When Bligh replied back in a publication An Answer to Certain Assertions Contained in The Appendix to a Pamphlet, Christian replied back with A Short Reply to Capt. Appendix cast Bligh as the villain of the story. įletcher Christian’s brother, Edward Christian, published a work simply call Appendix which counter Bligh’s narrative A Narrative of the Mutiny on the Bounty. In 1808, while Bligh served as the governor of New South Whales, the Rum Rebellion broke out sending Bligh in exile aboard the HMS Porpoise. While the mutiny wasn’t directly related to Bligh’s command, it seemed to add to his reputation as a hard-nosed captain whose crew disliked him. In 1797, while he commanded the HMS Director, his crew mutinied as part of a wide-spread action known as the Nore mutiny. But we’ll probably never know whose fault the whole thing was.Īfter the Bligh returned to England, he continued his career in the Royal Navy. And to paraphrase Jimmy Buffet, some people claim that there’s a woman to blame. Some blame the pleasant climate of the South Pacific. Some blame Bligh over bearing personality while other cite Christian’s unstable personality. Much has been written about the Mutiny aboard the Bounty, but there is very little agreement on what actually happened. He simply couldn’t afford to lose crew members.ģ.) No One Really Knows Why There Was A Mutiny In fact, Bligh knew the dangers of losing crew members to overly harsh punishment when traveling to such remote areas. All of the film’s show Bligh as a ruthless taskmaster that pushes his crew over the limit, but there’s not much evidence of that. There are a number of examples, where Bligh was actually fairly lenient on his crew. In reality, Bligh and Christian were much closer in age were closer colleagues than is often portrayed. Mel Gibson had it partially right when he said: “I liked the idea they were going to show Bligh and Christian as the young men they were.” But, while Gibson was 28 when he made Bounty, Hopkins was 47. Granted, people grew up a lot faster back then but Christian and Bligh are portrayed as older and their separation in age greater in the 1935 film Mutiny on the Bounty as well as 1984’s The Bounty. Christian took command of the Bounty in 1789 making them 25 and 35 years old respectively. Here are five: 1.) Everyone Was A lot Youngerįletcher Christian was born in 1764 and William Bligh was born in 1754. But from the Clark Gable/ Charles Laughton version to the Mel Gibson / Anthony Hopkins film there’s a fair bit of the story that’s pretty much unexplored. But it also figured heavily in the idea of how we view authority and rule of law in a modern age as opposed to a time of cutlasses and sails. Partially this was because most people brought it up whenever I mentioned the Caine Mutiny, thinking that was the story I was referencing. In Bird in the Deep, I devoted a chapter to the mutiny aboard the Bounty. What Really Is The Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty?
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