Sunday,October 26, 1788”

In 1787 an expedition was organized to bring breadfruit seedlings from the South Pacific to the West Indies as a cheap means of feeding sugar plantation workers. The Bethia, a small merchant ship of 230 tons, was purchased for the voyage, refitted to accommodate the plants and renamed , Bounty. Captain Bligh, who had accompanied Captain James Cook around the world, was an accomplished seaman and contrary to the Hollywood image, he was not a despot. Ten months out of England, having sailed 27,086 nautical miles, the Bounty and her weary crew, arrived in paradise (Tahiti) and came to anchor in Matavai Bay, an anchorage behind Point Venus, from which Captain Cook had observed the planet Venus 19 years before. From the black sand beaches, hundreds of Tahitians came out to greet the Bounty in all varieties of Tahitian canoes.
By the time the Bounty departed Tahiti, she had been there for more than five months. Leaving the beautiful island to continue the arduous voyage left the crew in a hostile frame of mind. Then on April 28, 1789, under the leadership of Fletcher Christian, the acting mate, the crew mutinied, casting Bligh and the few seamen loyal to him adrift in a small boat. Amazingly, the boat reached safety after sailing more than 3,600 miles.
The Bounty , now under Christian’s command, returned to Tahiti. Then Christian, accompanied by eight mutineers, six Tahitian men, 12 women and an infant child, sailed to the island of Tubuai. The local natives provided an unfriendly welcome. Christian’s attempts to find a permanent settlement failed and he took his mutinous crew back to sea.
Eventually, the Bounty made landfall at the mischarted island of Pitcairn , one of the remotest spots on earth. When seal hunters landed in 1808 , only one member of the crew was still living. The mutineers’ descendants , however, still inhabit the island.