Lost in Paradise: The Mutiny of HMS Bounty
The Pacific Ocean, a realm of extraordinary contrasts, serves as the backdrop to the compelling narrative of the HMS Bounty. This episode meticulously explores the multifaceted themes of duty, rebellion, and the quest for freedom through the lens of one of history's most romanticized maritime tales. The discussion delves into the paradoxical nature of the ocean, often perceived as serene yet capable of inciting tumultuous storms. As we journey from the British Isles to the idyllic shores of Tahiti, we consider what drove the British Empire to seek out the breadfruit, a seemingly innocuous plant that would ignite a chain of events leading to mutiny and conflict. The sailors' experiences aboard the Bounty reveal not merely a struggle against the sea but also an internal battle against authority and the allure of a different way of life, leading to the eventual rebellion against Captain Bligh and the quest for a new identity beyond the confines of naval discipline.
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Transcript
The Pacific Ocean is one of the most contrasting environments in the world.
Speaker A:Waters are harsh despite being named for being calm.
Speaker A:Thanks a lot, Magellan.
Speaker A:Storms rage, waves crash, winds whirl, and yet paradise.
Speaker A:Places like Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji and more sprout from this intense section of water and offer a respite for sailors on very long voyages.
Speaker A:Or, well, they did anyway.
Speaker A:Now there are tourist destinations, places you are lucky to see if you have the means to travel, not lucky to see as if your survival depended on finding them.
Speaker A:They offered fruit in abundance, relaxation, feasts in plenty, and also some lovely women who were just not as conservative in their dressing as women in the 18th century England might be.
Speaker A:Is this to blame for the mutiny aboard the HMS Bounty?
Speaker A:Or was it the perfect storm of rage, punishment, freedom, lust and inexperience?
Speaker A:Or maybe a great example of the grass is always greener.
Speaker A:Today we are hoisting the colors, trimming the sails and setting out on the open ocean to trace the triumphs and tribulations of the men aboard the Bounty and the people they encountered on another episode of the Remedial Scholar.
Speaker A:That's ancient history.
Speaker A:I feel I was denied critical need to know.
Speaker A:Information belongs in a museum.
Speaker A:Welcome back to the Remedial Scholar.
Speaker A:I'm Levi, your overly enthusiastic tour guide through the messy, fascinating corners of the Pacific Ocean today.
Speaker A:Quick note before we dive in, this episode's not exactly pg.
Speaker A:It's not gratuitous or explicit in many ways, but you know, we, we are wading into some sensual and complex waters.
Speaker A:So maybe, maybe ear muff little ones.
Speaker A:Another quick note.
Speaker A:There's a new history podcast out there by a buddy of mine, Kevin.
Speaker A:Kevin is not the name of the show.
Speaker A:The show is called the History Goon Kevin, previously of the Dark Windows podcast, which you might notice from the description of previous episodes of this.
Speaker A:So if you enjoy history like some humor, you know, it's.
Speaker A:He's, he's a good conversationalist.
Speaker A:Definitely.
Speaker A:Check it out.
Speaker A:We have some stuff brewing for me and him, some crossover action, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker A:Lastly, the video for this episode or for the episodes going forward is going to include a semi real time drawing done by yours truly.
Speaker A:I did the first one for the Amelia Earhart episode and I think it went well, so I'm going to be doing that.
Speaker A:I'm not drawing while I'm recording because there's no way I could do that, but I'm recording the drawing and then matching the time of the drawing to the time of the episode.
Speaker A:So, um, yeah, I I think it's.
Speaker A:It's nice.
Speaker A:It.
Speaker A:It's cool.
Speaker A:Adds some dimensionality to the podcast itself.
Speaker A:And then also, you don't have to look at my face anymore, so there's some cool stuff going on.
Speaker A:And also it's just super handy for, like, social media videos.
Speaker A:Post, like a clip of me drawing and then like, oh, hey, that's kind of interesting.
Speaker A:You know, little.
Speaker A:Little marketing action.
Speaker A:So win, win, win.
Speaker A:If you see any of those clips, please share them.
Speaker A:Uh, so, yeah, anyway, onto the show this time, once again, returning to the Pacific Ocean, typically the backdrop of tragedy and terror.
Speaker A:I don't think there's been one positive episode strictly about the Pacific Ocean yet.
Speaker A:Um, today's tale, not super different in that regard.
Speaker A:I mean, there's.
Speaker A:There's some interesting good things, but mostly part for the course.
Speaker A:Um, but it is, it's, you know, it's got a lot.
Speaker A:It's steamy, it's mythic and also deeply human.
Speaker A:Story of the HMS Bounty is one of the most romanticized naval episodes in history.
Speaker A:It inspired poems, books, films, countless cultural reinterpretations.
Speaker A:And, you know, for good reason.
Speaker A:This saga touches nearly every facet of the human experience.
Speaker A:Duty, rebellion, freedom, love, colonialism, power and loss.
Speaker A:You know, there's seldom a story that hits on so many different parts of that, but it's, you know, this is definitely one of them.
Speaker A:And, you know, that being said, I could not be more excited.
Speaker A:It's like I said, truly stuff of legend.
Speaker A:There's so many impressive parts, tragic parts.
Speaker A:Also.
Speaker A:The sea, very unforgiving.
Speaker A:The people who make it their living upon are superstitious, and tradition kind of serves to keep them sane during many months on open water.
Speaker A:You know, we've dabbled into the treacherous nature of the ocean and the long journeys that have doomed even the most impressive of sailors and explorers.
Speaker A:Perhaps one that was the most harrowing that we have discussed up to this point is the Magellan expedition.
Speaker A:This story takes place sometimes after that, but pretty intense just the same.
Speaker A:I've been excited to cover this one for a long time.
Speaker A:It's, you know, dramatic, tragic, strange, incredibly compelling.
Speaker A:But, you know, before we meet the Bounty, we need to set the stage both and geographically and historically.
Speaker A:What drove Britain to send a tiny ship halfway around the world?
Speaker A:For what fruit?
Speaker A:What was the life aboard?
Speaker A: Royal Navy vessel in the late: Speaker A:And what did the island of Tahiti represent, not just to the sailors, but to the empire that sent them?
Speaker A:This episode is not just about a Ship, a captain and a mutiny.
Speaker A:It's about paradise and what happens when you try to possess it.
Speaker A:We'll follow the Bounty from England to Tahiti, through the infamous mutiny and unraveling aftermath on a remote volcanic island where paradise soured into bloodshed.
Speaker A:It's a story of ambition, obsession, and what it means to truly belong.
Speaker A:So let's get into it.
Speaker A:To understand how the HMS Bounty came to be, we need to take a moment to talk about Britain.
Speaker A:Yeah, I know them again.
Speaker A:But we have to.
Speaker A:Our story takes place in.
Speaker A:In the decade after the American Revolutionary War.
Speaker A:Britain had just taken two massive hits.
Speaker A:The cost of the Seven Years War, and then the loss of the American colonies.
Speaker A:Empire was wobbling.
Speaker A:Its economy, already strained, was now forced to adapt.
Speaker A:Aggressive territorial expansion was no longer sustainable.
Speaker A:So the focus kind of shifted.
Speaker A:Less about conquest, more about commerce, less about flags, more about exports.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:While they lost the tobacco and cotton profits from North America, the Caribbean often still offered sugar plantations that could help offset some of those losses.
Speaker A:And while free labor helped slaves, you know, it wasn't without cost.
Speaker A:Those poor, poor slave owners, they had to endure the costs.
Speaker A:And slave workers still had, you know, to be clothed and housed and most expensively fed.
Speaker A:Unreal.
Speaker A:But that's where the story will begin.
Speaker A:And before we board the.
Speaker A:Before we board the Bounty.
Speaker A:Whoa.
Speaker A:That's some alliteration if I've ever seen one.
Speaker A:We need to understand what it meant to live and survive in His Majesty's Royal Navy in the 18th century.
Speaker A:This wasn't romantic.
Speaker A:It wasn't, you know, Jack Sparrow.
Speaker A:Giving your life to the sea back then wasn't some noble calling.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:It was a brutal contract.
Speaker A:The sea devoured comfort, erased vanity and demanded loyalty.
Speaker A:Not just to the king and country, but to the wood, rope and wind.
Speaker A:Sailors weren't born, they were made very superstitious because these things kept them afloat in their mind sometimes.
Speaker A:So some of these sailors came from farms fleeing poverty.
Speaker A:Others were criminals, given a chance or choice, I guess, gallows or the gangplank.
Speaker A:And then there were ones who didn't choose at all, pressed into.
Speaker A:Into service by roving bands of naval recruiters called press gangs.
Speaker A:These guys would literally drag you out of a pub onto a ship.
Speaker A:Maybe you're super hammered, blacked out, you don't remember anything.
Speaker A:Then you wake up at sea with a rope in your hand and no way home.
Speaker A:No matter how they ended up aboard, life was the same.
Speaker A:Filthy, loud, relentless and dangerous.
Speaker A:Ships could go months without food or without land.
Speaker A:Seeing land, food, was often maggoty or moldy.
Speaker A:You slept in a hammock strung above a cannon, woke up to the call of the boatswain's pipe.
Speaker A:You might dodge storms, scurvies, cannonball, you know, or your own captain's fury.
Speaker A:But it wasn't total chaos.
Speaker A:It was a machine.
Speaker A:A living freaking machine, powered by hierarchy and a little bit of fear.
Speaker A:From the captain's paneled cabin, the lowest landman's landsman, swabbing blood off the deck.
Speaker A:Every man had a role.
Speaker A:Every rung in the ladder mattered.
Speaker A:At the top, the captain, right?
Speaker A:Usually a man of some education, family standing, often born into the upper classes, probably entered the navy as a child or a teen, climbed the ranks through a mix of training and political connections and sheer survival.
Speaker A:He managed navigation, provisions, crew discipline and morale, all from a tiny office that doubled as his bedroom and war room.
Speaker A:Captains got the best food and drink, maybe even brought along books or musical instruments.
Speaker A:But with that, with that came absolute responsibility, right?
Speaker A:All his creature comforts were basically to balance the scales.
Speaker A:If anything went wrong, the blame stopped with him.
Speaker A:And below him were the lieutenants, junior officers who had passed exams and had experience prior.
Speaker A:They enforced discipline, stood watch, ran drills, kept the ship running when the captain was off duty or sleeping.
Speaker A:They live somewhere between privilege and proximity, close enough to the crew to lead, but far enough to avoid being mistaken for them.
Speaker A:Then came the midshipmen.
Speaker A:These are usually boys in their teen years in officer training, often from respectable families, future captains.
Speaker A:They bunked in cramped quarters, studied navigation, gunnery, endured relentless hazing.
Speaker A:They weren't quite officers, but they weren't enlisted either.
Speaker A:They existed in a weird, liminal space where they got to boss around Landsman but still scrub the deck.
Speaker A:If an officer said so, then the warrant officers, technical experts like sailing master, boatswain, gunner, carpenters.
Speaker A:These guys had real skills.
Speaker A:They were valuable.
Speaker A:They weren't sailors necessarily, but they had these skills that would keep the boat going.
Speaker A:They weren't usually aristocrats, but they were deeply respected for their knowledge.
Speaker A:The sailing master often knew more about actually sailing a ship than the captain did.
Speaker A:Next were the able seamen.
Speaker A:These were the professionals.
Speaker A:They could tie any knot, reef any sail and work a cannon battery in their sleep.
Speaker A:They were the backbone of the ship, the kinds of guys you wanted around when.
Speaker A:Well, when the wind went sour, the whole took a hit.
Speaker A:Below them, the ordinary seamen, a little green, little green behind the gills, not quite fully trained.
Speaker A:These men had muscle and basic skills, but needed a little guidance.
Speaker A:They were working their way up and Then, at the very bottom, the landsmen often pressed into service.
Speaker A:These were guys who had maybe never even seen the ocean before.
Speaker A:Their first few weeks were kind of a nightmare.
Speaker A:Seasickness, confusion, punishment.
Speaker A:Grunt work.
Speaker A:Scrubbed the deck, pump the bilges, all the night soil.
Speaker A:Many died before they ever got the hang of it.
Speaker A:And discipline on these ships was more than strict.
Speaker A:It was absolutely.
Speaker A:The Royal Navy operated under the Articles of War, a document that spelled out exactly what would get you flogged, jailed or hanged.
Speaker A:And then There was Article 19.
Speaker A:Yeah, XIX 19.
Speaker A:I'm pretty sure.
Speaker A:The big one.
Speaker A:Quote, every person in the fleet who.
Speaker A:Shall I do this in a British accent?
Speaker A:Every person in the.
Speaker A:Oh, can't do it.
Speaker A:I don't even know what that was.
Speaker A:I don't want to go too cockney, because it's.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Every person in the fleet.
Speaker A:No, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Every person in the fleet who shall make or endeavor to make any mutinous assembly shall suffer death.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Even murmuring against an officer could be seen as mutiny, disobedience, flogging, theft, flogging.
Speaker A:Sleeping on watch.
Speaker A:Believe it or not, flogging punishment was a performance.
Speaker A:A man might be stripped to the waist, tied to a to the grading, and whipped with the cat o9 tails until the deck ran red and then some of his buddies had to clean it up.
Speaker A:How fun.
Speaker A:It's a team.
Speaker A:Team bonding.
Speaker A:Some say the worst punishment wasn't the lash, it was the logbook.
Speaker A:If you got labeled a troublemaker or idler, that mark could follow you from ship to ship.
Speaker A:It could destroy your career faster than a cannonball.
Speaker A:And yet, amid all this, there was rhythm, routine, Order.
Speaker A:You knew where to be, when to be there, and what would happen if you weren't.
Speaker A:Watches rotated every four hours.
Speaker A:You cleaned, you drilled, you ate salted meat and hard biscuit, hardtack, as we've discussed before, you drank grog, half water, half rum, to stay hydrated and slightly less miserable.
Speaker A:You slept in swinging hammocks, shoulder to shoulder with only inches between you and the cannonballs.
Speaker A:Personal possessions, a small chest, maybe a pipe, maybe a Bible.
Speaker A:That was it.
Speaker A:But this worked, brutal as it was.
Speaker A:It took ships across oceans, through storms and wars and brought most of the crew back alive.
Speaker A:It bred order, endurance, and, for some, pride.
Speaker A:Because if you could survive that, you could survive anything.
Speaker A:So that's life aboard a Royal Navy vessel.
Speaker A:Rigid, brutal and meticulously ordered.
Speaker A:A world run by fear, law and survival.
Speaker A:A ship like the Bounty was less a Workplace and more.
Speaker A:A floating machine, one in which every part, every man, had to function precisely or the whole thing fell apart.
Speaker A:But now imagine stepping off that ship after 10 months of that punishing routine into a completely different world.
Speaker A:Because where the crew of the Bounty was headed wasn't just a distant island.
Speaker A:It was a radically different society, one with its own rules, its own gods, its own rhythm of life.
Speaker A:The Haiti was not a blank canvas awaiting British paint.
Speaker A:It was already deeply painted, layered with tradition, ritual, hierarchy and meaning.
Speaker A:This contrast, the sharp, harsh order of the Royal Navy versus fluid, communal, sensual life of Tahiti, wouldn't just frame the story of the Bounty, it would fracture it completely.
Speaker A:Long before the Bounty ever dropped anchor and Matavai Bay.
Speaker A:Tahiti.
Speaker A:Tahiti had centuries of cultural structure and spiritual power rooted in Polynesian tradition.
Speaker A:Wasn't just some untouched paradise.
Speaker A:It was organized and had some hierarchy, governed by systems of belief and respect that permeated every part of life.
Speaker A:At the core were three powerful concepts.
Speaker A:Manna, or mana.
Speaker A:This was the spiritual force believed to reside in people, places and objects.
Speaker A:Chiefs, warriors, even tools or tattoos could hold manna.
Speaker A:To have mana was to possess authority.
Speaker A:Political, religious, personal, whatever.
Speaker A:It wasn't just respect, it was reverence.
Speaker A:From the.
Speaker A:And then there was tapu, from the same root as the English taboo.
Speaker A:This was a system of sacred restrictions.
Speaker A:It dictated what could or couldn't be touched, who could speak to whom when certain rituals were performed.
Speaker A:Breaking tapu wasn't just rude.
Speaker A:It could mean exile or death.
Speaker A:It held spiritual and social order in place.
Speaker A:And then aria, hari rahi.
Speaker A:Man, this is tough.
Speaker A:Okay, I.
Speaker A:I listened and listened to some pronunciations, and they didn't help.
Speaker A:These were high chiefs, right?
Speaker A:Often believed to be descended from gods, as most chiefs or polytheistic kind of cultures were.
Speaker A:Their power wasn't just administrative, it was cosmic.
Speaker A:They acted as mediators between the divine and the people, carrying immense manna and often ra, residing at the top of the multi layered social structure.
Speaker A:Religion was everywhere.
Speaker A:Tahitians were polytheistic, worshiping deities like Tororo, the creator and Oro, the God of war and fertility.
Speaker A:Massive stone temple complexes called marai were spiritual hearts of the communities.
Speaker A:Here, rituals were performed, offerings made, ancestors honored.
Speaker A:But it wasn't all solemnity, you know, in hierarchy, Tahitian society was also vibrant.
Speaker A:It was expressive and joy.
Speaker A:Commune.
Speaker A:Communal.
Speaker A:Joyfully communal.
Speaker A:One of the most fascinating elements, the ariae, a kind of elite priestly performance group.
Speaker A:They were dancers, storytellers, artists, mystics.
Speaker A:Their rituals often included some sexuality as some sacred symbolism.
Speaker A:They celebrated life through performance, blending spiritual duty with art and human connection.
Speaker A:Tahiti was also abundant.
Speaker A:The land provided easily.
Speaker A:You know, breadfruit, taro, coconut, fish.
Speaker A:Families shared resources.
Speaker A:Children were raised communally.
Speaker A:Hospitality was sacred.
Speaker A:Generosity wasn't just kindness, it was social cohesion.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Is the glue that held them together.
Speaker A:Visitors were welcomed with food.
Speaker A:Gifts, love, affection, sensuality, sexuality were woven into daily life.
Speaker A:Not hidden, not repressed, but even embraced as natural and even sacred.
Speaker A:So when British sailors arrived, young men raised in frigid, puritanical households, many of whom never even spoken to a woman without supervision, this place hit them like a massive wave.
Speaker A:And for some, it would drown them.
Speaker A:So what was it that drove the Bounty to Tahiti in the first place?
Speaker A:Well, I briefly mentioned a food problem that the British had that they had to pay huge sums of money to feed the people that work their plantations for free.
Speaker A:Those poor plantation owners, man.
Speaker A:Sarcasm heavily emphasized.
Speaker A:Enter Joseph Banks.
Speaker A:Not the guy with the sweater store.
Speaker A:Banks was a botanist and adventurer who had previously traveled with Captain James Cook to Tahiti.
Speaker A:They were on a scientific voyage to kind of map out a.
Speaker A:I don't think it was.
Speaker A:Oh, man, now I'm blanking.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:It wasn't an eclipse, but it was maybe for one of the, like, winter solstice or something.
Speaker A:They were trying to track a star.
Speaker A:Anyway, not important.
Speaker A:But on this voyage, he became enamored with a particular plant.
Speaker A:Breadfruit.
Speaker A:It was large, starchy, nutritious, and shockingly low maintenance.
Speaker A:Breadfruit grew abundantly in Tahiti and sustained entire communities with very little effort.
Speaker A:To Banks, this plant wasn't just a curiosity.
Speaker A:It was a potential solution to an imperial economic problem.
Speaker A:If Britain could collect breadfruit from Tahiti and grow it in the Caribbean, they could cheaply feed enslaved labor and reduce costs.
Speaker A:Banks pitched this plan, and the Admiralty eventually agreed.
Speaker A:A ship would be commissioned, a crew assembled in a voyage plan to collect and transport hundreds of live breadfruit plants halfway across the world.
Speaker A:That ship would be the Bounty.
Speaker A:With the mission greenlit, all that was left was to find the right man to lead it.
Speaker A:Joseph Banks didn't just want any captain.
Speaker A:He needed someone experienced, someone who knew the Pacific, who understood navigation and diplomacy and could command authority without losing his mind halfway around the world.
Speaker A:His choice.
Speaker A:William Bligh Bly wasn't yet a full captain, but he had serious credentials.
Speaker A:Ten years earlier, he had served as sailing master on James Cook's third and final voyage, essentially acting as the ship's navigator and second brink.
Speaker A:He knew Tahiti.
Speaker A:He knew the winds, the reefs, the currents.
Speaker A:He'd even learned some of the language.
Speaker A:The locals still remember him when he showed up.
Speaker A:But that same voyage was also marked by violence.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:I had witnessed the unraveling firsthand that moment.
Speaker A:Cook's death, the failure of diplomacy, the clash of cultures left a deep imprint on him.
Speaker A:He saw how quickly paradise could turn.
Speaker A: And by the mid-: Speaker A:He was known for his discipline, precision grasp of naval logistics.
Speaker A:He also had a reputation.
Speaker A:He had a short fuse and obsessive attention to detail.
Speaker A:Banks, that wasn't really a flaw, it was an asset.
Speaker A:This, this mission would demand resolve, not popularity.
Speaker A:He knew because Banks had also been to Tahiti.
Speaker A:He knew how people could be pulled in by the, the lifestyle.
Speaker A:And he needed somebody who wasn't going to let that happen.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:The HMS Bounty.
Speaker A:This was no grand warship.
Speaker A:There were no marines, no second in command with equal authority.
Speaker A:The Bounty was compact, outfitted to house hundreds of live breadfruit plants.
Speaker A:So many in fact that the officer cabin, officers cabins were stripped out to make space for them.
Speaker A:Mission wasn't about comfort, it was about results.
Speaker A:And Bly took command of a crew of just 44 men.
Speaker A:For context, even modest Navy ships typically carried twice that.
Speaker A:Bounty was small, isolated, under, protected.
Speaker A:Every man aboard would be working close quarters with no buffer between officer and crew.
Speaker A:And there is no military muscle to enforce discipline.
Speaker A:That's what the Marines are typically on a Royal Navy vessel you have a crew of basically just soldiers.
Speaker A:Their Marines are naval soldiers, right?
Speaker A:And they enforce the rules the Captain decreed by the King.
Speaker A:You follow his orders, boom.
Speaker A:The soldiers follow the King's orders too, right?
Speaker A:So they kind of can kind of level the playing field a little bit.
Speaker A:When numbers turn against the captain, Bly alone would have to keep the peace.
Speaker A:And that was risky.
Speaker A:At the center of the risk was one of Bly's right hand picked officers, Fletcher Christian.
Speaker A:If William Bly was the Bounty's brain, calculating, calculating, experienced, ambitious, then the men under his command were its blood and bones.
Speaker A:The Bounty's Crew numbered just 44.
Speaker A:As I mentioned, there were no Royal Marines.
Speaker A:As mentioned, no musket bearing enforcers.
Speaker A:The burden of order only on Bly and the officers that he trusted.
Speaker A:FLETCHER Christian was 24, striking, well mannered, educated, came from a very respected family.
Speaker A:On paper he looked every bit of the young naval gentleman, a future officer in the making.
Speaker A:He had seafaring experience but not much command history.
Speaker A:His promotion to acting lieutenant wasn't earned through decades at sea or past exams.
Speaker A:It came because Bly vouched for him personally.
Speaker A:And Fletcher Christian, very much a charismatic man.
Speaker A:Very much, you know, just a, a guy's guy, right?
Speaker A:He, he was a buddy that you always wanted to have around.
Speaker A:The two had sailed together before.
Speaker A:Bly liked Christian.
Speaker A:His demeanor, his discipline, maybe his social pedigree.
Speaker A:He come from a well off family, he called him my friend.
Speaker A:But on a navy ship, you know, especially when this small friendship between a captain and officer can be more curse than blessing to some of the crew, Christian's appointment felt like favoritism.
Speaker A:He wasn't battle tested, he wasn't particularly.
Speaker A:I mean he was charismatic, but not enough to justify that in their minds.
Speaker A:He kind of kept to himself over time.
Speaker A:Some saw him not really as a leader, but kind of a teacher's pet.
Speaker A:One who hadn't earned his desk.
Speaker A:Even Bly in retrospect would admit that Christian lacked the backbone needed for command.
Speaker A:But by then it would be far too late.
Speaker A:As the voyage wore on and Bly's moods turned darker, Christian's position began to change.
Speaker A:Man once seen as a favored, as favored slowly became viewed as targeted.
Speaker A:Bly's criticism turned public.
Speaker A:His tone sharpened.
Speaker A:And sailors one side Christian with suspicion, began to see a reflection of their own humiliation in him.
Speaker A:Now the rest of the roster we have Peter Heywood.
Speaker A:He was a 16 year old midshipman from a noble family.
Speaker A:Idealistic and intelligent, but also super green.
Speaker A:James Morrison, the boatswain's mate, he's older, literate, sharp eyed, eventually careful.
Speaker A:Chronicler of the voyages events.
Speaker A:John Adams.
Speaker A:Not that one, just 19.
Speaker A:Not well educated, but practical and quick.
Speaker A:Not quite a leader, but he was capable.
Speaker A:William Purcell, the ship's carpenter is experienced, very opinionated and definitely not shy about challenging Bly at all.
Speaker A:Beneath them were the able seamen and landsmen, many of them teenagers, young adults pressed into service or drawn in by the promise of pay and adventure.
Speaker A:Most had no illusions.
Speaker A:But Tahiti.
Speaker A:That word carried almost mystical charge.
Speaker A:It wasn't just a port of call, it was the stuff.
Speaker A:Whispered stories, forbidden longing and palm fronted fantasies of, you know, of other sailors who had been there.
Speaker A:Bly for his part, wasn't really dreaming.
Speaker A:He was focused.
Speaker A:He's disciplined, maybe, probably to a fault.
Speaker A:He expected the crew to follow orders with precision, respect the mission and live up to the Standards he'd had to meet himself.
Speaker A:But the difference between expectation and reality would soon stretch every plank of the Bounty.
Speaker A:The men were restless, the voyage long.
Speaker A:And the shadow of Tahiti, sensual, wild and free, loomed larger with every wave.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:Our mission seems simple enough.
Speaker A:On paper, collect hundreds of live breadfruit plants from Tahiti and deliver them to the West Indies.
Speaker A:But paper doesn't account for weather or human behavior.
Speaker A:From the outset, problems brewed.
Speaker A:One of the first was the the surgeon on the ship Thomas Huggin.
Speaker A:On paper he was supposed to oversee crew health and this is a vital role on long voyages.
Speaker A:In practice, he was already ill before they had set sail and often drunk during duties, Huggin would sneak extra rations of wine and rum, sometimes with help from the steward.
Speaker A:Bly, a stickler for hygiene and discipline, viewed him as a liability and with good reason.
Speaker A:Huggin once diagnosed scurvy when it wasn't present, likely to manipulate diet protocols.
Speaker A:The captain's log note.
Speaker A:Look.
Speaker A:The captain's log notes his growing distrust.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:His duties fell to Thomas Ledwood Ledward, a less experienced surgeon's mate.
Speaker A:Bly now had a weaker medical backup and one less man he could trust.
Speaker A:Now originally Bly planned to round Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America.
Speaker A:It was the fastest way to Tahiti, but also kind of the most dangerous.
Speaker A:Known for its furious storms, unpredictable currents, Cape Horn was where ocean legends were either made or broken.
Speaker A:We found that out with Magellan.
Speaker A:He found that out real, real quick.
Speaker A:In this case they were broken.
Speaker A:For over a month, Bounty.
Speaker A:The Bounty battled freezing headwinds, towering waves, blinding sleep.
Speaker A:Bly pushed hard, refusing to give up on the route.
Speaker A:Sailors were ordered to reef and unref sails and brutal conditions.
Speaker A:Hands bled, tempers cracked, hope thinned and the storm just wouldn't break.
Speaker A:And eventually Bly did he turn the ship around, rerouted towards the Cape of Good Hope, which is in Africa, adding months to the and thousands of miles really to the journey.
Speaker A:Morale just tanked.
Speaker A:But you know, something darker had already taken root.
Speaker A:During the failed attempt of Cape Horn, a large white bird, possibly an albatross, landed on the rigging.
Speaker A:To many as a sign, you know, in tissue.
Speaker A:In Tahitian cultures birds were seen as messengers.
Speaker A:But for superstitious tradition bound sailors, they were omens.
Speaker A:And one man, either out of Boredom or bravado shot the bird.
Speaker A:Now Bly brushed it off, but the older sailors did not.
Speaker A:You didn't.
Speaker A:You didn't kill what offers guidance.
Speaker A:You don't mock what comes to you in silence.
Speaker A:The moment echoed in Samuel Coleridge's the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, a poem not yet written, but spiritually in sync with the dread that now clung to the ship.
Speaker A:Is a very bad luck to be killing an albatross.
Speaker A:Nothing went quite right after that either.
Speaker A:The weather soured, but so did the mood.
Speaker A:Sailors began to murmur, not mutiny yet, but discontented.
Speaker A:Floggings began to increase.
Speaker A:Humor faded, Bly's tone, sharper, and the memory of that bird, dead and unnecessary, hung over the ship like a shadow on the water.
Speaker A:By the time the Bounty reached Cape Town, then Tasmania, Bly had fully resumed his authoritarian posture.
Speaker A:He berated officers, especially Christian, whom he had once championed.
Speaker A:Accusations of laziness, of disloyalty began to replace praise.
Speaker A:Christian, meanwhile, grew silent, withdrawn, increasingly distant from the post.
Speaker A:From his post, the ship was still afloat.
Speaker A:But, you know, it began to drift apart on the inside.
Speaker A:And I want to take a moment to depart from the narrative for a second because I think while I've been doing this research, I think it is important to note this is a small ship on a big journey.
Speaker A:This is not the typical type of ship you take on that long of a haul, especially now that your time has been extended because you went from England all the way down and tried to go around South America.
Speaker A:Then you had to dip and go back across the Atlantic towards South Africa.
Speaker A:Now this is a lot of time on a small thing.
Speaker A:You're working in close quarters.
Speaker A:Like, the tension obviously was not good in general.
Speaker A:And I think that part of the reason is that it was a little too crowded because the ship was too small.
Speaker A:It had been retrofitted to be even smaller to support a bunch of plants that they were going to take back.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I think that that is adding to a lot of this is never really explicitly stated.
Speaker A:It's kind of.
Speaker A:In all of the research that I found, everybody kind of just talks about, well, you know, these are sailors and they're used unforgiving conditions.
Speaker A:But I think there's more to it than just that.
Speaker A:So anyway, after 10 grueling months at sea through storms, setbacks, sickness, suspicion, Tahiti appeared on the.
Speaker A:On the horizon like a dream.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:To the exhausted men aboard, it was more than land.
Speaker A:It was Life returning.
Speaker A:Color, warmth, sensation.
Speaker A:They crowded the rails, laughing, crying and pointing as the green jewel of the island rolled into view under the golden lit.
Speaker A:A golden light and calm skies.
Speaker A:Within hours, canoes began surrounding the ship.
Speaker A:The Tahitians came smiling, bearing gifts.
Speaker A:Roasted pork.
Speaker A:Oh man, that probably smelled delicious to these guys.
Speaker A:Fresh fruit, woven cloth, open arms.
Speaker A:Some remembered Bly from his time with Captain Cook.
Speaker A:But you know, this welcome wasn't just friendly, it was, it was physical.
Speaker A:Women boarded the ship laughing, bare breasted, draped in bright pyro cloth and you know, perfumed oils.
Speaker A:They touched the sailors faces, hands, hair.
Speaker A:They offered kisses, fruit.
Speaker A:Sailors stunned.
Speaker A:A couple men just straight up outright just grabbed some of these women's breasts and they didn't care and they were like whoa, what, what is happening?
Speaker A:For men raised under rigid British modesty and many of whom hadn't seen a woman in a year or longer, this was overwhelming.
Speaker A:One sailor later wrote that it felt like Eve herself had come down from the tree and taken his hand.
Speaker A:16 year old Peter Heywood was reportedly stunned into silence, unsure whether to flee or faint.
Speaker A:Obviously he's a 16 year old boy.
Speaker A:Others followed the women ashore, grinning and dazed, stumbling through the surf like pilgrims crossing into heaven.
Speaker A:The Tahitians saw none of this as scandalous sexuality, part of the diplomacy, hospitality of life.
Speaker A:To offer one's body was not a shame, it was trust, joy, openness.
Speaker A:And for the men who had spent nearly a year being berated, bruised and broken, it felt like being human again.
Speaker A:At first, Bly allowed the crew to take rest and take shore leave.
Speaker A:They were totally allowed.
Speaker A:He was fine.
Speaker A:He knew, he knew what to expect because he had been to Tahiti before.
Speaker A:Now Bly happily married and had a wife and a, and a daughter.
Speaker A:He wasn't going to take part in this.
Speaker A:His mission obviously to get the breadfruit.
Speaker A:They had to also secure a way to get the breadfruit.
Speaker A:He basically had to convince the chief, that was the one who received them to offer some gifts to the great King George and King George had some gifts for him and so they traded.
Speaker A:So now they had to assemble the nursery, start getting saplings to grow.
Speaker A:They had, you know, you take your saplings and then you start to grow them.
Speaker A:Then once they get to a certain point then you can put them on the ship and then sail away.
Speaker A:But you couldn't just grab them and go.
Speaker A:And then they couldn't just grab them because well, why are you taking those?
Speaker A:But things seem to be on track.
Speaker A:Time changed pretty much everything though.
Speaker A:Some sailors eventually moved ashore, living in huts with Tahitian partners.
Speaker A:They ate fresh food, swam in lagoons, drifted into rhythm that bore no resemblance to shipboard life.
Speaker A:Tattoos began to appear all over their bodies.
Speaker A:Schedules became optional.
Speaker A:Authority, fragile to begin with, was now in open decline.
Speaker A:Even Fletcher Christian was swept up.
Speaker A:He fell deeply in love with a woman named Mimeti.
Speaker A:Their bond grew fast and fierce.
Speaker A:Something more than just infatuation.
Speaker A:Christian, already emotionally frayed by Bly's cruelty, found in this woman.
Speaker A:Kind of healing, new center of gravity.
Speaker A:Bly noticed, and he didn't like it when three sailors deserted outright.
Speaker A:Bly was livid.
Speaker A:He had them flogged publicly in front of the Tahitians.
Speaker A:And they weren't a fan of this.
Speaker A:They did not like this at all.
Speaker A:The spectacle horrified the locals and deepened this divide.
Speaker A:Bly's trust in his men evaporated.
Speaker A:He tightened control.
Speaker A:He lashed out verbally, relentlessly, especially at Christian.
Speaker A:Where once he'd seen promise, he now saw a threat.
Speaker A:He accused Christian of negligence, of softness, of betrayal.
Speaker A:He didn't just question Christian's leadership, he attacked his character.
Speaker A:Christian, in turn, began to disappear.
Speaker A:Not physically.
Speaker A:He still served.
Speaker A:He just emotionally retreated.
Speaker A:He was gone.
Speaker A:It was most nights he slept ashore, spoke less, laughed less.
Speaker A:He began to retreat from the very command Bly had placed in his hands.
Speaker A:What Bly failed to understand was that Tahiti hadn't just comforted the crew, it had changed them.
Speaker A:For the first time in their lives, many of them had been treated with warmth, affection and dignity.
Speaker A:They were desired, not feared included, not ordered.
Speaker A:The brutality of the Navy now seemed not noble, but insane.
Speaker A:How could they go back?
Speaker A:They had tasted a kind of freedom that no articles of war could legislate out of them.
Speaker A:And somewhere in that sweet, sun drenched blur of paradise, the seeds of mutiny were planted.
Speaker A:The breadfruit mission had succeeded.
Speaker A:Hundreds of samplings had been collected, nurtured and prepped transport in a makeshift nursery built on the Bounty's great cabin.
Speaker A:Officer quarters had been sacrificed to make room.
Speaker A:Water was rationed to keep plants alive.
Speaker A:The ship was ready to sail, but the crew, they were not leaving.
Speaker A:Tahiti wasn't just a port leaving a port right.
Speaker A:It was leaving paradise, leaving warmth, love, freedom for the heart.
Speaker A:Planks of discipline, humiliation and fear.
Speaker A:The emotional contrast was so stark that some sailors looked at the horizon and wept.
Speaker A:Fletcher Christian was among them.
Speaker A:His heart was still sure with Mamidi, with the life that he had begun to imagine for himself.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:The bounty weighed anchor.
Speaker A:As they pulled away, some Tahitian women stood waist deep in the surf calling out their names.
Speaker A:Others clutch children born during the crew stay.
Speaker A:A few of the younger sailors rode their last shore trips with tears on their faces.
Speaker A:Christian stood on deck.
Speaker A:He his eyes locked on the fading shore.
Speaker A:One crewman recalled hearing him whisper, we are going to hell when we leave here.
Speaker A:And in some ways, he was right.
Speaker A:With the sails filled and the breadfruit swaying in their pots, the Bounty was back under naval command.
Speaker A:And Blythe made that very clear.
Speaker A:He resumed control with intensity.
Speaker A:Shore leave was over.
Speaker A:Laughter was over, happiness over.
Speaker A:Orders barked, inspections constant.
Speaker A:Any sense of camaraderie or understanding was gone.
Speaker A:The Bounty once again became a machine and the crew moving parts right.
Speaker A:But these men were no longer the same sailors who had left England.
Speaker A:Their bodies were still present, but their minds torn between duty and longing.
Speaker A:Resentment boiled.
Speaker A:It wasn't just the discipline.
Speaker A:It was the daily insults.
Speaker A:Bly accused men of laziness, cowardice, theft.
Speaker A:He singled out Christian again and again in front of the others.
Speaker A:What had once been mentorship was now scorned, blind.
Speaker A:A Bly seemed incapable of moderating his tone, only escalating it.
Speaker A:And the final crack may have been something almost as may have been something almost ridiculous.
Speaker A:Bly discovered that a few of his coconuts nah, from, well, you know, from his personal stash were missing.
Speaker A:Not many, not vital.
Speaker A:But to him it was an affront, a portrayal of the highest level.
Speaker A:He assembled the crew, railed at them, you know, turned on his officers.
Speaker A:You damned rascals.
Speaker A:You're all thieves alike.
Speaker A:And combined with the men to rob me.
Speaker A:For Fletcher Christian, this was the last straw.
Speaker A:He had already begun to fantasize about deserting, spoke of building a raft, sailing off alone, anything to escape.
Speaker A:His quiet brooding turned into sleepless pacing.
Speaker A:Officers began to whisper.
Speaker A:Some sailors offer offered quiet nods.
Speaker A:Others avoided his his eyes but didn't report him.
Speaker A:Mutiny was not yet a plan, but it was an idea, a possibility, a name no one dared to say out loud, but everyone now carried kind of in their bones.
Speaker A:Bly, in his drive to enforce order, could not see the disintegration.
Speaker A:He thought he was tightening control.
Speaker A:In reality, he was turning the key in his own lock.
Speaker A:And soon someone would open that door.
Speaker A:It happened just before dawn.
Speaker A:Fletcher Christian hadn't slept.
Speaker A:He paced the deck for hours, a man unraveling.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:The thought of returning to England, or even just another month under Bly, was unbearable.
Speaker A:He no longer saw a future under command.
Speaker A:Just a endless present of humiliation.
Speaker A:At first, he planned to leave alone.
Speaker A:He would steal the Bounty's cutter, small boat, basically an escape raft, or what would transport them from the ship to the shore on, like, when they didn't have a bay or anything.
Speaker A:And he was just going to take that and vanish into the Pacific and super.
Speaker A:It's a crazy plan.
Speaker A:We have talked about how crazy the Pacific Ocean is.
Speaker A:It is a suicidal plan.
Speaker A:But that's where he was at.
Speaker A:Emotionally severed, mentally untethered.
Speaker A:Christian, he didn't leave.
Speaker A:Somebody.
Speaker A:Something stopped him.
Speaker A:Maybe it was the sea, maybe it was his.
Speaker A:His lady's memory.
Speaker A:Or maybe it was the realization that he wasn't alone in his misery.
Speaker A:He began to speak quietly and carefully and basically was discussing his plan when some other men kind of were like, well, we're with you if you want to take the ship.
Speaker A:We're.
Speaker A:We're right there.
Speaker A:Basically put the words in his mouth, which is crazy.
Speaker A:But, you know, he.
Speaker A:He was like, oh, I was just gonna take this ship or not take this ship, but take this cutter and make my way back.
Speaker A:The first to join were Matthew Quintel and William McCoy, both known for heavy drinking and short tempers.
Speaker A:Then John Mills, Charles Churchill, Isaac Martin, even midshipman Edward Young, well liked and thoughtful, gave his quiet assent.
Speaker A:They weren't out for glory.
Speaker A:They wanted it, you know, they just wanted it to stop.
Speaker A:Christian moved fast.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:While most of the crew slept, they secured the deck.
Speaker A:There's no shouting, no shots, just footsteps, whispered orders, and creek of iron on wood.
Speaker A:Bly was yanked from his bed and nothing but his night shirt.
Speaker A:He kind of baffled when they first opened the door.
Speaker A:He didn't even know what was really happening until he saw Christian staring at him.
Speaker A:And once he figured out what was going on, he said, are you aware of what you're doing?
Speaker A:And Christian's answer was quiet and a little haunted.
Speaker A:He said, I'm in hell.
Speaker A:I am in hell, because, you know, he's just going through it, I guess.
Speaker A:The decision had been made.
Speaker A:Not everyone had joined.
Speaker A:John Fryer, the sailing master, stood with Bly.
Speaker A:So did William Cole, the boatswain.
Speaker A:Thomas Ledward, the surgeon's mate.
Speaker A:Others hesitated.
Speaker A:Some claim they were coerced.
Speaker A:Some claim they were trying to keep the peace.
Speaker A:But in that moment, no one could stop what was already in motion.
Speaker A:Now they were going.
Speaker A:Christian was just going to give him the the launch, the.
Speaker A:The cutter, basically say, hey, you're on your own.
Speaker A:Take this.
Speaker A:And some other men joined him.
Speaker A:And then a bunch of men tried to go in, and then it was too full and they couldn't go anywhere.
Speaker A:So then other people had to come back.
Speaker A:So now It's Bly and 18 loyalists forced into this launch.
Speaker A:23 foot open boat.
Speaker A:The mutineers tossed in some bread, water, a sexton.
Speaker A:And Bly's pocket watch is barely enough to survive.
Speaker A:And Bly made that clear.
Speaker A:He said, this is your.
Speaker A:You're aiming to kill us.
Speaker A:This is death.
Speaker A:Like you are putting us to death because the Pacific Ocean, it's crazy.
Speaker A:Some of the mutineers, especially Quintal and McCoy, wanted just to kill Bly outright to make sure that the story ended there, but Christian refused.
Speaker A:He would cast Bly off, and he would not murder him in cold blood.
Speaker A:If he died at sea, that's his own problem.
Speaker A:Bly, unbound now, stood tall in the launch.
Speaker A:He looked up at Christian, his former protege, now captor.
Speaker A:They pushed away.
Speaker A:The Bounty shrank behind them.
Speaker A:With the sea widened and William Bly without maps, without weapons, without ship and what would, and began to enter what could be an unnamed fate.
Speaker A:Now on the Bounty, Christian stood silent.
Speaker A:The ship was his, but the guilt would never leave.
Speaker A:With Bly and 18 loyalists cast adrift in the middle of Pacific, the Bounty turned its sails back towards the island that had haunted and captivated so many aboard Tahiti.
Speaker A:For some of the mutineers, the decision was simple.
Speaker A:They wanted to go back to the women who had embraced them, to the food that fed them, to the rhythm of life that had made sense.
Speaker A:For others, especially Christian, it was more complicated.
Speaker A:Returning meant confronting the consequences of what they'd just done.
Speaker A:But for now, it seemed like the only place left to go.
Speaker A:When the Bounty sailed back to Matthew Bay, it was greeted with celebration.
Speaker A:The Tahitians rushed to the shoreline.
Speaker A:Women ran into the surf, calling out the names of the men that they had been with before.
Speaker A:There's tears, embraces, laughter.
Speaker A:The sailors were home, or so it seemed.
Speaker A:But it didn't take long for the questions to begin from the chiefs.
Speaker A:Where's Bly?
Speaker A:Why are you back so soon?
Speaker A:What happened to the breadfruit?
Speaker A:Now, see this diplomacy that they had shared, this reciprocacy of gifts Bly had given them, and then in turn was like, hey, you got some gifts for the king?
Speaker A:Well, Fletcher Christian's here.
Speaker A:Bly is not here.
Speaker A:What does the king know that we gave him fruit?
Speaker A:Well, now what's going to happen?
Speaker A:And Fletcher Christian, he.
Speaker A:He did what he thought he should do.
Speaker A:He lied.
Speaker A:He said, bly.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:Left from another island in another ship and took the breadfruit with him.
Speaker A:But then the chiefs noticed that some of the other gifts were still on the Bounty.
Speaker A:So it was like, what's the deal?
Speaker A:Yeah, and you lie yourself into a little bit of a pickle there.
Speaker A:Now, the chiefs, they listened.
Speaker A:They didn't protest.
Speaker A:But the trust was shaken.
Speaker A:And Christian knew that he could not stay on the island.
Speaker A:Some of the crew were content to remain on Tahiti.
Speaker A:They resumed their relationships, settled into huts, and tried to live as quietly as they could.
Speaker A:Others feared the inevitable, that Bly might survive.
Speaker A:And if he survived, retribution would come.
Speaker A:Paradise would not protect them forever.
Speaker A:Christian was the most unsettled of all.
Speaker A:He had risked everything.
Speaker A:His career, his life, his soul.
Speaker A:And now found himself caught in the very hierarchy that he had tried to escape.
Speaker A:He was a leader, yes, but also fugitive.
Speaker A:And in a society built on sacred exchange, he had become a man of broken promises now.
Speaker A:So he began to plan again.
Speaker A:He wouldn't hide in Tahiti.
Speaker A:He wouldn't wait for justice to catch up with him.
Speaker A:He was going to disappear.
Speaker A:Where on earth can you disappear in the largest ocean, right?
Speaker A:Fletcher's Christian, he had an idea.
Speaker A:He couldn't undo the mutiny.
Speaker A:He couldn't wait to see whether Bly might return from the sea as a ghost or a witness.
Speaker A:So he hatched a plan.
Speaker A:He studied Captain Cook's old maps, obsessively looking for a place remote enough to vanish, fertile enough to survive, and crucially, mischarted enough that the Royal Navy wouldn't find it that easy.
Speaker A:And he found one.
Speaker A:Pitcairn Island, a small volcanic speck in the South Pacific, mistakenly plotted 200 miles west of its actual location.
Speaker A:It was wild, uninhabited, and nearly invisible to anyone.
Speaker A:Using standard charts, perfect.
Speaker A: In September: Speaker A:Quietly gathered a final group of.
Speaker A:A group of people to leave Tahiti with him.
Speaker A:And, you know, they had eight mutineers, including Christian, Edward Young, William McCoy, Matthew Quintal.
Speaker A:And then there was 12 Tahitian women, some willing, others a little coerced.
Speaker A:Six Tahitian men brought aboard as laborers, though not all understood as that they were leaving for good.
Speaker A:They also departed pretty quickly.
Speaker A:They may have departed while some of the Tahitians were sleeping and then found out that they were on the ocean, far away from home.
Speaker A:He didn't tell the chiefs where he was going.
Speaker A:He claimed he was going to continue his voyage still on royal business, delivering the gifts of friendship.
Speaker A:He gave no indication that he was sailing into permanent exile.
Speaker A:The deception had begun after nine months or after months at sea.
Speaker A: January: Speaker A:They spotted it.
Speaker A:Pitcairn Island.
Speaker A:It rose from the ocean like fortress.
Speaker A:Green, steep, wild.
Speaker A:No harbors, no villages, no ships.
Speaker A:It was unclaimed, forgotten exactly what Christian needed.
Speaker A:They came ashore with tools, livestock, seeds, weapons, rum, and every salvageable piece of the Bounty.
Speaker A:And then the ship itself had been burnt.
Speaker A:The Bounty.
Speaker A:Their past, their evidence, their link to the outside world reduced to flames and ash.
Speaker A:Nobody knows exactly who did it, but it was burnt.
Speaker A:There would be no sign of going back or no, there would be no going back.
Speaker A:No sign of going back.
Speaker A:At first, Pitcairn seemed like a second chance.
Speaker A:They built homes, planted gardens, breadfruit, taro yams.
Speaker A:Christian and Mimiti, they started their life together, paired off, others paired off.
Speaker A:There's children being born, songs, nights around the fire you know is peaceful.
Speaker A:But also built on uneven ground.
Speaker A:The Tahitian men not given equal standing.
Speaker A:They were seen as laborers, not partners.
Speaker A:Some of the mutineers claimed multiple wives, leaving others with none.
Speaker A:The power dynamic, pretty colonial in nature.
Speaker A:Christian, he had fled tyranny only to recreate its structures on a smaller, smaller stage.
Speaker A:The hardships of Pitcairn, the deception of Tahiti, the tensions between the cultures, none of it could compare to what William bly and his 18 loyalists endured at sea.
Speaker A:They had no charts, no firearms, no shelter, just a 23 foot open boat, a sextant, pocket watch and some provisions.
Speaker A:And the wavering will of a man who refused to die quietly.
Speaker A:Cast adrift in the world's largest ocean, they faced over 3,600 miles between them and the nearest European outpost in a in Dutch controlled Timor.
Speaker A:It was a death sentence on paper.
Speaker A:But Bly was not done.
Speaker A:From the moment the launch hit the waves, Bly imposed order.
Speaker A:Rations were strict.
Speaker A:One ounce of day, one ounce of day per man.
Speaker A:You only get one ounce per day.
Speaker A:One ounce of bread per man per day.
Speaker A:There we go.
Speaker A:Measured by placing a musket ball in a glass and a quarter pint of water when they could spare it.
Speaker A:Watches were organized, duties assigned.
Speaker A:Even marooned, Bly was still very much in command.
Speaker A:The boat sat low in the water.
Speaker A:Only 8 inches of freeboard between the water and the top of the boat, right?
Speaker A:Every wave threatened to swamp them.
Speaker A:Pacific sun peeled their skin.
Speaker A:By day, freezing rain cut through them.
Speaker A:At night, blisters turned to wounds, teeth loosened, food spoiled.
Speaker A:Sleep was Rare hope was worse still.
Speaker A:They fought to live.
Speaker A:They caught seabirds mid flight, divided them all of these different ways.
Speaker A:Once, flying fish leapt in the boat as if summoned by desperation.
Speaker A:Near.
Speaker A:Near a reef, they pulled up waterlogged roots and made a thin stew.
Speaker A:Yummy.
Speaker A:Not nourishment, just theater to fool the stomach, basically.
Speaker A:When they reached Tofua, Bly hoped for rest, fresh water, food, maybe even safety.
Speaker A:But the island had memories, bad ones.
Speaker A:A year earlier, when the Bounty had briefly visited, Bly had taken local chiefs hostage after a misunderstanding over stolen coconuts.
Speaker A:If you could believe it, the chiefs were returned unharmed, but the insult had lingered.
Speaker A:Now some of those same islanders stood before him.
Speaker A:At first, things seemed calm, friendly even.
Speaker A:But soon drums began to sound.
Speaker A:Not music, but kind of like a signal.
Speaker A:And Bly felt that it was probably a cue to attack.
Speaker A:So he ordered a retreat to the launch, which was still tethered by a rope.
Speaker A:Now quartermaster John Norton had stepped out.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:He chose to cut the line.
Speaker A:As every man was on the boat, they couldn't get off because this line was tied to the shore.
Speaker A:And now the islanders were pulling the boat back by the line.
Speaker A:So this guy came out and went to go cut it, and he never made it back.
Speaker A:A stone hit him, then a club.
Speaker A:Then he was beaten to death on the beach.
Speaker A:As the boat shoved off under a hail of rocks, Bly watched from the surf, last to board, unable to save him.
Speaker A:Quote, a brave man, a brave and useful man was taken from me in the most cruel manner.
Speaker A:They would touch no other land until Timor.
Speaker A:From that moment forward, Bly had changed.
Speaker A:He no longer tried to share the burden he bore it.
Speaker A:He was the last to sleep, first to rise, and the one who took the worst of each day's toil.
Speaker A:His command, once harsh and precise, became something different.
Speaker A:Survival, discipline.
Speaker A:The men followed him, not out of fear, but out of faith that he might actually get them out.
Speaker A:And incredibly, he did.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:Starved, sunburnt, and basically walking skeletons.
Speaker A:But they were alive.
Speaker A:Bly, when he arrived, didn't collapse.
Speaker A:He didn't celebrate even.
Speaker A:He asked for some writing utility.
Speaker A:Utensils, writing materials and utensils.
Speaker A:Try to blend that word together.
Speaker A:He write.
Speaker A:He asked for writing materials because there was a report to file.
Speaker A:He he's going to do some.
Speaker A:He's going to do some reporting.
Speaker A:After recovering enough strength to walk and speak without collapsing, he boarded a.
Speaker A: ly landed In England in March: Speaker A:His arrival was electric news.
Speaker A:The Bounty had long since reached home through rumors, delays, whispers in the Admiralty circles, details a little bit murky.
Speaker A:Now here was Bly son, scorched, half starved, telling a story that sounded like fiction, a work of fiction.
Speaker A:But he brought receipts.
Speaker A:He.
Speaker A:His navigational records, crew logs, eyewitness accounts told a harrowing tale of betrayal and endurance.
Speaker A:British public, at least initially, saw him as a hero, a man wronged by his by insubordinates, yet too noble to seek revenge.
Speaker A:And the Admiralty agreed.
Speaker A:Bly faced a court martial as was standard for any officer who lost a ship, no matter the reason.
Speaker A:But it was brief.
Speaker A:He was exonerated, praised for his leadership, formally acquitted of the blame.
Speaker A:Court commended his navigational brilliance in guiding an open boat across 3,600 miles of ocean with minimal loss of life.
Speaker A:The mood wasn't purely celebratory, though.
Speaker A:The mutiny had occurred on a ship of the Royal Navy.
Speaker A:That meant staying on the Navy's honor and that had to be answered.
Speaker A:So Admiralty dispatched a vessel, HMS Pandora.
Speaker A:Its mission, track down the mutineers, arrest them and bring them to justice.
Speaker A: It sailed on In November of: Speaker A:What they would discover in Tahiti was strange, conflicted and only part of the story.
Speaker A:HMS Pandora slipped out of Portsmouth harbor with a singular mission and commanded by Captain Edward Edwards.
Speaker A:Ol Eddie.
Speaker A:Eddie.
Speaker A:Pandora.
Speaker A:Not a Brett FRU Hauler, it was a frigate.
Speaker A:It was armed and ready, ready to go.
Speaker A:Edwards was no diplomat.
Speaker A:He was a disciplinarian, a rule follower.
Speaker A:And the Admiralty's sharp edge answer to the shame of the Bounty.
Speaker A: arrived in Tahiti In March of: Speaker A:16 former crewmen of the Bounty were still on the island.
Speaker A:Some had settled down with Tahitian families.
Speaker A:Others were trying to keep a low profile.
Speaker A:A few claimed they had been forced into the mutiny or nearly stayed behind because they were too afraid to sail further.
Speaker A:Edwards didn't care.
Speaker A:Ed does not care about that kind of thing.
Speaker A:He ordered them all to be arrested because that's what his orders were.
Speaker A:Every even man, every man was arrested.
Speaker A:Even men like Peter Heywood and James Morrison, who had written detailed journals in hopes of defending their actions, were taken into chains.
Speaker A:Some were tricked into Surrendering.
Speaker A:Told they would be treated fairly, others were hunted.
Speaker A:Back aboard the Pandora, Edwards had a cell built on the quarter deck crew.
Speaker A:A crude wooden box just 5ft high, 6ft wide became known as Pandora's box.
Speaker A:14 prisoners were crammed inside.
Speaker A:Ventilation was poor, sanitation not great.
Speaker A:The irony was hard to miss.
Speaker A:The same navy that had inspired the mutiny now recreated the conditions that had made it inevitable.
Speaker A:But the sea hadn't finished with this story yet.
Speaker A: In August of: Speaker A:Panic erupted.
Speaker A:Edwards, focused on protocol, delayed releasing the prisoners.
Speaker A:Only when the water reached their knees was the order given to open the cage.
Speaker A:Four of the men drowned before they could escape.
Speaker A:Others barely made it to lifeboats.
Speaker A:Like Bly before them, the survivors of the Pandora were now in open boats, drifting towards uncertain salvation.
Speaker A:But eventually they too reached Timor.
Speaker A:A battered and ragged but alive.
Speaker A:I have to imagine that the portmaster and Timor was like, dude, what is, what is happening?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The survivors would be returned to England.
Speaker A:But Fletcher Christian, the man they'd hoped to drag back in chains, vanished.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Once more came aboard the HMS Providence, this time better equipped, better manned and tasked again with transporting breadfruit to the West Indies.
Speaker A:The Admiralty still wanted results and Bly, ever the loyal servant of the empire, was determined to deliver them.
Speaker A:But the island that once offered warmth and abundance now greeted him with something colder.
Speaker A:Tahiti had changed.
Speaker A:The events of the mutiny in the aftermath had scarred more reputations.
Speaker A:They had strained the very relationships Bly had once helped build.
Speaker A:The British were no longer honored guests, no longer extensions of Captain Cook's legacy.
Speaker A:They were enforcers, disruptors, bearers of violence, cloaked in protocol.
Speaker A:The Tahitian chiefs, once diplomatic and open, met Bly with polite distance.
Speaker A:The hospitality was there, but spirit behind it had dulled.
Speaker A:Too many promises had been broken.
Speaker A:Too many young men were taken away, never to return.
Speaker A:The British had come asking for fruit, but left behind loss.
Speaker A:Bly wrote, quote, I was received with civility, but with none of the warmth and affection I had formerly experienced.
Speaker A:People had learned distrust.
Speaker A:Their manners had changed.
Speaker A:I could not help but feel that Tahiti, once so free and generous, had been touched by the cold hand of civilization.
Speaker A:Dang.
Speaker A:Well, I noticed the difference.
Speaker A:He was no longer the sharp eyed sailing master of Cook's expedition.
Speaker A:He had survived the unthinkable.
Speaker A:Cast adrift, betrayed by his own men forced to navigate thousands of miles, open sea.
Speaker A:The ordeal had marked him not just in his temper but in his outlook.
Speaker A:He still demanded precision, still expected respect.
Speaker A:But something in his posture had shifted.
Speaker A:Not humbled, hardened, I did what he came to do.
Speaker A:He collected over 2,000 breadfruit plants and them with scientific obsession and loaded them aboard the Providence with clockwork efficiency.
Speaker A:The mission was, by all external metrics, a success.
Speaker A:But a success and a triumph not the same.
Speaker A:Voyage back to the West Indies was grueling.
Speaker A:Bly returned to England technically vindicated, praised for his seamanship, awarded rank, but still shadowed by controversy.
Speaker A:Admired in some corners, loathed in others.
Speaker A:A man both elevated and exiled by history and Tahiti.
Speaker A:It faded behind him not as a lost paradise but as a place where empire, ambition and arrogance had all been laid bare.
Speaker A: In September of: Speaker A:Anchored at Portsmouth.
Speaker A:Wasn't held in a courthouse but on the deck of a warship under the strict gaze of the Royal Navy's hierarchy.
Speaker A:Seven men were formally tried for mutiny, capital offense, under Article 19 of the Articles of War.
Speaker A:Atmosphere very grim, not hopeless, though some had powerful families who advocated for them.
Speaker A:Others had records, journals and testimonies attempting to show that they had been passive, coerced or loyal in spirit, if not in action.
Speaker A:Peter Heywood, the young midshipman, was found guilty but spared execution.
Speaker A:His family's social standing and persuasive advocacy of his sister helped earn him a pardon.
Speaker A:James Morrison, likewise was convicted but later pardoned, largely because of his detailed journals and the respect he quietly had earned.
Speaker A:Three others were acquitted outright, either due to lack of evidence or compelling proof they had tried to resist the mutiny.
Speaker A:But not all escaped.
Speaker A:Thomas Burkett, John Millwood and Thomas Ellison were convicted and sentenced to death.
Speaker A: Yardam yardarm in October of: Speaker A:Their bodies swung over the same waters where the Bounty had once set sail.
Speaker A:Bly, by then promoted to rear admiral but was not present at this execution.
Speaker A:But his shadow loomed quite large.
Speaker A:In time, the Bounty mutiny took a took on a life far beyond naval records and transcripts.
Speaker A:It became mythologized, especially as new generations revisited the story with shifting eyes.
Speaker A:Was Bly a cruel tyrant or misunderstood disciplinarian doing his best in impossible circumstances?
Speaker A:Was Christian a romantic rebel driven to act by conscience and trauma over charismatic deserter?
Speaker A:Or a charismatic deserter who doomed others to violence and ruin?
Speaker A: s and films, most notably the: Speaker A:Mutiny on the Bounty.
Speaker A:Films would take sides, romanticize, editorialize, and reshape the narrative again and again.
Speaker A:But the real story that lay scattered in logs, journals, reefs, and on a remote island nearly lost to history.
Speaker A:Back on Pitcairn island, time turned.
Speaker A:The mutineers had vanished from Britain's reach, but they hadn't quite escaped consequences of what they'd done.
Speaker A:The seeds of the Bounty's destruction planted during those long months of tension, paranoia, unequal power finally took root.
Speaker A:And in paradise.
Speaker A:Despite the lush island and relative isolation, Pitcairn's settlement quickly fractured.
Speaker A:The Tahitian men, brought along as laborers without true consent or equality, grew resentful.
Speaker A:They were basically seen as slaves.
Speaker A:They saw British mutineers enjoying their wives, sometimes control and privilege, while they were treated like servants or worse.
Speaker A:The mutineers themselves, once united by mutiny, splintered fast.
Speaker A:Some became violent, others drunk.
Speaker A:William McCoy reportedly discovered how to distill alcohol from a native plant and descended into alcoholism.
Speaker A:Others followed.
Speaker A:Jealousy, flared, arguments.
Speaker A:They turned deadly.
Speaker A:Within four years, nearly all of the original mutineers were dead, killed by Tahitian men, by each other, or by their own despair.
Speaker A:Fletcher Christian's fate is a little murky.
Speaker A:Some accounts say he was murdered in a raid, shot while planting yams.
Speaker A:Others claimed he lived in hiding, only to die later of natural causes.
Speaker A:Few whispered that he escaped and returned to England under an assumed name and disappeared into civilian life.
Speaker A:No confirmed grave, no final letter, just silence.
Speaker A: By: Speaker A:That's John Adams.
Speaker A:He had reinvented himself after years of chaos.
Speaker A:He found religion before he found religion.
Speaker A:He was the sole man on this island, right?
Speaker A:And the women, well, they.
Speaker A:They kind of flipped the script and started bossing him around.
Speaker A:He was doing all the heavy stuff that they couldn't do and became their object of pleasure and creating of children, which is like.
Speaker A:It's kind of weird to hear about that actually happening.
Speaker A:There's some men who are like, I wish that would happen.
Speaker A:But this guy that was.
Speaker A:This was his life anyway.
Speaker A:He found religion.
Speaker A:He took on the role of teacher, mediator, father figure, taught the island's surviving children to read, built asterisks, though he didn't really know how to read fully himself.
Speaker A:And so he.
Speaker A:While he was, like, reading the Bible to these people, he would actually just kind of make up some stuff that he couldn't read, which is pretty funny.
Speaker A:He had this Christian spiritual leadership that he had grown on this island.
Speaker A: y stumbled across Pitcairn in: Speaker A:They found not a savage outpost, but a quiet Christian settlement.
Speaker A:Children speaking English, reciting prayers, living on yams and goats.
Speaker A:They were a little confused because all of the children and women were not white.
Speaker A:And then there's this just old white guy with them, like, what's happening here?
Speaker A:And then they figured out quickly what was going on and who he was.
Speaker A:He was questioned, never arrested.
Speaker A:His transformation complete.
Speaker A:And the Crown perhaps relieved to find anything salvageable from the mess.
Speaker A:Let him be.
Speaker A: He died in: Speaker A:The only mutineer live a full, full life.
Speaker A: By the early: Speaker A:Some pieces sinking, others finding strange shores.
Speaker A:Like I said, Pitcairn Island.
Speaker A:The violence burned itself out and the only man from the Bounty had lived.
Speaker A:Let your Christian.
Speaker A:His body never found.
Speaker A:His children lived.
Speaker A:He had children with a.
Speaker A:I don't remember her name, but yeah, they.
Speaker A:And they.
Speaker A:And then John Adams had children with some of the other women.
Speaker A:And then, yeah.
Speaker A:So I didn't look into if there's still living descendants on Pitcairn island, but there, there is like buildings and roads and stuff, so people live there anyway.
Speaker A:Tahiti, they.
Speaker A:Their fate, not super great either in terms of the natural orders of things, which.
Speaker A:I mean, colonialism does that to you.
Speaker A:The arrival of British ships like the Bounty opened the island to a century of colonial interference.
Speaker A:After a brief British interest faded, France took control, and by the late 19th century, Tahiti was absorbed into the growing French Empire.
Speaker A:Its temples leveled, its religion labeled heathen, Its culture bent under the weight of Christian mission and military might.
Speaker A:The generosity the Tahitians had once shown so central to the story.
Speaker A:Rewarded with conquest and William Bligh, he returned to England.
Speaker A:Complicated man.
Speaker A:He praised for his seamanship, despised for his leadership.
Speaker A:After the mutiny, he completed a second breadfruit mission, successfully this time.
Speaker A:You know, more discipline, less disaster.
Speaker A:Rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a rear admiral, though never again was given independent naval command.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:I like that I can just dip into the Australian accent.
Speaker A:But the British one, for some reason is eluding me today.
Speaker A:Captain.
Speaker A:Captain Bly.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:That's all right there.
Speaker A:He clashed with colonial authorities and was actually arrested in what would become as the Rum Rebellion.
Speaker A:So he had lost his command once again.
Speaker A:He returned to England in disgrace, never to lead again.
Speaker A: He died in: Speaker A:But also there's this, this little thing that I found which was super interesting.
Speaker A: open water with his open boat: Speaker A:And these, these charts were so profile, so precise they outperformed official naval maps at the time.
Speaker A:You know, no real crazy instruments, no real time to prepare his mind super sharp, math flawless.
Speaker A:His course very true.
Speaker A:His charts outperformed those made by Captain Cook in the same waters who was on board a large vessel in the comfort of his captain's is captain's quarters, right?
Speaker A:He's just hanging out in his swanky establishment making these charts and they're bad fly in the middle of the ocean with his little boat he made, he made charts so accurate that a man Matthew Flinders Flinders was chart or going through the Torres Strait and during a circumnavigation of Australia and found that Bly's maps were so more were like way more accurate than Cook's.
Speaker A:So the irony is that the very men humute need against Bly one of the things that they had issue with it mocked his navigational skills.
Speaker A:They had called him reckless, imprecise, obsessed with details.
Speaker A:They accused him of running the Bounty of ground in his own ego, right?
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:But then it turns out his compass was super true.
Speaker A:While Christian sailed the Bounty into exile and chaos, Bly steered a glorified rowboat into the history books with a map that would guide explorers decades beyond his own disgrace.
Speaker A:He lost his ship but never lost his course.
Speaker A:And now the final irony.
Speaker A:Despite all of the expense, the drama, the betrayal and survival, the trials, exiles, executions, the breadfruit finally arrived in the Caribbean.
Speaker A:But it failed the enslaved Africans it was meant for.
Speaker A:They rejected it.
Speaker A:It was foreign, tasteless.
Speaker A:It sucked.
Speaker A:They hated it.
Speaker A:A solution to a problem no one had asked to solve.
Speaker A:The fruit of the empire sat uneaten in the sun.
Speaker A:So the tale ends.
Speaker A:A story of command and collapse, escape, escape.
Speaker A:Escape, exile of ambition that devoured itself.
Speaker A:A story not about heroes or villains, but just kind of people.
Speaker A:Man's hubris frightened.
Speaker A:Reaching for freedom and falling into history.
Speaker A:And for all that reaching, they changed the world chasing a fruit no one even wanted.
Speaker A:A fruitless endeavor if you will.
Speaker A:And that is the tale of the HMS Bounty and the mutiny of legend.
Speaker A:I hope all of you found this as interesting as I did.
Speaker A:So fascinating.
Speaker A:I was enamored by the story.
Speaker A:Maybe because of my time in the Navy, interest in this stuff combination.
Speaker A:But you know, it's a whirlwind of emotions.
Speaker A:While researching this, I had a few people tell me that they had heard this story before.
Speaker A:Obviously it's popular enough, it's in movies and stuff, but I hope that it's not super common knowledge that you were bored by it.
Speaker A:There's also, like I said, a bunch of movies books about it.
Speaker A:So who knows?
Speaker A: vies I Recommend, Bounty from: Speaker A:It's got an all star cast.
Speaker A:Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Daniel Day Lewis, Laurence Olivier, super young Liam Neeson.
Speaker A:Like, like another guy would come on the screen like, oh, that's that guy.
Speaker A:Oh, hey.
Speaker A:And it's not just because I have adhd, it's because they're famous.
Speaker A:Anyway, check it out.
Speaker A:Let me know what you think.
Speaker A:Let me know what you think of the story in general, if you enjoyed it.
Speaker A:Please rate review like subscribe, do all the things.
Speaker A:Share the show with your friends on social media.
Speaker A:Share the videos and all the things.
Speaker A:Help me out.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And thank you.
Speaker A:And of course, keep questioning the past.
Speaker A:The future will thank you.
Speaker A:See you next time.
