# Mutineer dopers: Why didn't Fletcher Christian sail to America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 17, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622 "2011-09-17T15:06:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Wikipedia_Cites)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/1 "2011-09-17T15:06:39Z")
After seeing Marlon Brando’s as Fletcher Christian in the 1962 movie, I wondered why the mutineers didn’t make way to America (USA) which was no longer part of the British Empire, and had a million most white english speaking people that they could meld into. Going to a pacific island, as they tried to, would have the white boys stick out like sore thumbs. And the Royal Navy was looking for them there. Why not make way to USA where the crown can’t reach them? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/2 "2011-09-17T15:17:58Z")
- More chances to run into the Royal Navy in the Atlantic - The US, though no longer under UK rule, would still look askance at the idea of harboring mutineers. - Plus, their Tahitian women would have been the ones to stick out visibly, had they made it to America. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/3 "2011-09-17T15:24:49Z")
They sailed southeast, into less explored areas, away from Tahiti and Hawaii which would be more travelled. Not sure if they would have the supplies to sail for the California coast, or what the winds were like to get there. Plus, the whole point of the mutiny was that they were enjoying the good life, all the women and breadfruit they could squeeze, until Blight dragged them back toward civilization. I imagine they were looking for more of the same Tahiti island good life, not the western rat race. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/4 "2011-09-17T15:37:52Z")
Because they were in my part of the world. The south Pacific. You might want to check a globe, and pay particular attention to how BIG the Pacific Ocean really is. After that, you should check how _small_ the new-born USA was in 1789. The Pacific coast of north America didn’t become part of the USA until the 1850s. In 1789 what’s now California was a Spanish colony with a few Spanish missionaries and a bunch of natives. The USA was still 13 colonies on the east coast, and to get there the mutineers would have had to cross the entire south Pacific, make their way through the deadly waters at the bottom of South America, and sail thousands of miles northwards. Or they could have turned back towards the west and sailed back around South Africa and up the entire length of the Atlantic to reach the USA. Either way, it would have meant a lot of work and a considerable amount of danger. And why bother when you could live in a South Pacific paradise that’s close to hand? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/5 "2011-09-17T15:39:56Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > You might want to check a globe, and pay particular attention to how BIG the Pacific Ocean really is. This was the intuitively obvious (granted, that doesn’t always = correct) answer to me. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/6 "2011-09-17T17:34:10Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Because they were in my part of the world. The south Pacific. > > You might want to check a globe, and pay particular attention to how BIG the Pacific Ocean really is. > > After that, you should check how _small_ the new-born USA was in 1789. The Pacific coast of north America didn’t become part of the USA until the 1850s. In 1789 what’s now California was a Spanish colony with a few Spanish missionaries and a bunch of natives. > > The USA was still 13 colonies on the east coast, and to get there the mutineers would have had to cross the entire south Pacific, make their way through the deadly waters at the bottom of South America, and sail thousands of miles northwards. > > Or they could have turned back towards the west and sailed back around South Africa and up the entire length of the Atlantic to reach the USA. Either way, it would have meant a lot of work and a considerable amount of danger. And why bother when you could live in a South Pacific paradise that’s close to hand? Such an excellent post, I hate to make corrections. But I must… In 1789, they were states, not colonies. What is now Oregon and Washington became part of the US in 1846. But even before that it was jointly administered by the US and the British. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/7 "2011-09-17T18:02:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > What is now Oregon and Washington became part of the US in 1846. But even before that it was jointly administered by the US and the British. …but not so early that there was a west coast of the US for Christian & Company to escape to. Lewis & Clark hadn’t even reached the coast in 1787 (1805, actually) and the US stopped at the Mississippi until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The OP, like many people, has been confused by the movie as to just how early the Bligh Expedition was. [From a related Staff Report](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2826/if-captain-bligh-was-really-such-a-jerk-to-his-crew-why-was-he-promoted-following-their-mutiny): > [@](#): > > When Bligh sailed His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty into the South Pacific in 1787 (his mission was to retrieve breadfruit trees from Tahiti), it was only the fifth time that an English ship had entered those waters. There were no European settlements between the west coast of the Americas and what is today Indonesia; the islands of the Pacific were poorly known, and the majority of the ocean was literally uncharted. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/8 "2011-09-17T18:27:57Z")
> [@paperbackwriter](#): > > …but not so early that there was a west coast of the US for Christian & Company to escape to. Lewis & Clark hadn’t even reached the coast in 1787 (1805, actually) and the US stopped at the Mississippi until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The OP, like many people, has been confused by the movie as to just how early the Bligh Expedition was. [From a related Staff Report](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2826/if-captain-bligh-was-really-such-a-jerk-to-his-crew-why-was-he-promoted-following-their-mutiny): Well, I was simply correcting the error in that post. Not sure what was confusing in the movie about which year it was. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/9 "2011-09-18T17:01:53Z")
> [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](#): > > Going to a pacific island, as they tried to, would have the white boys stick out like sore thumbs. And the Royal Navy was looking for them there. They didn’t “try” to go to a Pacific island, they actually went to one. And the Royal Navy was looking for them, but they never found them. (An American vessel finally stumbled upon the survivors, mostly native women and children, after 20 years.) So the white boys sticking out was entirely irrelevant. The mutineers made a completely correct and logical choice, so I’m not sure why you’re trying to improve upon it. The western coast of North America would have been a spectacularly _bad_ choice. The Spanish, then moving north into California, were unfriendly toward immigration from outside of the Spanish Empire. Even if they had allowed the mutineers to settle, the mutineers would have had no land, no knowledge of how to farm in the Pacific Southwest, and no ability to speak the local language. Farther north, the Pacific Northwest still belonged to American Indians, and while they may have succored people they believed to be shipwreck survivors, in return for trade goods off of their ship, the long term prospects of the mutineers would have been poor. Again, they would have had no knowledge of or ability to farm the local land, even if the Indians were kind enough to grant them a plot. And, they would always have been at risk of the Indians turning them over to a passing British vessel in return for trade favors. An attempt to reach the eastern US, as noted, would be suicidal. The Tahitians would never have agreed to go to America, so the mutineers would have had to crew the ship themselves through formidable navigational hazards. Besides which there were too many British ships in the Atlantic. The Tahitian men and women who accompanied the mutineers had the crops, livestock, and skills to survive on a Pacific island, and on uninhabited islands land was there for the taking. The mutineers could not have made a better choice. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t get along with the natives, and most of the men slaughtered each other. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/10 "2011-09-18T17:45:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, I was simply correcting the error in that post. And I was just amplifying your correction, lest some-one think “even before [1846]” included the time frame in question. I didn’t mean to disagree with you. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Not sure what was confusing in the movie about which year it was. It’s very possible to watch either movie and, unless you paid attention to dates mentioned, think it took place pretty much any time up until the mid-nineteenth century. Hence my comments about just how early in Pacific exploration the _Bounty_’s voyage was. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/11 "2011-09-19T12:37:37Z")
Don’t underestimate the impact of trade winds on the situation. Going east in a 1789 sailing vessel in the Pacific would have been difficult. Even today in a modern yacht with much better ability upwind going east about is avoided. The trades in the lower latitudes [blow east to west](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_prevailing_winds_on_earth.png). To go west to east you have to go either a long way north or south, which is a stormy and cold option. They would have had to go down into the freezing, very forceful and dangerous roaring forties or up to somewhere near current Pacific coast Russia before working their way back to Nth America. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/12 "2011-09-19T13:29:52Z")
Why did they pick Pitcairn Island? It was a dead end-surely they knew they would never escape. Another question: for years afterwards, it was rumored that Christian had made his way back to England-someone from the navy recognized him on a London street-what was the source of this story? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/13 "2011-09-19T13:41:06Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Why did they pick Pitcairn Island? It was a dead end-surely they knew they would never escape. > Another question: for years afterwards, it was rumored that Christian had made his way back to England-someone from the navy recognized him on a London street-what was the source of this story? They had no wish to escape - they scuttled their own ship, and knew that any other ship that found them would most likely be Royal Navy. Their plan was to live on Pitcarin Island essentially forever, so as to escape hanging. They chose Pitcarin because it was obscure and likely to remain unvisited (they were right). Never heard the Chistian had escaped rumour thing. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/14 "2011-09-20T00:28:46Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Why did they pick Pitcairn Island? It was a dead end-surely they knew they would never escape. > Another question: for years afterwards, it was rumored that Christian had made his way back to England-someone from the navy recognized him on a London street-what was the source of this story? Isn’t Pitcairn Island too far south? It doesn’t seem to be the tropical paradise where coconuts and breadfruit can grow like Tahiti. How did they survive? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/15 "2011-09-20T00:49:50Z")
Read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” for the details. Pitcairn is part of a trio of islands quite a way off the beaten path, each one too far apart from the others and not enough of the right selection of resources to support a polynesian culture. Also, IIRC, the only ship to see Pitcarins before that made a mapping error and put it a few hundred miles away. Maybe they thought they were in the middle of nowhere, and as 30 or 40 year-old seaman expected they only had to avoid capture until the usual 65 or 70 year-old life expectancy. Pretty good gamble, in the end only one was still alive when the next ship came. Mind you, the rest had help escaping capture early, since they killed each other off, often in a drunken rage. I suppose too, they had the advantage of starting with a good supply of metal, which put them one-up on previous polynesian colonizers. Maybe also they underestimated the rate of expansion and exploration into the Pacific. If they had really beeing thinking rationally of alternatives, the mutinywould not have happened, they would have pretended to survive a shipwreck and not returned to Tahiti with the ship and camped out for a few months. A significant number even stayed on Tahiti until the next ship came to arrest them. The seafaring nations took a hard line on mutiny. “But my captain whipped us and abused us” was not usually grounds for mutiny. Pitcairn is still enough of a tropical island, thanks to the Pacific, to grow a dencent amount of food for its inhabitants. The one thing that almost did in the population was the recent trials for widespread sexual assault by many of the male inhabitants on the women. There were calls to simply remove the entire population. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/16 "2011-09-20T02:18:56Z")
Also keep in mind under the standards of the day William Bligh was a fairly benign ship’s captain. Despite popular movies like the Gable-Laughton film, he scolded when others whipped and whipped when others hung according to the wiki entry on Bligh. His chief fault was he was too thin skinned. If the mutineers had reached the USA or another European civilization, I doubt if they would have been granted amnesty. Plus Bligh was a genuine hero after guiding an overcrowded lifeboat some 3,600 miles in 47 days while losing only one man. It is one of those interesting twists of fate that public perception of the two men has shifted 180 degrees in two centuries. I don’t see any entry in it but originally didn’t Christian and his men try to land of New Zealand and build a large, impracticable fort? The mutiny worked as well as it possibly could. It’s just that racism, alcohol abuse, lack of women resulted in so many deaths at Pitcairn Island. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutineer-dopers-why-didnt-fletcher-christian-sail-to-america/596622/17 "2011-09-20T12:52:44Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Also keep in mind under the standards of the day William Bligh was a fairly benign ship’s captain. Despite popular movies like the Gable-Laughton film, he scolded when others whipped and whipped when others hung according to the wiki entry on Bligh. His chief fault was he was too thin skinned. > If the mutineers had reached the USA or another European civilization, I doubt if they would have been granted amnesty. Plus Bligh was a genuine hero after guiding an overcrowded lifeboat some 3,600 miles in 47 days while losing only one man. It is one of those interesting twists of fate that public perception of the two men has shifted 180 degrees in two centuries. > > I don’t see any entry in it but originally didn’t Christian and his men try to land of New Zealand and build a large, impracticable fort? > > The mutiny worked as well as it possibly could. It’s just that racism, alcohol abuse, lack of women resulted in so many deaths at Pitcairn Island. My read of Bligh was that he was indeed a humane captain and hardly the monster of legend - but that he had a singular ability to piss people off (particularly his direct subordinates) with thoughlessly nasty remarks, sarcasm, snark, taking offense at imagined slights and exaggerated accusations directed towards others (he’d have been right at home here on the Dope :D). He himself seemed to have assumed that this was of no account, but his general attitude managed to make enemies out of friendly subordinates wherever he went - even though he himself was a genuine navagational genius and had all the skills necessary for a first-rate captain. Interestingly, the famous Bounty mutiny was not the only such event he starred in - he managed to get Australia to mutiny against him: > [@](#): > > Bligh had gained the reputation of being a firm disciplinarian. Accordingly, he was offered the position of Governor of New South Wales by Sir Joseph Banks and appointed in March 1805, at £2,000 per annum, twice the pay of the retiring Governor Philip Gidley King. He arrived in Sydney in August 1806, to become the fourth governor.[13] During his time in Sydney, his confrontational administrative style provoked the wrath of a number of influential settlers and officials. They included the wealthy landowner and businessman John Macarthur and prominent Crown representatives such as the colony’s Principal Surgeon, Thomas Jamison, and senior officers of the New South Wales Corps. Jamison and his military associates were defying government regulations by engaging in private trading ventures for profit: Bligh was determined to put a stop to this practice. > > The conflict between Bligh and the entrenched colonists culminated in another mutiny, the Rum Rebellion,[14] when, on 26 January 1808, the New South Wales Corps under Major George Johnston marched on Government House in Sydney and arrested him. A rebel government was subsequently installed and Bligh, now deposed, made for Hobart in Tasmania aboard HMS Porpoise. Bligh failed to gain support from the authorities in Hobart to retake control of New South Wales, and remained effectively imprisoned on the Porpoise from 1808 until January 1810. > **[William Bligh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bligh)** > > William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was a Royal Navy vice-admiral and colonial administrator who served as the governor of New South Wales from 1806 to 1808. He is best known for his role in the mutiny on HMS Bounty, which occurred in 1789 when the ship was under his command. The reasons behind the mutiny continue to be debated. After being set adrift in Bounty's launch by the mutineers, Bligh and those loyal to him stopped for supplies on Tofua, losing one man to native attacks... Again, Bligh was mostly in the right - he was supporting the interests of the majority of the colonists against the entrenched minority - but it is his inability to control his subordinates that stands out.