The Mutiny on board the Bounty was the most famous mutiny to occur in history.
It came to pass that in 1787 Captain William Bligh was sent on an
expedition from England to Tahiti with a crew of 46 men in total. Bligh
was provided an old ship, previously named the ‘Bethia’; but was
converted for its new mission which was to accommodate hundreds of
breadfruit sapling from Tahiti. The ship was remained ‘The Bounty’ and
all of the crew were volunteers.
The expedition was to transplant the breadfruit plants from Tahiti to
the West Indies, where it was thought that they would be an economical
food source for the Negro slaves who worked there.
After living with, and working for Captain Bligh for over nine months,
the majority of the crew could no longer take his harsh rules and
contemptuous manner. They dreaded the journey back to England with
Bligh, and true to his form, Bligh sustained his verbal abuse and
outrageous temper from the outset of the return voyage. Thus, in April
1789, one month into the return journey to England there was a mutiny
on board the ship ‘Bounty’