time. The settlers built their homes, cultivated the land, harvested sweet potatoes and yams, raised pigs and chickens, fished, and had children. But if Young and the cured Smith lived peacefully, then two bosom buddies McCoy and Quintal behaved very aggressively. McCoy was once a worker at a Scottish distillery. He remembered that the inhabitants of Tahiti extracted an alcoholic drink from the roots of the ti plant and built a moonshine still. However, he himself became the first victim of endless drinking, drowning in a drunken stupor at sea.

After McCoy's death, three Englishmen remained on the island. Quintal continued to drink and terrorized everyone else on the island, especially his wife Tevarua. Once, in a fit of rage, he even bit off his ear. After some time, Tevarua could not stand it and committed suicide by throwing herself off a cliff onto the rocks... Having lost his wife, Quintal became completely brutal: he began to demand the wives of Young and Smith, and threatened to kill their children. And the previously peaceful Smith and Young could not stand it: they lured Quintal to Smith’s house, got him drunk and crushed his skull with an ax.

As a result, “good defeated evil,” and life on the island changed greatly. Peace and grace have finally arrived!

Two adult men felt responsible for the fate of the small colony, for the future of women and children. Young taught the illiterate Smith to read, and they even opened a school for their now numerous descendants.

In 1800, Young died of asthma, and the only man on the island, sailor Alec Smith, became the sole ruler of Pitcairn and the husband of all ten women.

This sailor, who came from a simple family and who himself remained illiterate for a long time, changed the abode of the rebels beyond recognition. He raised everyone as best he could - both his own children and others. Smith held regular services, introducing his unusual congregation to chapters of the Bible. He regained his real name - John Adams (Adams, who grew up on the streets of London, had trouble with the law and therefore signed up as a sailor on the Bounty under the fictitious name Alexander Smith), and subsequently called himself Adam.

In 1808, an American whaling ship accidentally found itself off the coast of Pitcairn. Its captain Folger told the whole world about the amazing, charming island of the South Seas. The sailors were amazed by the small people and the atmosphere of goodwill and peace that reigned in the colony (at that time there were 8 women and 25 children living on the island). Everyone was greatly impressed by the patriarch of Pitcairn, John Adams. When the question of his arrest arose, the British authorities forgave the former rebel and left him alone. Adams died in 1829, at the age of 62, surrounded by numerous children and women who passionately loved him. The only village on the island, Adamstown, is named in his honor.

In 1823, John Buffett and John Evans joined the colony and married local girls. In 1828, George Nobbs settled on the island and became a pastor. Women began to give birth very early, both within and outside of marriage, and the island's population grew rapidly.

In 1831, London decided to resettle the Pitcairns to Tahiti, as a result of which, within two months, 12 people died and 65 islanders returned.

In 1832, Puritan Joshua Hill arrived on the island. He pretended to be a representative of the British authorities and actually established a dictatorship, and also banned the sale of alcoholic beverages. In 1838, the deception was revealed and Hill was expelled from the island, and Nobbs became the new leader.

In 1838, the island was officially declared a British colony. It introduced democratic governance through elections to the magistrate. All men and women who were born on the island or who spent more than 5 years on it could vote. Thus, Pitcairn became the first territory within the British Empire to introduce women's suffrage.

In 1856, the entire population of the island with an area of ​​4.6 km², which at that time was suffering from overpopulation due to the high birth rate, moved to desert island Norfolk, but after some time some of the residents returned. Currently, there are many more descendants of Bounty sailors living on Norfolk (about 1000 people) than on Pitcairn. With the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, ships regularly visited the island as Pitcairn found itself on a direct route from the canal to New Zealand.

In 1886, Adventist missionary John Thaw arrived on the island, and in 1890 the entire population of Pitcairn converted from Anglicanism to Adventism. Saturday became a day off, and all the pigs on the island (recognized as unclean animals) were killed. Today Adventism is the only religion on the island, with only 20% of Pitcairn's population regularly attending worship services.

The population peaked at 233 in 1937, after which the population declined due to emigration to New Zealand.

Today, direct descendants of the rebels still live on Pitcairn, with four surnames - Christian, Warren, Young, Brown. They speak a strange dialect here, a mixture of Old English and several Polynesian dialects. The main source of income is tourism, sale of postage stamps and the domain name.pn.

The currency on the island is the New Zealand dollar, and since 1988, collectible coins have been minted that are not actually used in circulation.

Due to the difference between the traditions that have developed on the island and those accepted in a “civilized” society, a big scandal occurred here in 2004: it turned out that sex with minors was in the order of things on the island. Judges and prosecutors came to the island, and several people were put in prison, which had to be built specially for this purpose. In general, they came with their charter to a foreign monastery, as usual... They spent a lot of money - the construction of the prison alone cost more than 14 million New Zealand dollars.
After 2009, the prison was vacated, and it seemed they were going to convert it into a guest house :)

Everyone has seen an advertisement for chocolate with a name that sounds like a mutinous ship. The advertisement clearly hints at freedom, peace and earthly paradise to those who consume this product. The commercial is clearly aimed at people who don’t know real story about the Bounty ship.

The history of the voyage of the English warship "Bounty" for breadfruit seedlings, the vicissitudes of this dramatic voyage were not lost even among the turbulent events of the 18th century, rich in mutinies, geographical discoveries and other exciting adventures.

The British warship "Bounty" on April 3, 1789 (according to some sources, April 4), under the leadership of Captain Bligh, sailed from the shores of Tahiti towards the Caribbean archipelago with valuable cargo on board. Breadfruit seedlings, the fruits of which were supposed to feed slaves on the sugar cane plantations of English colonists on the islands of the West Indies, however, did not achieve their goal: a mutiny broke out on the ship, as a result of which not only the plants suffered.

As a result of this mutiny and subsequent events, a hitherto unknown island was discovered, novels were written, films were made, and thanks to the efforts of copywriters, the dramatic voyage of the Bounty to the southern seas is now tightly linked in the public consciousness with heavenly pleasure.

On Christmas Eve 1787, the three-masted schooner Bounty set sail from the English harbor of Portsmund. There have been rumors for a long time about where and why this ship is heading, but the course and official goal of the expedition were announced to the sailors already on the open sea. The ship had an exotic destination: not in New World, not to wild Africa, not to fabulous, but already familiar India, not to the shores of New Holland (Australia) and New Zealand - the path lay to the paradise island in South Seas, as the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean was then called.

The mission, indeed, was unique: the schooner of the British Royal Navy did not set off in search of new lands or to fight the natives, and not even for black slaves or untold treasures. The Bounty team had to reach the paradise island of Tahiti, find and deliver to England a miracle plant, with the help of which it was planned to carry out an economic revolution. The goal of the long journey was breadfruit seedlings.

At the end of the 18th century, as a result of the American War of Independence, the British Empire lost its richest North American colonies. The infringement of political ambitions is nothing compared to the economic defeat that English businessmen suffered. Of course, in Jamaica and St. Vincent there was still a good harvest of sugar cane, the sale of which brought decent income to businessmen and the state treasury, but... The fact is that this very cane was grown by black slaves from Africa, who were fed yams and bananas, and grain and bread flour for them were brought from the American continent.

The independence of the United States of America hit the British slave owners hard. Now Americans had to pay completely different money for grain or import it from Europe. Both were expensive and significantly reduced the income from the sale of everything that slaves grew on the plantations. The increased costs of maintaining slaves, to put it mildly, upset English businessmen. It was necessary to somehow save the situation - to look for cheap bread. It was then that they remembered that travelers who had visited Tahiti often described a certain “bread fruit”. These fruits grow on tree branches, have a pleasant sweet taste and are the main food of local residents for eight months of the year. The schooner "Bounty" set off for this manna from heaven.

The famous English traveler Captain Cook wrote that in Polynesia, in Tahiti, bread grows on trees. This was not a metaphor - it was about a plant from the mulberry family that produces nutritious and tasty fruits the size of a coconut. When the most advanced English planters from the West Indian Islands read Cook's travel notes, which included information about breadfruit, they realized that philosopher's Stone, at least on the scale of one plantation, has been found. A brilliant business idea dawned on their bright heads: to transport breadfruit seedlings from Tahiti and feed the slaves with its fruits, thus saving a lot of money on the purchase of real bread. According to estimates, the profit from each plantation should have doubled from this innovation.

The people who mastered the overseas colonies in those days were decisive and fearless, therefore, without fear of the wrath of their superiors, they sent a request to King George III of England to help spread breadfruit in the places of their settlements. The king was inspired by the needs of the colonists and issued an order to the Admiralty: to equip a ship to Tahiti to collect and deliver shoots of the amazing plant to the planters of the West Indies.

The British navy did not have a suitable ship capable of accommodating, in addition to crew and provisions, hundreds of seedlings that required special care along the way. It took too long to build a new ship. The Admiralty bought the three-masted sailing ship Betia from a private shipowner for £1,950, which was rebuilt, equipped with cannons and entered into the Royal Navy under the name Bounty. The relatively small size of the ship (displacement 215 tons, length on the upper deck 27.7 meters and width 7.4 meters), typical of other sailing ships of that time, were compensated by its large carrying capacity and excellent seaworthiness, and its flat bottom was supposed to protect against catastrophic collisions with reefs.

If you imagine for just a moment life on military sailing ships of the 18th century, you won’t be surprised at the frequent riots on them. The captains had unlimited power over the crew, even over the officers - to say nothing of the lower ranks, who could simply be strung up on the yardarm without unnecessary delay for disobedience and intimidation of others. Punishment in the form of flogging was also common. On small ships, as a rule, there was incredible crowding, there was often not enough water, the crew suffered from scurvy, which claimed many lives. Strict discipline, arbitrariness on the part of captains and officers, and inhuman living conditions more than once provoked bloody clashes on ships. In England, there were few people willing to voluntarily serve in the Royal Navy; forced recruitment flourished: special detachments caught merchant marine sailors and delivered them in chains to the Royal ships.

A young but experienced navigator, Lieutenant William Bligh, was appointed commander of the Bounty. By the age of 33, he had already sailed in the South Seas on the ships of the famous Cook, visited Polynesia, and knew the West Indies well, where he was supposed to deliver breadfruit seedlings. Unfortunately, except good experience in navigation, Bligh had a bad temper and instability, and the best way communication with the team was considered gross violence.

William Bligh in 1792

On November 29, 1787, the Bounty, with a crew of 48 people, left England to cross Atlantic Ocean, go around Cape Horn and, emerging into the Pacific Ocean, go to the island of Tahiti. The destination of the return trip was the island of Jamaica - across the Indian Ocean, past the Cape of Good Hope. The voyage was planned for two years.

Due to delays caused by the Admiralty, the ship set off late when severe storms raged off Cape Horn. Unable to cope with the fierce winds, Bligh was forced to turn and go to the Cape of Good Hope, crossing the Atlantic in the stormy southern latitudes. Having passed the southern tip of Africa, the Bounty crossed the Indian Ocean for the first time in the history of navigation in the Roaring Forties and safely reached the island of Tasmania, and then Tahiti.

For five months the crew lived in Tahiti, gradually making friends and romantic relationships with beautiful Tahitian women. Describing this period, historians note that the sailors became as dark-skinned and almost as freedom-loving as the native inhabitants of the island, so when the ship with breadfruit seedlings, carefully dug up and carefully prepared for the long journey, set off for its destination, the crew could not stand it for long the tyranny of the captain, the humiliations that he endlessly invented for the crew (according to some evidence, he even flogged an officer!), a meager ration and a lack of fresh water. Everyone was especially outraged by the fact that the captain was saving on water for people in favor of plants that required watering. (However, keeping the cargo intact is a matter of honor for captains of all times, and people are an easily replenished resource).

On April 28, a mutiny broke out on the Bounty, led by first mate Fletcher Christian, for whom Despot Bligh showed particular hostility. Seized in bed by the mutinous sailors, bound hand and foot before he could offer any resistance, Bligh, wearing only his shirt, was brought onto the deck where a kind of trial took place, presided over by Lieutenant Fletcher Christian.

Although the rest of the ship's officers remained on the captain's side, they showed themselves to be cowardly: they did not even try to resist the rebels. The rebel sailors put Bligh and his 18 supporters in a barge, supplied him with water, food and bladed weapons and left him at sea in sight of the island of Tofua... And the Bounty, after a short wandering around the ocean, returned to Tahiti. Here a split occurred among the rebels. The majority planned to stay on the island and enjoy life, while the minority listened to the words of Christian, who predicted that one day the British fleet would come to the island and the rebels would go to the gallows.

The crew of the longboat, led by Captain Bligh, with a minimum supply of food and without nautical charts made an unprecedented journey of 3,618 nautical miles and after 45 days reached the island of Timor, a Dutch colony in the East Indies, from where it was already possible to return to England without any problems. During the voyage, the captain did not lose a single person; losses occurred only during skirmishes with the natives.

“I invited my companions to go ashore,” says Bligh. - Some could barely move their legs. All that was left of us was skin and bones: we were covered with wounds, our clothes turned into rags. In this state of joy and gratitude brought tears to our eyes, and the people of Timor looked at us in silence, with expressions of horror, surprise and pity. So, with the help of Providence, we overcame the hardships and difficulties of such a dangerous journey!”

Portrait of William Bligh in 1814

The rebels who remained in Tahiti in 1791 were captured by Captain Edwards, commander of the Pandora, which the English government sent in search of the rebels with instructions to deliver them to England. But Pandora hit underwater reef, 4 rebels and 35 sailors were killed. Of the ten rebels brought to England along with the shipwrecked sailors of the Pandora, three were sentenced to death.

Upon returning to England, he continued to serve in the navy, and was soon again sent for the ill-fated breadfruit seedlings. This time he managed to bring them to Jamaica, where these trees quickly took root and began to bear fruit. But the black slaves refused to eat the fruits of this tree. However, this incident no longer had anything to do with Captain Bligh. Upon his return to England, he received a cold reception at the Admiralty. passed in his absence court hearing, where former mutineers brought charges against the captain and won the case (in Bligh's absence). The main evidence of the events on the ship was the diary of James Morrison, who was pardoned, but longed to wash away the shame of the rebel from the name of the family. The diary contradicts the ship's log and was written after the events. These notes became the basis of the novel.

In 1797, William Bligh was one of the captains of the ships whose crews mutinied in the Mutiny at Spithead and Nore. Despite the fulfillment of some of the demands of the sailors at Spithead, other vital issues for the sailors were not resolved. Bligh was once again one of the captains affected by the mutiny - this time at the Burrow. During this time, he learned that his nickname in the navy was that Bounty Bastard.

In November of the same year, as captain of HMS Director, he took part in the Battle of Camperdown. Bligh fought three Dutch ships: Haarlem, Alkmaar and Vrijheid. While the Dutch suffered serious casualties, only 7 sailors on HMS Director were wounded.

William Bligh took part under the command of Admiral Nelson in the Battle of Copenhagen on April 2, 1801. Bligh commanded HMS Glatton, a 56-gun battleship, which was armed exclusively with carronades as an experiment. After the battle, Bligh was personally thanked by Nelson for his contribution to the victory. He navigated his ship safely between the banks, while three other ships ran aground. When Nelson pretended not to notice Admiral Parker's signal 43 (cease battle) and raised signal 16 (continue battle), Bligh was the only captain who could see the conflict between the two signals. He carried out Nelson's orders, and as a result all the ships behind him continued to fire.

Caricature of Bligh's arrest in Sydney in 1808, depicting Bligh as a coward

Bligh was offered the governorship of New South Wales in March 1805, with a salary of £2,000 a year, double that of the former governor, Philip Gidley King.

He arrived in Sydney in August 1806, becoming the fourth Governor of New South Wales. There he survived another mutiny (the Rum Riot) when, on 26 January 1808, the New South Wales Corps under Major George Johnston arrested him. He was sent to Hobart on the ship Porpoise, with no support to regain control of the colony, and remained virtually imprisoned until January 1810.

From Hobart to Sydney, Bligh returned on 17 January 1810 to formally hand over the post to the next governor, and to bring Major George Johnston to Britain for trial. On the ship Porpoise he left Sydney on May 12, 1810 and arrived in England on October 25, 1810. The tribunal dismissed Johnston from the Marine Corps and the British armed forces. Subsequently, Bligh was awarded the rank of Rear Admiral, and 3 years later, in 1814, he received a new promotion and became Vice Admiral.

Bligh died in Bond Street, London, on 6 December 1817 and was buried in the family plot at St Mary's Church, Lambeth. This church is now the Museum of Horticultural History. On his grave there is a depiction of a breadfruit. Memorial plaque installed on Bly's house, one block east of the Museum.

Christian assembled a team of eight like-minded people, lured six Tahitians and eleven Tahitians onto the Bounty and sailed off to look for a new homeland. In January 1790, nine rebels, twelve Tahitians and six Polynesians from Tahiti, Raiatea and Tupuai and a child landed on an uninhabited island lost in the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

It was literally the end of the earth - four thousand miles southeast of the island there was no land, an endless ocean desert. South part The Pacific Ocean is one of the most deserted and remote regions of the planet from civilization; it is no coincidence that it is here that spent space stations are dumped.

Having unloaded the food available on the Bounty and removed all the gear that could be useful, the sailors burned the ship. This is how the Pitcairn colony was founded.

Meanwhile, the colonists were quite happy with life for some time, since there were enough gifts of nature on the island for everyone. The newcomers built huts and cleared areas of land. To the natives whom they carried away, or who themselves voluntarily followed them, the English graciously assigned the duties of slaves. Two years passed without any major quarrels. However, there was one “resource” whose reserves were very limited on Pitcairn - women. It started because of them...

The Polynesian part of the male population demanded equality. First of all, the women were not divided. Each of the nine sailors had his own “wife,” and for every six natives there were only three ladies. The discontent of the disadvantaged grew into a conspiracy.

When the Tahitian wife of one of the rebels died in 1793, the white settlers could think of nothing better than to take the wife away from one of the Tahitians. He was offended and killed his girlfriend’s new husband. The rebels killed the avenger, and the remaining Tahitians rebelled against the rebels themselves. Christian and four of his men were killed by the Tahitians. It would seem that’s it, but the killings did not end there. The Tahitian wives of the sailors went to avenge their murdered husbands and killed the rebel Tahitians. All Polynesian men were destroyed. Now there were four sailors left on the island (midshipman Young and sailors McCoy, Quintal and Smith) with several women and children.

There was a lull for some time. The settlers built their homes, cultivated the land, harvested sweet potatoes and yams, raised pigs and chickens, fished, and had children. But if Young and Smith lived peacefully, then two bosom buddies McCoy and Quintal behaved aggressively. They learned to distill moonshine and regularly engaged in drunken brawls. In the end, McCoy died in an alcoholic stupor by jumping into the sea. And Quintal, having lost his wife (she crashed while collecting bird eggs on a rock), became completely brutal: he began to demand the wives of Young and Smith, and threatened to kill their children. It all ended with Smith and Young conspiring to kill Quintal with an ax.

Since then, peace has reigned on Pitcairn. Two adult men felt responsible for the fate of the small colony, for the future of women and children. Young taught the illiterate Smith to read. Regular Bible readings and worship services began on the island. In 1800, Young died of asthma. By the beginning of the 19th century, sailor Alexander Smith (his adopted name was John Adams) became the sole ruler of Pitcairn.

This man, who reflected a lot on his former disorderly life, completely reborn as a result of repentance, had to fulfill the duties of father, clergyman, mayor and king. With his justice and firmness, he managed to gain unlimited influence in this strange community.

An extraordinary moral teacher, who in the days of his youth violated all laws, for whom nothing was sacred before, now preached mercy, love, harmony, and a small colony under the meek, but at the same time firm control of this man, who at the end of his life became a righteous man .

Such was the moral state of the Pitcairn colony at the time that William Beechey's ship appeared off the coast of the island to replenish his cargo of seal skins.

In 1808, Pitcairn Island was discovered by the fishing vessel Topaz. They noticed that the island was inhabited by inhabitants of an unusual race. As it turned out later, these were the children of Alexander Smith, one of the rebels on the “romantic” ship. Smith himself, it turned out, was a priest on the island and taught literacy.

The captain considered the island uninhabited; but, to his greatest amazement, a pirogue with three half-breed youths who spoke English quite well came up to the side of the ship. The surprised captain began to question them and learned that their father served under the command of Lieutenant Bligh. The odyssey of this officer of the English fleet was known to the whole world at that time and served as the subject of evening conversations on the forecastles of ships of all countries.

The first visitors were struck by the small people living on a godforsaken island, and the atmosphere of goodwill and peace that reigned in the colony. Everyone was greatly impressed by the patriarch of Pitcairn, John Adams. When the question of his arrest arose, the British authorities forgave the former rebel and left him alone. Adams died in 1829, at the age of 62, surrounded by numerous children and women who passionately loved him. The only village on the island, Adamstown, is named in his honor.

Pitcairn became part of the British Empire, an English colony in the South Seas. In 1831, London decided to resettle the islanders to Tahiti. It ended tragically: despite the warm welcome, the Pitcairns were unable to live away from their homeland, and within two months 12 people died (including Thursday October Christian, Fletcher Christian's firstborn). 65 islanders returned home.

In 1856, a second resettlement of residents was undertaken - this time to the uninhabited island of Norfolk, a former English penal colony. But again, many of the Pitcairns wanted to return to their homeland. So the heirs of the Bounty were divided into two settlements: Norfolk and Pitcairn.

Today, direct descendants of the rebels still live on Pitcairn. The colony is a unique political, economic and socio-cultural entity in the Pacific Ocean. The island has its own coat of arms, flag and anthem, but Pitcairn does not independent state, but an “overseas territory of the United Kingdom”, the last remnant of the once great British Empire. The islanders speak a strange dialect - a mixture of Old English and several Polynesian dialects. There is no television, sewerage, running water, ATMs or hotels, but there is a satellite phone, radio and Internet. The main source of income for local residents is the export of postage stamps and the sale of the domain name.pn.

Pitcairn is administratively subordinate to the British government in Auckland, located approximately 5,300 km from the island. In 1936, up to 200 people lived on Pitcairn, but every year the number of residents decreases, as people leave for work or study in New Zealand and never return. Currently, 47 people live on the island.

Among the few relics of Pitcairn, the main one is considered to be the “Bounty Bible” of Fletcher Christian himself, carefully preserved in a glass box in the church. She was stolen (or lost - the details of her disappearance are still unknown) in 1839, but returned to the island in 1949. The Bounty anchor discovered by the expedition of the National Geographical Society, flaunts on a pedestal near the walls of the courthouse, and a little further down the road there are guns from the Bounty, raised from the bottom of the sea. Among the island's attractions, you will definitely be shown the anchor from the ship "Acadia", which was wrecked on Ducie Island, and on the other side of Bounty Bay - the grave of John Adam, the only surviving grave of the rebels.

The island became a British colony in 1838. Currently, the British High Commissioner to New Zealand is also the Governor of Pitcairn. The island has a local government body - the Island Council, which consists of a justice of the peace, 5 members elected annually, 3 members appointed for one year by the governor, and the island secretary.

The story of the rebels continues to this day. In the fall of 2004, an unprecedented scandal surrounding Pitcairn Island spilled onto the front pages of many Western newspapers: a trial of several island men accused of numerous rapes and sexual assaults of young girls was held in Adamstown.

Remembering "Bounty"

The dramatic story of the Bounty voyage was subsequently replicated by writers, artists, and filmmakers; in the 20th century, it became especially popular thanks to films (four of them were made, the first in 1916, the last, with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, in 1984 , various travel essays and Merle’s novel “The Island.” And when the Mars company named its chocolate bar with coconut after “Bounty,” it became clear that the rebel ship’s worldwide fame was apparently not in vain.

The first significant writer to become interested in the history of the Bounty was Jules Verne - his story “The Mutiny of the Bounty” was published in 1879. The writer collected material about the mutiny on an English ship while working on his “History of Great Voyages and Great Travelers.”

The most detailed study of swimming mutiny ship made by Bengt Danielsson, a participant in Thor Heyerdahl’s famous expedition on the Kon-Tiki raft, in the book “On the Bounty to the South Seas.”

Different authors portrayed the main driver of the plot, Captain William Bligh, in different ways (Jules Vernoux, for example, saw him as a noble victim of circumstances); they depicted the episodes of the happy stay in Tahiti and the details of the rebellion in different ways. But the grateful public has always perceived this distant history with constant and undying interest, intelligently exploited by the entertainment industry, until now amazing not only by the cruelty of morals and the exotic component, but also by man’s desire for freedom.

By the way, you can still find drawings of the lost ship and instructions describing the assembly of models in specialized publications. People play this game with passion: build your own “Bounty”.

Here you can watch a trip around Tema Lebedev Island.

In the fall of 2012, there was a storm off the coast of America. Tropical Storm Sandy, which formed in the western Caribbean, began to gain strength after passing Jamaica. It was reclassified as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale late Wednesday. After Cuba, the hurricane passed over Haiti and headed towards Bahamas. In the future, weather forecasters predict its path along east coast USA.

The legendary sailboat Bounty, which was used in the filming of the popular Pirates of the Caribbean series, sank in the path of Hurricane Sandy in North Carolina.

The ship, which was carrying 16 people, stopped communicating on Sunday night. The Coast Guard began searching for the sailboat Monday morning. When rescuers searching the area from the air discovered the sailboat, the crew had already abandoned the sinking ship and climbed into a life raft. Despite the difficult weather caused by Hurricane Sandy - winds reaching 65 kilometers per hour and waves more than three meters high - rescuers were able to lift the sailors aboard the helicopter.

However, it later became clear that not everyone managed to escape. As the owner of the ship, Bob Hansen, said, while boarding the raft, three sailors were washed into the water by a wave. One of them managed to reach the raft, two more, including the captain of the ship, Robin Walbridge, were carried away by the current.

The sailing ship also made tourist cruises in the Caribbean.

The Bounty, launched in Lunenburg, Canada in 1960, is a replica of the historic ship that was burned as a result of the crew's mutiny in 1790. The new vessel became famous after it was used in the filming of the film “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Marlon Brando. Most often, the vessel was used as a training vessel.

The replica HMS Bounty tall ship is shown in this 2011 handout photo supplied by HMS Bounty Organization LLC
Replica of HMS Bounty in Świnoujście, Poland, 2012. (REUTERS/HMS Bounty Organization LLC/Handout)

The story of one riot

"Bounty" (eng. Bounty - generosity)- a small three-masted ship that became famous thanks to only one voyage.

The ship was built for trading purposes in 1784 at a shipyard in English city Kingston upon Halle (Hulle) and bore the name “Bethia”. It was ninety feet long, twenty-four feet wide, and displaced 215 tons. In 1787 it was bought by the Admiralty for £1,950. The ship was rebuilt and renamed "Bounty". In the process of reconstruction the bottom "Bounty" sheathed with copper sheets, the sides above the waterline were painted blue with two yellow stripes, the masts, yards, topmasts and bowsprit became brown. The figurehead depicted an Amazon. The ship was armed with four cannons - it was prepared for a long and responsible voyage.

The voyage was scheduled to begin at the end of November, but it was not until December 23, 1787 that a ship with a crew of 43 people set off from Portsmouth to Tahiti to pick up breadfruit seedlings to later deliver them to Jamaica ( Antilles). It was believed that breadfruit would be eaten by slaves on the sugar cane plantations of the West Indies, which would be much cheaper than feeding them regular grain bread. The author of the project for breeding breadfruit in Jamaica was the famous British biologist Joseph Banks, who took part in James Cook's voyages in the Pacific Ocean. "My ship "Bounty" will be a real floating garden,” said Banks. It was planned to take on board the ship about a thousand breadfruit seedlings in flower pots; the Bounty’s flat bottom and fairly large carrying capacity helped protect the valuable cargo during the voyage from the reefs, of which there were a great many off the coast of the West Indies.

The ship reached the shores of Tahiti almost a year later - October 26, 1788. And after another six months, on April 4, 1789, he set off from Tahiti to the shores of Jamaica. The ship was commanded by Captain William Bligh. According to the testimony of contemporaries, he was often rude to the crew, did not disdain corporal punishment, in addition, poor-quality provisions were purchased on the ship during the voyage, and the crew members experienced a noticeable lack of fresh water, while the transported plants were watered abundantly and often. All this provoked a mutiny on the ship; on April 28, 1789, near the island of Tofua, a riot led by Fletcher Christian took place on board the ship. Captain "Bounty" and the 18 crew members loyal to him were put out to sea on a seven-meter longboat with a small supply of food and water and sent to all four directions.

Captain Bligh and his companions spent almost seven weeks at sea, during which time the small longboat covered 6,700 kilometers (more than three thousand nautical miles). Despite all the hardships and hardships, Bligh and his team were surprisingly lucky: during their entire travels they lost only one person - midshipman John Norton, who was killed by the inhabitants of Tofua Island, where the exiles wanted to replenish their supplies of provisions. After all the wanderings, the longboat landed on the island of Timor, and from there Lieutenant Bligh and his supporters returned to Great Britain. On March 15, 1790, the English Admiralty learned about what had happened on "Bounty" mutiny

And you "Bounty" and the remaining 25 crew members went back to Tahiti, where some of the mutineers remained permanently. But the main conspirators understood that one day the British government would catch up with them, and they would have to answer for their actions in court. Therefore, the most determined and desperate went to the Bounty to look for an island where no one could overtake them.

Fourteen of the sixteen crew members remaining in Tahiti were arrested in 1791 when they were discovered by the British ship Pandora, specially sent to search for the missing man. "Bounty". On the way to England, the Pandora was shipwrecked in the Enterprise Strait, resulting in the death of 35 sailors of the Pandora and four crew members of the Bounty. Arriving in England, the surviving rebels were put on trial, three were sentenced to death by hanging on the yards of the ship Brustvik.

Meanwhile on board "Bounty" nine former crew members (Fletcher Christian, John Adams, William McCoy, Isaac Martin, John Mills, Matthew Quintal, John Williams, Edward Young, William Brown) went to seek their fortune in the ocean, as well as eighteen inhabitants of the island of Tahiti: six men, eleven women and one child. The fugitives also took several types of domestic animals and seeds of various plants on the voyage.

The island they decided to settle on is called Pitcairn. This small island (4.6 square kilometers in area) in the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean was discovered by the English sloop Swallow in 1762 and named after the sailor who first noticed it. On January 23, 1790, rebels from "Bounty" and their Tahitian companions became the first inhabitants of this island, organizing a colony. Everything that could be used in the household was removed from the ship, right down to the planks, after which the ship, which lived a very short life, was burned and scuttled.

But life on the island turned out to be difficult, in addition to the fact that the settlers had to arrange their life from scratch, plow the land, build houses, soon disagreements began between them, which arose mainly because of women, as well as because of the status of slaves of Tahitian men. Quarrels gradually developed into bloody feuds, as a result of which four years after landing on the island, only four English men remained alive, three of whom also subsequently died (one was killed, one died from asthma and one was poisoned by alcohol). And the community, consisting only of women and children who had been born by that time, began to be ruled by a single man, John Adams, who called himself Alexander Smith. Largely thanks to him, the colony survived, overcoming all difficulties. Adams became the children's father, teacher and ruler of the island.

Ten years later, in 1808, the English frigate Topaz arrived at the island to replenish its supply of seal skins and discovered a community there. In 1814, 2 English frigates arrived on the island to investigate the story that happened on the Bounty. Having seen the community and met Alexander Smith, the judges were very impressed and forgave the last of the rebels. Gradually, the population of Pitcairn Island grew and already in 1856, some of the islanders moved to Norfolk Island, and later the descendants of the first settlers of Pitcairn settled throughout all the islands of Oceania. About seventy people now live on Pitcairn Island. The island has its own flag and anthem, but belongs to Great Britain. The islanders receive their main income from the export of postage stamps commemorating the mutiny on "Bounty".

Events that happened on "Bounty", are known all over the world. Memory of the sailors who once rebelled against violence and gave life small island, is still alive today.

Hundreds of books and tens of hundreds of articles are devoted to the history of the ship and its crew. The mutiny on the famous sailing ship was most fully studied by the Swedish scientist Bengt Danielsson, who in the mid-twentieth century wrote the book “On the Bounty in the South Seas.”

In addition to him, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, J. G. Byron, Jack London and many others wrote about the Bounty.

In 1916, the first film was made in Australia, dedicated to the events on "Bounty". In 1935, an American film about a sailboat starring Clark Gibble was released. In 1962, a new film about "Bounty", where the famous Marlon Brando played the main role. And twenty years later, in 1984, another film “Bounty” with Mel Gibson was released in the USA. Replicas of the Bounty ship, built for the 1962 and 1984 films, survive to this day and are located in Massachusetts, USA, and Sydney, Australia, respectively. The American replica of the Bounty, built according to drawings from the archives of the British Admiralty, was until recently one of the oldest replicas sailing ships in the world. Due to the fact that during the filming of the film, it was necessary to install bulky cameras on board the ship, its size differs from the original by about a third. In 2003, the documentary film “Survivors of the Bounty” was shot in France.

All that remains for us from the legendary sailing ship is the Bible and the steering wheel. The Bible is kept in London historical museum, and the helm is in the Fiji Museum.

October 29, 2012, caught in Hurricane Sandy, an American replica of the famous sailing ship sank off the coast of New Carolina (USA). 14 crew members were evacuated, the ship's captain died.

On the night of April 28, 1789, sailors on a British sailing ship near the island of Tahiti rebelled, put the captain and his supporters in a boat and then sailed towards a bright future: they saw it in the form of hot lovers and juicy tropical fruits. The ending of this event was quite interesting, and the history of the revolution itself is beach resort gained enormous popularity in England. Subsequently, the story of the “Bounty” formed the basis of several books, films were made in the 20th century, and a coconut-flavored chocolate bar in a wrapper with views of palm trees and the sea was also clearly released in the wake of the popularity of an incident that was ordinary at that time.

Breadfruit. Photo: Shutterstock.com

Love, dancing and the fatal coconut

It all started not entirely romantic. The Bounty sailed to Tahiti for breadfruit seedlings. Not in the sense that loaves and loaves grow on it: it’s just such a plant with hefty green fruits (now in Asia they call it “jackfruit”). The seedlings were required for a prosaic reason: the Caribbean islands were urgently looking for cheap and satisfying food for the slaves massively imported from Africa. The sailing ship set sail on December 23, 1787. Captain William Bligh chose the most long route, although he stocked up a fair amount of provisions: in order for the sailors and officers to move more (to avoid problems with joints), he forced them... to dance on the deck. “He’s a sick guy,” the team whispered. “We’ve been sailing for so many months, and here he’s throwing balls in the middle of the sea.” Only almost a year later, on October 26, 1788, the Bounty appeared off the coast of Tahiti. Bligh (who had already visited there earlier) knew the essence of the island's corruption, so he gave gifts to the leaders, and they allowed them to set up a camp on land to search for breadfruit seedlings. True, naive William did not take into account that the English, exhausted from their long voyage, would take up more interesting things. As you know, Tahiti is hot, and local ladies walked around with bare breasts, or even completely naked: this sight had an effect comparable to a stroke on the cold inhabitants of Europe. Of course, hot romances immediately broke out, as a result of which Bly's first assistant Fletcher Christian and another 17 “tourists” needed urgent treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. “You should look for breadfruit like you frolic with girls,” Bligh cried, but no one listened to the authorities. The captain acted extremely unaesthetically: he ordered the sailors to be flogged. Then three people stole a boat and fled with their mistresses. Finally, about 1,000 breadfruit seedlings were delivered to the Bounty and Bligh decided to sail back. On April 5, 1789, the sailing ship departed for the open sea. The team was angry and upset. Of course: straight from the arms of the gentle islanders, swim along the waves into the unknown. No one cared about breadfruit anymore. The sailors wanted to stay paradise island and eat pineapples for the rest of your life. On April 27, Bligh accused Christian of allegedly stealing a coconut from his personal supplies, and punished the entire crew for the theft. People went crazy. According to British laws, a riot on a ship was punishable by hanging, and not only the rioters, but also the “spectators” were hanged: those who simply stood nearby and made no attempt to interfere. This did not stop those who wanted to organize a “ship revolution”.

William Bligh in 1792, after the events on the Bounty. Photo: wikipedia.org

War, beauties and strife

During the night, Fletcher Christian and other rebels seized the weapons, tying up the captain. William Bligh and the opponents of the mutiny (18 more people) were put into a tiny boat without maps or a compass, but with a supply of food and water for a week. Surprisingly, Bly, together with his supporters, managed to swim 6,701 kilometers (!) in 47 days, since he knew the road by heart. This coconut lover had a phenomenal memory, otherwise the crowded longboat would not have gotten anywhere. Once on the island of Timor, Bligh informed the British authorities about the mutiny on the Bounty. Interestingly, the captain then returned to London and subsequently went a second time (this is stubbornness) for breadfruit seedlings (in 1791-1793). Bly brought them to the Caribbean, where the plant has since been grown very successfully, providing the islands with food. In 1817, Bligh died, and a breadfruit was depicted on the tombstone at the Cap's grave. But the fate of the rebels from the captured Bounty turned out to be much more amusing. They sailed to the island of Tubuai and tried to establish a colony there, but the local natives did not appreciate such tourism and attacked the invaders. The British did no better, taking daughters and wives from the islanders on the principle “my gun shoots better than your spear, so I’m right.” Up to a hundred residents of Tubuai were killed in the clashes. The rebels soon got tired of the war. They thought of quietly having fun with half-naked beauties and eating bananas and pineapples, and not of fighting. So sixteen people soon sailed off to live on the island of their dreams: Tahiti. The rebel leader Christian refused to follow them, saying something in the style of a Soviet cartoon: “Tahiti-Tahiti, they feed us well here too.” The nine remaining "fighters", eleven Polynesian girls and six Polynesian men (as servants) landed on Pitcairn Island. What happened next is known from the words of only one person. Can he be trusted? Don't know.

Pigs, death and a huge harem

In 1808 (18 years later), the American ship Topaz landed on the shores of Pitcairn and found the last rebel from the Bounty there. John Adams, who lived surrounded by his 8 wives and raised 25 children of various ages. According to Adams' account, the number of colonists was greatly reduced due to the woman question. Two islanders in the colony soon died, and the British quietly appropriated the Polynesians' spouses. In 1793, native servants rebelled and killed five sailors, including the leader of the rebellion, Fletcher Christian: the ex-first mate was hacked to death with an ax while he was working in the field (planting the ill-fated breadfruit tree). The surviving whites fled to live on one part of the island, the Polynesians - on the other. However, it soon became clear: the British treat the ladies much better than the Tahitians. The widows frankly missed the Europeans. A year later, Polynesian women killed all (!) of their native husbands in their sleep and returned to the inhabitants of Foggy Albion. They began to live and live, until the sailor Quintal suddenly discovered that moonshine could be distilled from one plant, and began to drink alcohol like a horse. The guy soon got drunk to the point of delirium tremens, often ran around with a gun and threatened to shoot the colonists. Three Englishmen conspired and killed the alcoholic Quintal. Another sailor - McCoy- he began to joyfully drink the remaining unattended supplies of moonshine, went to swim drunk and naturally drowned. The third rebel - Young- died of asthma. The de facto king of Pitcairn and the husband of all women was the last rebel: John Adams. In short, it ended up looking like something out of a thriller. Agatha Christie“Ten Little Indians”: there were nine Englishmen, but one survived. The Americans told John: the majority of the Bounty rebels returned back, won the case against Captain Bligh in court, were given amnesty, and he could sail with them to London without fear of the gallows. Adams flatly refused, remained to live on the island and died in 1829.

In 1838, tiny Pitcairn was declared a colony of Great Britain, and still remains its only “overseas territory” in Pacific Ocean. In 1886, the entire population converted to Adventism (thanks to a fanatical preacher who sailed from overseas) and there they slaughtered pigs brought from Tahiti, because among Adventists pigs have the status of “unclean animals.” Pitcairn (with a population of 49 people) now has its own currency, the “Pitcairn dollar”, which is minted exclusively for numismatists, and a postage stamp: it is also printed only for philatelists. 80 percent of the island’s income comes from tourism, fortunately people from neighboring countries willingly come here for one day: to buy a souvenir and swim in the sea. In general, here is a direct illustration of what hot island girls and coconut theft can lead to. It's especially a pity fallen victim religion of pigs, but no one took them into account when romanticizing the story of the Bounty.