Article of the day for April 28, 2016
The Article of the day for April 28, 2016 is Mutiny on the Bounty.
On 28 April 1789, a mutiny on HMS Bounty in the south Pacific was led by Fletcher Christian. Bounty had left England in 1787 on a mission to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti. During a five-month layover there, many of the men were in relationships with native Polynesians. Lieutenant William Bligh handed out increasingly harsh punishments and abuse, especially to Christian, and morale plummeted. After three weeks back at sea, Bligh and 18 of his crew were set adrift in the ship's small uncovered launch, and had to row and sail more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to reach safety. In 1791, 14 of the Bounty crew were arrested in Tahiti; four of these died when their ship ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, four were acquitted at a court martial, three were pardoned and three were hanged. On Pitcairn Island, just one surviving mutineer, John Adams, was discovered in 1808; Christian and most of the rest had been killed, by each other and by the mistreated Tahitians they brought with them. Their descendants would continue to inhabit Pitcairn into the 21st century. The view of Bligh as an overbearing monster has in recent years been challenged by historians.
On 28 April 1789, a mutiny on HMS Bounty in the south Pacific was led by Fletcher Christian. Bounty had left England in 1787 on a mission to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti. During a five-month layover there, many of the men were in relationships with native Polynesians. Lieutenant William Bligh handed out increasingly harsh punishments and abuse, especially to Christian, and morale plummeted. After three weeks back at sea, Bligh and 18 of his crew were set adrift in the ship's small uncovered launch, and had to row and sail more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to reach safety. In 1791, 14 of the Bounty crew were arrested in Tahiti; four of these died when their ship ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, four were acquitted at a court martial, three were pardoned and three were hanged. On Pitcairn Island, just one surviving mutineer, John Adams, was discovered in 1808; Christian and most of the rest had been killed, by each other and by the mistreated Tahitians they brought with them. Their descendants would continue to inhabit Pitcairn into the 21st century. The view of Bligh as an overbearing monster has in recent years been challenged by historians.
