BOUNTY’s arrival at Matavaii Bay,Tahiti.
1788.

Oil on canvas 24" x 36"

There have been many mutinies at sea, but none have captured the imagination like the mutiny on the BOUNTY, and the clash of personalities between Lieutenant William Bligh and his first mate Fletcher Christian.

BOUNTY had sailed from Spithead on December 23, 1787 with orders to collect breadfruit seedlings in Tahiti and transport them to the West Indies as food for plantation slaves. How soon the seeds of mutiny were sown has never been satisfactorily answered, but things did not go well right from the start. They left too late in the year to be off the Horn at the most desirable season, and severe storms southwest of the Canaries further delayed them. Bligh’s harsh character was revealed when he handed out some very severe punishments for some minor and questionable misdemeanors. Off Cape Horn they encountered a continuous succession of westerly storms where Bligh’s characteristic stubbornness kept the ship battering against cold and heavy seas for over a month before he finally gave up and ran for the Pacific via the Cape of Good Hope.

BOUNTY arrived at Tahiti on October 26, 1788, where she received the typical warm and joyful greeting from the uninhibited Polynesians. She anchored for almost six months in Matavaii Bay where the harsh memories of the voyage out may have been forgotten. The loving, friendly inhabitants and idillic climate would have been seductive, and when the time to sail arrived, not many of the crew were happy to leave. Almost immediately mutinous feelings surfaced among some of the men, and on the morning of April 28,1789 under the leadership of Fletcher Christian the ship was seized. Captain Bligh and and eighteen of the crew were set adrift in BOUNTY’s launch. Bligh successfully navigated the 23 foot boat through 3618 miles of hostile waters to Coupang on Timor Island, one of the greatest small boat voyages in history. Fletcher and the mutineers returned to Tahiti where they recruited a few of the Polynesians. On uninhabited Pitcairn Island they burned BOUNTY and lived the rest of their days.