The National Library of Australia

Teaching ideas

Classroom activities

Lesson plans from other teachers

Detailed background information

Born to sail

William Bligh (1754–1817) was a British naval officer and colonial governor. Born in Plymouth in 1754, he grew up in Cornwall, where the Bligh family had long resided. Like many members of his family before him, he entered the navy in 1762 at the rank of able seaman. Bligh’s abilities were noticed by Captain James Cook (1728–1779), who selected him as a member of the crew for his third voyage of discovery to the Pacific Ocean on HMS Resolution. Bligh advanced to the position of master of the Resolution in 1776, where he received training under Cook. On this voyage, Bligh advocated the first use of a chronometer—a timekeeper for determining longitude at sea. After Cook’s death in Hawai’i in 1779, Bligh assumed responsibility for navigation and surveying for the return journey of the Resolution.

For three years between 1776 and 1780, Bligh oversaw the Resolution’s operations and assisted in the navigation and charting of the islands and coastlines of the northern Pacific Ocean. On returning to England, he was promoted to lieutenant and, following a military posting, he undertook a series of trading voyages to the West Indies in vessels that were owned by his brother-in-law.

It was at this time that Britain began to look beyond the United States and continental Europe for trade and expansion. King George III was influenced by the members of the Royal Society of London in their quest for scientific and economic expansion, and authorised the Bounty expedition to pursue those ends in the Pacific.

Commanding the Bounty

Partly as a consequence of patronage by the noted naturalist Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820), in 1787 Bligh was appointed to the command of HMAV Bounty. The ship was being fitted to transport breadfruit—a staple food in many tropical regions—and other fruit and vegetable plants from south-east Asia and the islands of the central Pacific Ocean to the West Indies. This was part of a British plan to increase trade with Asia and to provide cheap staple food crops to the West Indies, where plans for large-scale cotton cultivation were being developed.

The Bounty, a cutter, sailed in December 1787 bound for Tahiti, with a crew of 44 people, including Fletcher Christian (1764–1793), with whom Bligh had sailed before. Arriving at Tahiti in October 1788, the crew spent almost six months collecting breadfruit trees. Sugar growers in the West Indies wanted to transplant the trees to their plantations to provide food for their slaves. Laden with breadfruit plants, the Bounty departed Tahiti in early April 1789.

As dawn broke on 28 April 1789, the most famous uprising on the high seas overturned the mastery of William Bligh, commander of the Bounty. Off the island of Tofua (Tonga), Christian led part of the crew in mutiny.

Just before Sun Rise the People mentioned seized me while asleep in my Cabbin tied my hands behind my back—carried me on deck in my shirt—put 18 of the crew into the Launch, & me after them and set us a drift …

So begins Bligh’s account of the mutiny and his ensuing 47-day voyage to reach Timor and safety.

A famous mutiny described in a notebook

Bligh’s notebook is the record of an inspirational journey and a testament to his iron will and his genius as a navigator. Set adrift in an open seven-metre launch by Christian and 24 of his fellow mutineers, Bligh and 18 of his followers endured a harrowing 5800 kilometre voyage from Tonga to Timor, ‘across a sea but little known, & in a small Boat deep loaded with 18 souls, without a single map of any kind & nothing but my own recollection and general knowledge of the situation of Places to direct us’. Only one man died on the voyage.

The original notebook was 108 pages. It had been a signal book kept by midshipman Thomas Haywood aboard the Bounty, before it was appropriated by Bligh. The pages bear the stains of the elements that battered the open boat, providing vivid confirmation of the trials suffered by its occupants. Bligh not only documented the events of the voyage but he also continuously drew maps, becoming the first European to chart parts of the Fijian islands (which were called The Bligh Islands).

Bligh’s notebook was written in addition to the official logbook of the Bounty, in which he would write during periods when the weather was fine and the sea calm. In order to preserve the logbook, Bligh used abbreviated language and spelling which detracts from the narrative of the voyage. Including the entries contained in the notebook, the logbook covers the whole voyage (1 December 1787 to 20 August 1789) of both the Bounty and the open boat in which Bligh completed his journey.

The cause of the mutiny, which took place 23 days after the Bounty left Tahiti, is uncertain, but it is thought to have stemmed from an explosive mix of the personalities of Christian and Bligh, confined conditions (the men were sharing already-cramped quarters with more than 1000 breadfruit trees and assorted plants) and, perhaps most significant of all, a return to the drudgery of ship-board duties after an extended stay on idyllic Tahiti.

Bligh also listed on three separate sheets of paper the names and physical characteristics of each mutineer. This record was created in readiness for the time when the mutineers would face justice—14 were later captured, 10 of whom were brought to trial in England and 3 were hanged. The remaining 8 men, including Christian, died on Pitcairn Island, where their relatives still live. Bligh described Christian, as ‘tatowed on the backside … Dark & very swathy … He is subject to violent perspiration & particularly in His hands so that he soils anything he handles’.

‘Tatowing’ or tattooing was a common characteristic in Bligh’s descriptions of the mutineers. The Western world’s tradition of tattooing has its origins in Polynesia, where the art was discovered by eighteenth-century explorers. The practice first became popular among European sailors before spreading into mainstream society.

Bligh’s navigational miracle

Bligh was set adrift with five days worth of food rations. To measure portions of food for his men, Bligh made a pair of scales from coconut shells and used musket balls as the weights. In the first week of the voyage, Bligh began by rationing two ounces of bread (as Biscuit), a small portion of pork, a teaspoon of rum, and coconut milk.

From [Bligh’s] careful record of every item consumed … the total food each man had in forty-eight days was this: seven pounds bread, one pound salt pork, one pint rum, five ounces wine, two and one-quarter coconuts, one banana, one pint coconut milk, one and one-quarter raw seabirds, four ounces fish … A sailor’s ordinary food allowance has been calculated at about 4,450 calories a day. On the figures I have given here a nutritionist estimates that the launch people were reduced to 345 calories a day. This would mean a possible daily energy deficit of 4,105 calories and a total weight loss of 56 pounds.(1)

Sailors in the 1700s used four navigational tools: the astrolabe; quadrant; sextant; and chronometer. These instruments were developed over centuries and without them navigation at sea was extremely difficult. With little technology, 34-year-old Bligh, a superior navigator, reached Kupang, in Timor, after two months travelling, with the loss of only one man. On the other hand Christian, then aged 24, and the mutineers spent nine months travelling the Pacific Ocean seeking a haven. Some returned to Tahiti prior to recapture and court martial, others ventured to the isolated Pitcairn Island where the majority of them met a violent death.  

Successfully maintaining a ship requires rules, discipline and agreed standards of behaviour. Aboard Bligh’s Bounty existed a society in microcosm, with its own customs. It could be argued that Bligh was not responsible for the mutiny, but his language, temper and strict management style certainly hindered his effectiveness and the kind of relationships that he fostered with his men. However, Bligh is also considered to have been one of the least physically violent disciplinarians in the British navy

References

  1. Greg Dening, Mr Bligh’s Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1993.