Bounty, HMS

British armed transport ship remembered for the mutiny of its crew on April 28, 1789.

Commanded by Capt. William Bligh, it had sailed to Tahiti, taken on a cargo of breadfruit trees, and traveled as far as the Friendly Islands (Tonga) on the voyage to Jamaica when it was seized by the master's mate, Fletcher Christian. The causes have been much debated; Bligh's opponents charged him with tyranny, while Bligh argued that the mutineers had become attached to Tahiti and its women. Bligh and 18 loyal crew members were set adrift in a longboat; after a voyage of more than two months and some 3,600 mi (5,800 km), they reached Timor. Christian and eight others took the Bounty to Pitcairn Island, where the small colony they founded remained undiscovered until 1808 and where their descendants still live. Of the mutineers who later went to Tahiti, three were taken to Britain and hanged.

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