I am actually a direct descendant of Captain Bligh, and my grandmother was a Bligh. Bligh only had daughters, but one married a cousin, Bligh.
If you really want current research on the Bounty, read the book of the same name by Caroline Alexander. I have not even made it through, but the court martials for Fletcher and Bligh were real and threatening at the time for both men. Also, the comment that Bligh may have been actually more lenient than usual for British Navy commanders is also discussed. When he was in Tahiti, he let the crew have “wives” and get settled there, so many didn’t want to return.This is pointed to in the book as the most compelling reason for the mutiny.
I love that he was a great cartographer, although he wasn’t such a good Naval Commander! In the end, that was what the crew needed.
As I understand, Fletchers and Blighs have a reunion regularly in New South Wales!
MODERATOR NOTE: Please be aware, thread originally from March 2013; updated in Post #19 in Dec 2013. – CKDH
I spend an afternoon looking at the Bounty mutiny a year or so ago. The facts do not follow any of the several movies on the subject. one site I found listed both sides of the OP’s question, however today, I can’t locate that site.
I did find this…
*The circumstances leading to the mutiny remain unclear. History has alternately presented William Bligh as horrifically cruel or as a disciplined captain merely running a tight ship. Scenes from movies in which he keel-hauled sailors or gave their water rations to the breadfruit plants have no historical basis, but diplomacy and compassion were clearly not his strong suits. In short, the captain is believed to have been a foul-tempered, highly critical authoritarian with a superiority complex
*
You can read more about this here. (above quoted from this site)
An ‘English’ captain of a ship in those days had the power of a judge, and the authority of the king, for whom he laboured for when sailing the high seas. If a passing ship did not ‘dip’ it’s countries colours or flag in reverence, the captain was in his rights to send a message, in the form of a cannon ball to show his displeasure of the temporary lapse. As far as inhouse punishment went for crew misdemeanours, went, keel hauling and flogging at the mast were common, if after forty lashes, an officer was told to give him a further 10, an officer might report back that the man was dead, the captain would then have the mans ‘kit’ flogged the remaining 10. All above board and legal-like, matey’s, ha har!
I love the title of a book I read about 20 years ago: Captain Bligh’s Portable Nightmare. It focuses on Bligh’s brilliant navigation of the Bounty’s launch from the mutiny site to Timor, but the title is a perfect summation of his entire career. From the grisly murder of Cook to the Bounty mutiny, to the weeks of starvation aboard the launch, to another mutiny in Australia, Bligh is the very model of what sailors in those days called a Judas (a jinx). How much of that bad luck he made for himself is open to debate.
I think this is a key factor. It wasn’t that Bligh was an extraordinarily bad commander. It’s just that his crew had had a chance to see a better alternative to serving in the Royal Navy. It was Tahiti not Bligh that caused the mutiny.
Wasn’t this just a death sentence? I don’t see how anyone could survive such a torture. The pain and injury inflicted by the keel hauling itself would be brutal in a dry dock. Adding the ocean to it, where air isn’t available, and I’d think a person would drown during a keel hauling.
Is this true, or is my picture of keel hauling incorrect? Did people actually survive?
Keelhauling, as the name implies, was mainly used by the Dutch Republican Navy; and was abolished in the RN early in the 18th century: I think some must have survived, otherwise there wouldn’t be references to losing a limb.
The maximum flogging a RN captain could order for a single offence was 12 strokes. But there were a lot of other hurtful things as punishment; however you would survive more from a flogging in the navy than you would in the British Army during the 18th century. 100 strokes plus.
Interesting link to the old thread. What made me think that people could actually survive this is I had a different view of keelhauling (I’ll take the space out, but my auto feature breaks it up).
Anyway, I used to this it went lengthwise on a ship, from the stern to the bow. But it in fact was going from one side of the ship to the other, which is a much shorter distance on 17th and 18th century ships. My reference is the Mayflower, the famous pilgrim ship that dropped off religious freedom seekers at Plymouth Rock, Massachusettes Bay Colony. I would have never boarded that ship, it was so freakin’ small. It looked like a double decker row boat. The different levels were so low, a tall lad like myself (6’ 2") would be in a permanent stoop if I was below deck. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable traveling and living on those tiny ships were.
So, yeah… Given that distance was probably 20-30 feet, and you were being pulled, I imagine your stay underwater, while unpleasant, would be short enough for you to hold your breath long enough.
Interestingly, I believe my incorrect idea of what keelhauling is (or was) came from the original MOTB, with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I know there is a keelhauling scene, the guy comes up dead and it looked to me as if he was yanked length-wise. I’ll have to watch that scene again to see if I get a different perspective now.
Surely being hauled ‘twixt’ the beams would be enough to drown a felon, which would end the pain of being ripped open by the barnacles residing there, not being copper bottomed, as I believe later ships of war were.
Copper sheeting salvaged from Pitcairn Island is about all that remains of Bounty. Pieces show up at auctions all the time. Thanks to some industrious Pitcairner there is probably enough “Bounty copper” to plate an entire navy.
Given that the purpose of the voyage was to transport breadfruit trees as part of an experiment in building an infrastructure to support slavery, it’s sort of impossible for him not to have been a jerk - albeit that this particular kind of jerkhood was far from uncommon at the time.
@ancietanne; I have found the tale of this infamous voyage fascinating for a long time. One thing I am curious about: the original article focused on your ancestor Captain Bligh, and it was very interesting and informative. NOW: who exactly was Fletcher Christian? I believe he was murdered over a woman on Pitcairn Island within a year of the mutiny. You mention that the Bligh families and the Christian families now have a regular reunion. When is this and what is it like? Where is it normally held? I would assume that all bad blood has been forgotten, similar to the Hatfields and the McCoys in America. Any information you provide would be welcome.
I think it’s fascinating too. Reading these posts it really seems that people have a hard time not judging historical figures by our standards. Read Caroline Alexander’s book. I couldn’t find the info about the reunion, which I had seen in a geneology search a few years ago. What I now can gathere is that it is more of a national holiday. Here’s what Wiki says:
Pitcairn: Bounty Day is celebrated on Pitcairn Island on January 23, in commemoration of the burning of the Bounty by the mutineers in 1790. Model replicas, made by the islanders, are burned.[citation needed]
Norfolk Island[edit]
Bounty Day is the national holiday of Norfolk Island, celebrated annually on 8 June, in memory of the arrival of the Pitcairn Islanders on Norfolk Island in 1856.[1][2] Prior to 8 June 1856, Norfolk Island had been a penal colony, but was granted by Queen Victoria to the Pitcairners as a home in 1856.
Sequence of events[edit]
Bounty Day starts off with the a re-enactment of the landing of the Pitcairners down at the Kingston Pier. The Pitcairners are greeted by the Administrator and his wife, and from the pier they march to the cenotaph where they lay wreaths in remembrance. From the cenotaph they then march to the cemetery where hymns are sung. Next, they proceed to Government House where a family surnamed either Quintal, Evans, McCoy, Buffett, Adams, Nobbs, Christian or Young (being descendants of the mutineers of that ilk) is awarded the title of ‘Family of the Year’. The children roll down the hill in front of Government House, after which the whole procession travels to the Compound where the children play games and partake of a celebratory feast. Finally, everyone returns home to prepare for the Bounty Ball, at which there is a competition in further celebration of Bounty Day.[citation needed]
This is better understood knowing how Cap’t Cook treated his sailors (of which Lt. Bligh was one). If Cook’s biographers are to be believed, then Bligh was a deep and profound humanitarian in the mold of Cook.