That’d be “Pippin,” anyway. Speaking of giving kids Tolkienesque names: I just met Thorin Oakenshield, believe it or not - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
I’ve never read any entire books about the mutiny on the Bounty, nor seen any of the movies, but I’ve read bits and pieces about it and probably would’ve recognized the name Fletcher Christian when I was ten years old or so.
For the fourth time, you are attributing the motive to Bligh’s actions as a captain when it likely lies elsewhere.
If you come up with a shred of evidence to support anything you’re saying about Bligh as overly harsh, I’ll start paying attention.
Young kids these days don’t know about it becAAAAAAUUUUUSE!
mutiny on the bounty’s what we’re all about
I’m gonna board your ship and turn it on out
No soft sucker with a parrot on his shoulder
‘Cause I’m bad gettin’ bolder - cold getting colder
Terrorizing suckers on the seven seas
And if you’ve got beef - you’ll get capped in the knees
We got sixteen men on a dead man’s chest
And I shot those suckers and I’ll shoot the rest
Time to admit my cultural ignorance, where is that song/poem from?
Most people have heard of the Mutiny on the Bounty but that doesn’t mean we know of the specific characters. And not all of us make an effort to read every old dead white man out there. 
Sorry. But yes, I will pick it up today if I can. handsomeharry, I hate reading things online, but I will if I have to. I just won’t get into it as much.
enjoy.
Never read the book but would have got the reference from mid teens on. There have been multple movies and documentaries about the incident. I’ve seen the movies and some of the docus since then. I would use that ref. and assume that most people around me would get it.
Saying that I just did a quick straw pole around me and 3 of the 4 I asked had no clue as to what I was talking about. I even did my best “Mr. Christiiiaaaan!!!” impression and just got some strange looks over cubicle walls 
I first learned about the Bounty events as a child in the Seventies, and always loved the name Fletcher. I even planned to name my son Fletcher, but my wife was very much NOT in favor of that plan. We ended up having only daughters, so the point was moot. She said we could name our dog Fletcher, but so far we’ve only had bitches, so I’m still waiting for someone to call Fletcher.
When I was a kid I had a collection of classic novel LP Story Records where the book was acted out, sort of like a recorded version of classic comics. I had The Time Machine, First Man in the Moon and Mutiny on the Bounty. The record followed N&H’s book almost exactly and sparked my interest in reading the real thing. It took a while to learn Roger Byam was not a real person. I also have a USB turntable so now I have Mutiny on my I-pod wherever I go.
Oh, OK, go ahead and call me Fletcher. Or Al.
Yep. There’s a Ben Vereen Pippin, and a Tolkien Pippin, and former Bull Scottie Pippen, but no Dickens Pippen.
The trick is to decide which book(s) to read. For entertainment, go with Nordhoff & Hall, but understand that it’s a novelization and not a work of history. It’s a trilogy: (1) Mutiny on the Bounty, which tells the story of the mutiny and ensuing trials; (2) Men Against the Sea, the story of Bligh’s voyage in an open boat; and (3) Pitcairn’s Island, the story of Christian and the mutineers and Polynesians who settled on Pitcairn. The three are often published as a single volume, The Bounty Trilogy.
All three are great fun to read, and Volume (3) may be the best of the lot. It necessary involves a fair amount of speculation, since nobody knows exactly what happened on Pitcairn, but by the same token this means the novelization approach works well. I haven’t seen the two later Bounty movies, so I don’t know if they deal with Pitcairn (the first one didn’t), but if not there’s a great movie waiting to be made about it.
For a drier but more balanced historical account, go with Caroline Alexander. If you want to go back to the original sources, read Bligh’s memoir, but I haven’t so I can’t speak to its readability or accuracy.
With respect guys, but I can see from the posts that the majority of you fall into the category of quoting a mish-mash of sweeping statements from novelists’ books and from a great big pot of legend. I’m not blaming anyone, and perhaps I can at least provide some guide-lines that could lead some on a sort of further keyboard adventure on the subject of what you call “The Mutiny On Bounty”.
First, I would say that I’ve studied the maritime history for 40 years, and I’ve circumnavigated the globe to and from that part of the world where events actually took place…but not the way millions think!
To begin with, it would be obvious to some posters that there is no such thing as “the book” on the Bligh/Bounty saga; --the one most often quoted being the Nordhoff & Hall trilogy of novels 'Mutiny on the Bounty/Men Against the Sea/Pitcairn’s Island. In reality, over 1300 books (yes, thirteen hundred) have been published:- the vast majority of these being novels that want to appear to be ‘history’ books, but are nonetheless written by professional liars as all novelist are, by definition.
On top of these are the many myths generated and constantly regurgitated by the Hollywood movies. It doesn’t matter whether some folks have never seen the movies, the myths go round and round the TV screens and spread the gospel according to Hollywood from one generation to another. Then there’s a whole boatload of misconceptions and erroneous statements about what exactly happened on the 28th of April, 1789, in the South Pacific Ocean, how and why. And even some so-called maritime historians can’t resist filling in ‘gaps’ that always appear in history. These sneaky unsubstantiated fragments are usually buried within sentences containing proven facts, but are often mere opinions disingenuously passed off as fact. All in all, it’s one big bucket of worms that people have found fascinating for 220 years. But it’s ruined by contemporaneous political dogma wanting to ‘rewrite’ history to make it fit in with 21st century standards. Also by the sheer lack of understanding about 18th century politics and the world the way it was then.
Some myths are motivated by out-and-out anti-British sentiments that still exist from the old days when revolution was in the air in Europe, and Great Britain proved to be the monarchical hard nut that Napoleon couldn’t crack.
Against this background, the reality of the voyage of His Majesty’s Armed Vessel (not HMS) Bounty was primarily humanitarian both in opening up the sea routes leading to and from the Pacific, and the transplanting of a variety of plants for the benefit of not just the West Indies slave population but for mankind, as history has proven.
Cutting to the chase, there never was a “mutiny” (by definition a military ‘strike’) aboard the ‘Bounty’, --that’s officially recognized in Britain’s National Archives documents. The records show that what happened was a ‘Piratical seizure and running away’ of HMAV Bounty. In other words she was taken by a minority among the crew who turned into ‘pirates or piratical villains’ as they were always known, not the fabled “mutineers” everyone refers to. Their number one objective was to take the ship and become the equivalent of millionaires, leisurely cruising among the islands of Polynesia for nine months, with plenty of booze and a supply of drugs.
They achieved this by a sneak attack just before dawn, later dumping almost half the ship’s crew into a boat, setting it adrift at a spot over 4000 miles away from the-then nearest known outpost of civilization. Then they went island-hopping, raping, kidnapping, slaughtering over 60 Polynesian men, women and children before landing on Pitcairn Island and then turning upon each other. They were never the revolutionary-type heroes and nice, hard done-by guys Hollywood made them out to be. The much darker side of their polished up on-screen images was written out of the script, and I’ve been to Pitcairn Island to learn the inside story about that too.
Anyhow, enough said, and thanks for your indulgence.
Welcome to the Dope, bonitas. Feel free to stick around!
You bring up a good point- IIRC, when people finally reached Pitcairn again, there were almost no men left among the women and (many) children. The men had been killed brawling over ownership of women and the leadership of the group.
Close?
I don’t know what you mean by that. Mutiny and piracy are not mutually exclusive. The court martial quite clearly charged the ten prisoners with mutiny.
Good link - thanks. I note that the records twice refer to “His Majesty’s Ship” Bounty before referring to her as an “armed vessel.”
Nitpick: he was Governor of New South Wales. Although, in theory, NSW covered about half of what is now Australia now, at the time the settlement was confined to a small area around Sydney, plus a separate colony in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania).
Go figure, I own Licence to Ill but I didn’t know the lyrics to rhymin and stealin. Thanks for the link.
What I mean is that there is a clearly defined difference between an act of mutiny and an act of piracy, just as there is a clearly defined difference between murder and manslaughter --motive.
As for the quoted Court Martial ‘Minutes’, an examination of the hand-written original document (bound book) would reveal the main charges as ‘piratical seizure’ and ‘running away’ meaning theft) of HMAV Bounty. These charges relate to the Georgian Articles of War, section 15, and not section 19 that refers to ‘mutinous behavior/ mutinous conduct’ (strangely not even mentioning the word mutiny even then!) And at one time the navy’s Law Lords wanted the offenders to be tried in a civilian court for piracy, wherein there was no such thing as leniency or the granting of a royal pardon for any convicted pirate. Run out space, I think, but that’s always the problem in this sorry if fascinating saga of victims being turned into criminals, and criminal into victims.
This explanation might help to show why there was no such ship as ‘HMS Bounty’, and the reason why the actual ship’s Muster Sheet book, on the first page, refers to ‘Armed Vessel Bounty’.
Not all Royal Navy ships bore the prefix His Majesty’s Ship (HMS) because only those ships commanded or captained by ranked Captains were entitled to the HMS prefix. When, commonly, ranked Lieutenants or ranked Commanders took a ship, the ship was called HM Bark, HM Frigate, HM Sloop etc. This is evident in the life of Captain Cook when he sailed as Lieutenant Cook, the commander, on his first great voyage to the Pacific aboard His Majesty’s Bark ‘Endeavour’. However, on his second voyage having been promoted to the rank of Captain, his ship was HMS ‘Resolution’. Nevertheless all ship’s commanders whatever their rank were and are traditionally addressed as “Captain”, and not by their rank.
William Bligh’s own account, published in 1790, was titled “A Narrative of the Mutiny, on board His Majesty’s Ship Bounty, and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew in the ship’s boat from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch Settlement in the East Indies.”
They really knew how to write titles in those days.