#Mounty bounty full

When the Bounty set sail again on April 1, 1789, the seeds of mutiny had already been planted. Bligh, who had the reputation of a tyrant, survived the mutiny on board his ship and would later testify against the mutineers in a court-martial. Right: Portrait of William Bligh, a navigator and explorer who commanded the H.M.S. Over the course of five months on the island, more than 40 percent of the men were treated for sexually transmitted diseases that had been imported to Tahiti years before by English and French explorers. They also formed attachments to the island’s women, who sold sexual favors in exchange for items like nails.īy day, the crew gathered breadfruit and tended the plants by night, they reveled. They were welcomed by the Tahitians, who traded with them and even took them into their homes.

#Mounty bounty full

It was as idyllic as the Bounty’s crew had been told it would be, and they took full advantage of it. In October 1788, after a storm-tossed journey spanning 10 months and 27,000 miles, the Bounty finally reached Tahiti. But Bligh anticipated a peaceful journey to Tahiti, which had been visited by Captain James Cook in 1769 and was viewed by British mariners as a breadfruit-laden paradise.

Veteran captain William Bligh had been tasked with a voyage to gather breadfruit, a tropical fruit related to the fig that the British crown thought would make cheap, nutritious rations for the enslaved workers at sugar plantations in the British West Indies.Ĭarrying a crew of 46, including two botanists, the ship had no commissioned officers except for Bligh and sailed alone, lacking the protection of other British vessels. The Bounty was a vessel of Britain’s Royal Navy, but its mission was peaceful.