In this 2010 episode, previous hosts Sarah and Katie take a closer look at the legendary mutiny on the HMS Bounty -- and figure out whether William Bligh deserves his terrible reputation.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Happy Faraday coming up this week, we have an episode involving William lie. He became infamous after being the victim of a mutiny aboard the H M S bounty. We are re playing our June sixteenth, twenty ten episode from past hosts, Katy and Sarah
so that's alright, we'll be a little fresher on people's minds. Sarah and Deblina also put out an update to this episode on December third, two thousand and twelve after the replica of the bounty which was built in nineteen sixty sank during Hurricane Sandy.
Were using the original version, since having multiple introduction seems weird. Also, just a heads up that this episode contains a very brief mention of just generations of widespread sexual abuse. Has that were committed at Pitcairn Island? That's the island, where some of the bounty mutineers settled with tahitian people they had captured after the mutiny. Honestly, the whole thing is even more horrifying that then it seems upon hearing. Does that description of the episodes of you go looking for the resources they reference? It is pretty graphic, otherwise,
in Japan. Welcome to stuff you missed in history class, a production of Iheart Radio
hello and welcome to the pot cast an Katy member and I'm Sarah daddy and
Most of us know a little bit about our topic for today. The mute me on the bounty- and we know there's this outraged group of sailors and they meet me against their
Captain and two amazing stories ensue in the first is that the mutineers with a group of two haitian women and up
dabbling a colony on this remote Pacific island that still exist today. The island in the colony, obviously, and then the other, is that the cast
captain in his loyalist navigate thousands of miles to safety and make it all the way back to England eventually. But that's about all
most people now we're and our understanding of the people involved isn't quite as good as our understanding of the basics and that's partly due to the misleading but entertaining film portrayals of the stories to leading men and Foam Captain Bligh and are mute near Fletcher. Christian yeah. Most of the films depict Bligh as this hard nosed bully and Chris
China is a dashing hero, but those depictions aren't necessarily cracks and times movies lie here at TED.
now, though, that the films were the first to screw it that way with with one as the hero and one, as this mean old captain and the two men respective rapid,
since actually started to grow shortly after the mutiny itself, when some of the participants are brought back to England for justice and
try to secure the story and save their hides by defaming her captain and its
interesting back stories and others that continue centuries after the mutiny that made are listener. Katharine and London suggests the topic so we're going to start our mission.
right, so the famous mutiny happens in the Pacific Islands in one thousand. Seven hundred and eighty nine, but before we get into that, we have to understand why the ship was there. In the first place, it wasn't on your ordinary run of the mill Misha.
No, it was a culinary mission and to understand we have to go back to one thousand, seven hundred and sixty nine when Captain James Cook's ship, the endeavour discovered the breadfruit in Tahiti and Joseph Banks, a famous botanist on board to canoe
in several years after this England had a bit of a food crisis and it wasn't about feeding their own people, but about feed
are slaves in Jamaica in the lesser Antilles and they were wondering what can we feed all these people with that's cheap and easy to grow in the caribbean and part of the problem here was that they didn't have the north american colonies anymore, producing loads of food and fish to to feed these big slave population. So botanist banks suggested that the breadfruit, but, of course that's in Tahiti, so someone would have to go. There takes up lines and cuttings and then attempt to propagate the tree in the West Indies and by one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven, a very adamant banks, finally convinced the king to sponsor this mission, so
who would they put in charge good old, reliable, William Bligh and William Bligh had been in the navy for quite some time. He was born to a customs officer in one thousand, seven hundred and fifty four, probably in Plymouth, England
and he joined the royal Navy as a team and rose pretty fast.
Under the Service of Captain Cook, who we mentioned earlier and blind
even there when Cook was bludgeoned to death by natives in what is now the hawaiian islands. So that would be an unfortunate thing to witness, but he also learned a lot from cook
And after returning to England and getting married and having kids, he left the royal Navy and became a commander of merchant ships, which was a really good way to make a lot of money and to have a bit of an easier career. Then failing all over the world for the Navy right. But he came out of retirement to serve on this breadfruit mission and his vessel would be the
hundred and fifteen ton, Bethia renamed the bounty and he accepted the mission, but it didn't turn out to be the prestigious wealth.
Did scientific expedition. He'd hoped it would be. The ship was tiny, he didn't get the title of master and commander and he didn't have the security and commissioned officers that should have come with that kind of trap, but nevertheless, he's got a major trip under way and one of the first man he recruits is Fletcher Christian, whose served him well before and
connections to his family, however yeah. So we have this really bizarre mission to get the bread fruit, not of particularly popular mission, but nevertheless it sets off December. Twenty third, seventeen, eighty seven after delays of weeks, because of unsuitable, whether so a bad start almost right away, but the ship leaves from Spithead England and the plan is to go to Tahiti by way of South Amerika
around the Cape Horn and they near the cape by late March, but the weather is so bad that they make a detour and as a just to if you get around the world, if you get mad about having to go a few blocks out of your way, take note here: they're deterrent,
going around the cape of good hope, which is in Africa, obviously and
takes until May for them to get there. They stop at Cape Town, refit their ship reload their supplies and head on there
may imply may have been disappointed with the initial.
Expedition, but things are actually going well so far, especially considering their bad weather and the long delay. The men are in good health or haven't been a lot of injuries. He even loans money to Christian, while there in Africa which
Well, I was a little bit of a tightwad, so that's really make audio and from the cape they headed to Tasmania, which is where their troubles began, weight loss. It feels like a comes.
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they have a man die after a bloodletting and
The other man become a little insolent, but still they press on it. They get to Tahiti October 24th, one thousand seven hundred and eighty eight, and when they arrived in Tahiti, the islanders come pouring aboard the ship, and this is a relatively happy time. Perhaps one of the last truly happy times on this mission. Bligh has been to the islands before he really likes to Haiti. He gets along well with the native people and even called to see the paradise of the world, and he also get
work on his mission, which is, of course securing the breadfruit plants and the trees, so he gets permission from the island chiefs to transplant and builds a place to put the plants and let them grow
and then hangs chair for about five months to see if the plants take and to wait out the rainy season and his men don't seem to mind. Tahiti, of course, is gorgeous and they like the native women, but not all of their tensions. Melt away. Three of the men go missing with arms and ammo. They are found for three weeks lie gets grumpy, of course, to find that his orders aren't carried out. The men are lax about important issues, the spare sales rot and mildew, for example, a major problem, fastening yeah, what's the big deal but finally, on April fifth, the bounty is ready to leave with its.
thousand fifteen saplings. So by the eleventh of April, the ship anchors at the rather ironically named friendly islands, because not long after they leave
Air Bligh and Christian begin to argue and not friendly, no, its, not friendly. This is according to a later account, but things get worse by the twenty first and that's when question is how
to say, sir, your abuse is so bad that I cannot do my duty with any pleasure. I have been in hell for weeks with you and by April twenty fourth, the two are fighting again lies disappointed that Christian, let native men scare him and he's furious that the watch let a native diver make off,
the small anchor- and that brings us to our last straw, which was blind man hunt over stolen coconut, which found
absolutely ridiculous, but I think you have to consider these people being in such close quarters with each other
for so long and an already tense situation. Ready to go home, stolen cocoanuts become a really big deal but belies specifically implicates Christian before imposing this ration on yams in it just devil,
states. Christian apparently he's seen crying and blight. It's not as big a deal for him. He acts
doesn't stay angry for long. He invites Christian to dine with him that night Christian doesn't get over it so quickly, though, because predawn on April twenty Eightth according
supplies account. Christian comes in with other men sees us. Him ties him up and threatens to kill him, and they hall him naked, except for a shirt onto the dac where he
placed on the launch vessel and joined by eighteen, others who were loyal to the captain and their given. Some
eyes wrong about five days worth of food, water, some tools and a compass and for cutlasses, tossed in at the last minute. Three people loyal to Bligh are actually detained on board and
that'll come into play later, but Bligh is there trying to reason with Christian at the last minute here he knows what's about to happen to him, and he knows that it most likely means death and death for the men on this little
if he tries to remind Christian that he's held his children back in England that he'd spend his men tour this whole time and asks if this is proper repayment for his kindness and Christian says that Captain Bligh. That is the thing I am in Hell. I am in Hell. So Christian is
pretty tortured by this decision to mutiny against his captain. Other man at the trial substantiate this account and its possible that Christian had considered slipping off the ship and a raft alone which would have been suicidal, but
talked into mutiny instead and while a movie might end there are pod cast, will not so first we're gonna catch up with the captain posts. Mutiny things look really bleak. This tiny boat lots of guys not me,
food and their sailing through mostly uncharted water. Certain
Yes, certainly death, it seems like, but
No Bligh isn't the best people person, maybe not the best captain for no,
material skill negotiating with bill he's a really great navigator and from his time,
little glimpses he's had of of charted waters that the waters that actually are charted, he's able to Navid
thousands of miles back to safety. What is done is is pretty fantastic and they stop on
Kanak Island, but when one of them was killed by needed supplies determined not to stop again so to team.
or DAS, as Sarah wrote in her outlined, but the problem would be
Timor is about three thousand six hundred miles away and the other thing
is everyone on the boat kind of hate, each other, which is going to be a running theme for the rest, the podcasting, bigger and argue with each other the whole way and, of course, their starving too. So they have a lot of good reasons to be on the grumpy side. Some
miraculously they reach Timur June 14th, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine and the english chronicle calls the navigation of his little skiff through so dangerous a c a matchless undertaking that seems beyond,
the verge of probability and from there they go into Jakarta and eventually find a ride. All the way back to England and Bligh is hailed as a hero, and he writes a narrative which is very popular and he also gets a new job
with the bread fruit. You think you would be read flower all thick and breadfruit by this point, but
this time around the mission is going to be different. He's gonna have lieutenants he's gonna have Marines First security. I think the royal Navy
has realised that
a mission of this
eyes should have been managed better o in its pay back time. The royal navy also wants to hunted down our mutineers. If there are any mutineers left to find. This episode is brought to buy guaranteed rate still searching for your dream home start at rate, dot com guaranteed.
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which brings us turn next question. What happened to the mutineers so in
one thousand seven hundred and ninety the Navy commissioned Captain Edward Edwards and the pandora to find the surviving mutineers in the Pacific and one of the Blythe gift survivors comes along to
presumably to help identify the man and to talk to them and please bring out their guilt a little to business. The guy you tossed into a boat not too long ago, faced
ACE encounter when the ship arrives into Hedy. Three bounty, mutineers swim out too,
they're so ready to go home,
arrested and chained, while the other men around it up and put into the prison hot on deck, which they called Pandora's box, which is pretty clever.
and one of the survivors tells Edwards how the men got there and he pieces together more from the journals of the captured man. But the basics are that hatred and jealousy began immediately after the mute me with some men, thinking that Christian favoured his friends
the other mutineers, so the ship initially anchors on a tiny island south of Haiti, and because there are pretty short on supplies, they head back to Tahiti
and load up on livestock as well,
a bunch of teaching people, women, men, boys and one girl and then head back to their tiny island, and they try to live there for about three months before
in fighting again with the invite no more, it gets insufferable and Christian agrees to take some of the men back to Tahiti, and he takes sixteen of them back.
implying that hill linger near by the island on the ship for about a day or so before, slipping off, but he doesn't doesn't happen he leave.
In the middle of the night. Essentially, kid
mapping the women who were on board the ship one even jumps overboard and swims back from beyond the coral reef when she really
that's what's happening and sadly, of these sixteen left and Tahiti too, are murdered. So back to our captain Edwards. He keeps hunting for Christian and his band of man, but he can't find them. He eventually gives up and starts to head home, but runs his ship aground on Australia's great barrier reef thirty one of his men drown and for prisoners die. So only ten prisoners make it back to England, where they will be
tried together and the prosecution, rests on three points. These men didn't try to stop the mutiny they didn't get into the launch with Bligh and they didn't try to get to England after the mutiny but hid instead
and there's still more fighting among the defendants over who did what? Because, obviously this is the time to implicate your fellows. He was the guy with the
then it wasn't me. I was dragged into the whole thing by Christian. You can imagine it goes on and on and four of the men
have letters from Bligh declaring them innocent, so this court MA
for them is pretty much a formality: Bilby, ok, three!
virtually assured death because they had all been seen with
arms. Everyone can agree that these three guys were bearing arms and three are kind of
in the air, especially one named peer, Heyward who's, the only officer Charged- and he was only fifteen at the time of the mutiny he's from a really well connected family, though, and says that he's
young and confused at the time of the mute me that he had been sleeping below deck, though hadn't been able to react until it was a bit too late
He didn't want to join the large because it was so overloaded, but interest
way to its his testimony. That kind of help to build up the legend of Bligh as sadistic incompetent captain something that'll help Heyward get off the hook, and he of course, isn't there to defend his own name. He's on bread. Fruit mission part two
So that's the only account that people are going by really so ultimately, one of the prisoners gets off on a legal technicality, two or pardoned, including Heyward, and then three hang at Portsmouth Harbour and there
bodies are displayed for two hours in the rain. Justo warning to other would lessen here. You see
blazed. Second, bread. Fruit mission is successful.
He secures two thousand one hundred twenty six plants. He manages to get sick
hundred and seventy eight of them to the West Indies and there he delivers them at Saint Vincent in Jamaica,
and he was delayed there by the start of the french revolution, but eventually returned and continue.
This is up and down career being gone for. The trial was very unfortunate for his reputation since a bit of a pamphlet war started and only with Heyward claims against his character. But Christians brother allow professor at Cambridge, shoe interviews the crew members to show problems with the command and that's where he gets his nickname. The bounty
which haunts him for the rest of his life, but catching up with Christian and his men. What happens to them? Captain Edwards was never able to find them, presumably they're all dead. They don't make it, but the second act of the story continues in one thousand, eight hundred and ten. When the american ship, topaz and Captains Bulger find this Englishmen, Alexander Smith, also known as John Adams on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific,
So what's he doing here he's claiming he's a bounty survivor. He tells how the group of mutineers to haitian women and mail to haitian servants landed there in seventeen, ninety and stripped and burned the bounty to cover their tracks,
In fighting once again kills off almost everyone with Christian getting shot in the neck, with a pistol ball
though other rumours do have Christian escaping pit Karen and returning to England, probably unlikely it seems like
in fighting is our general trend here and we should probably go we're going at the pistol, but just because most of the men have
with each other off, doesn't mean that this island is devoid of a population. There has been a lot of repopulating going on
same time in the island now has thirty five inhabitants and Smith is their leader and
first to be born on the island, is actually Christians, own son, and so this
new expedition finds a twenty year old.
Thursday October Christian, the descendant of Fletcher Annotation woman, a name. We had a lot of fun with early
today. Some of the settlers eventually emigrate Norfolk, Island, east of Australia, and many of them still live there to day, but others still live on PET Karen, where they speak. English and Pit Kern, a mix of cohesion and eighteenth century English would sounds pretty cool
and they trade with ships that come by or sell their stuff online, but
A few years ago they had a scandal when numerous men were arrested and charged with abusing under age girls. I'd read a big article and vanity fair about it called trouble in Paradise, which you can find online, sir,
read some other accounts, yarn and pr story about the journalist coffee Marx who had unearthed this whole history, which apparently stretched back for generations at least three generations of abuse. That's just a side note for us we're going to go to the more popular game of
What went wrong so why was there this mutiny in the first place? That's the big popular question and one myth to debunk is that blind Christian had this sea
credit, illicit relationship and that's why Christian
Just got so angry at lie and you need he was in hell. He was an how exactly so be it
Torreon. Who first suggested this idea retracted at later. After she reassessed
the size of the ship and figure that there was no way you could have conducted a secret affair aboard of doubtful, so small,
and this mutiny also didn't happen because by was too strict and his captains log. He had noted that he hadn't punished anyone until several months in, and he also noted that he'd hope to complete the journey without it flogging and those types of punishment weren't, something that he relied on. That was a sign of trouble for him yeah. He was really pretty light on corporal punishment as far as other captains in the Pacific, when he's a pretty progressive captain according to Caroline Alexander,
who is a historian, his written several articles and books on the subject, and she said that, especially in terms of food and sleep for the man he's extremely progressive. So it wasn't about that. It wasn't that he was this tyrannical physically abuse of captain, but he could have been verbally and personally. Abusive and
way that really need old, has man so Alexander's biggest cause of the mutiny is Fletcher Christian himself, and she says that it wouldn't have happened without him in that it happened because of his own personal breakdown. So maybe we shouldn't look too to Bligh for our problems,
two Christian himself. So, Sir out was this mission for bread fruit all for not yet we have to catch up with the bread fruit here, since it's the whole purpose for this stuff
three, the specimens that arrive in Jamaica are practically too late because it takes a while for the
exotic, strange food to catch on and by the time it finally does catch on slavery has been abolished by the British. Today, though, it's
We are really popular food in Jamaica and according to this
Macedonia in a mature tree produces two hundred pounds of fruit as fees and witches kind of insane and its filled with protein and calories and carbohydrates and news.
And then you can guerrilla and fry Baker and Roadstead I mean I feel like I'm talking about
and for his thinking. The same thing
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Transcript generated on 2021-04-03.