Mutiny on HMS Bounty

HMS Bounty sailed from Britain in 1787 under Lieutenant William Bligh to transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the Caribbean. The long stay in Tahiti and the return voyage intensified tensions between naval discipline, personal loyalties and the crew’s attachment to island life.

On 28 April 1789 Fletcher Christian and other mutineers seized the ship. Bligh and eighteen loyalists were forced into a launch with limited provisions; Bligh then navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles to Timor. The mutineers divided, with some remaining in Tahiti and others settling on Pitcairn Island.

The event produced enduringly opposed images of Bligh as either tyrant or exceptional navigator and Christian as either liberator or mutineer. Boyne’s Mutiny on the Bounty uses a fictional cabin servant to observe the voyage, seizure and launch journey.