The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island. Bligh navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles in the launch to reach safety and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice.
John Adams, known as Jack Adams, was the last survivor of the Bounty mutineers who settled on Pitcairn Island in January 1790, the year after the mutiny. His real name was John Adams, but he used the name Alexander Smith until he was discovered in 1808 by Captain Mayhew Folger of the American whaling ship Topaz. His children used the surname "Adams".
The history of the Pitcairn Islands begins with the colonization of the islands by Polynesians in the 11th century. Polynesian people established a culture that flourished for four centuries and then vanished. They lived on Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, and on Mangareva Island 540 kilometres (340 mi) to the northwest, for about 400 years.
Fletcher Christian was an English sailor who led the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789, during which he seized command of the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty from Lieutenant William Bligh.
Thursday October Christian II was a Pitcairn Islands political leader. He was the grandson of Fletcher Christian and son of Thursday October Christian, and mother, Teraura. He was also known as "Doctor", "Duddie" or "Doodie". He spent several years on Norfolk Island but returned to Pitcairn in 1864. Christian was three quarters Polynesian.
Bounty Day is a holiday on both Pitcairn Island, destination of the Bounty mutineers, and on Norfolk Island. It is celebrated on 23 January on Pitcairn, and on 8 June on Norfolk Island, the day that the descendants of the mutineers arrived on the respective islands. It is named for HMS Bounty, although the ship never saw Norfolk Island.
George Hunn Nobbs baptised George Hunn was an English missionary on Pitcairn Island and later Norfolk Island, where many of his descendants still live today.
Pitcairn Islanders, also referred to as Pitkerners and Pitcairnese, are the native inhabitants of the Pitcairn Islands, a British Overseas Territory including people whose families were previously inhabitants and maintaining cultural connections. Most Pitcairn Islanders are descendants of the Bounty mutineers.
Edward Quintal was the first magistrate of the British Overseas Territory of Pitcairn Island. Quintal was the son of Matthew Quintal, the Bounty mutineer, and Teraura, the partner of Ned Young, and the future spouse of Thursday October Christian. The elder Quintal was killed by a hatchet the year before Edward was born.
Arthur Quintal was a Pitcairn Islander who served as the island's second magistrate from 1840 to 1841. Quintal was the son of Matthew Quintal, the bounty mutineer, and his wife Tevarua. The elder Quintal was killed with a hatchet in 1799. Arthur appears to have inherited some of his father's bad temper; he allegedly treated his sister Jane 'so harshly' she left the island and never returned. Quintal also allegedly made a pact with his best friend Daniel McCoy, to take each other's sister as a wife. Quintal married Catherine McCoy, and they had 9 children, including Arthur Quintal II, who also became magistrate. After Catherine's death in 1831, Arthur married Mary Christian and had a further 5 children. He succeeded his half brother as magistrate, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law. Quintal died on Norfolk Island in 1873.
Matthew McCoy served as Magistrate of the British Overseas Territory of Pitcairn Island twice, in 1843 and in 1853. McCoy was the son of Daniel McCoy and Sarah Quintal, making him the grandson of HMS Bounty mutineers William McCoy and Matthew Quintal. He married Margaret Christian, making him the brother-in-law of his predecessor Fletcher Christian II. McCoy had 12 children, including Magistrate James Russell McCoy and Rebecca Holman Ascension McCoy, who married Benjamin Stanley Young. McCoy was fatally wounded when the Bounty cannon was fired to mark the departing of a ship; the cannon exploded shattering his right arm. The arm was amputated and he died days later.
Thursday October Christian was the first son of Fletcher Christian and his Tahitian wife Mauatua. He was the first child born on the Pitcairn Islands after the mutineers took refuge on the island. Born on a Thursday in October, he was given his unusual name because Fletcher Christian wanted his son to have "no name that will remind me of England."
George Adams was the only son of the Bounty Mutineer John Adams. He was born to his wife Teio, who had once been the wife of William McCoy and was the mother-in-law of Charles Christian, on Pitcairn Island. Adams was born at a time when all the original mutineers apart from his own father had been killed or, in the case of Ned Young, died of natural causes. In 1808 the Pitcairn colony was discovered and the elder Adams was granted amnesty for his part in the mutiny. Both of Adams's parents died in March 1829, when George was 24 years old. Adams served as Chief Magistrate on Pitcairn in 1848. Adams was an opponent of Joshua Hill in the 1830s. Adams opposed the decision to move to Norfolk Island in the 1850s, as his granddaughter was ill. Adams did eventually move, and died on Norfolk Island in 1873.
Benjamin Stanley Young served as Magistrate of the British Overseas Territory of the Pitcairn Islands twice, from 1884 to 1885, and in 1892. Young's father, Simon Young, also served as magistrate.
Simon Young served as Magistrate of the British colony of the Pitcairn Islands in 1849. Young was the son of George Young, who in turn was the son of Bounty mutineer Ned Young, his mother was Hannah Adams, a daughter of John Adams. Young married Mary Buffett Christian, his father-in-law John Buffett had arrived on the island in 1823 as a schoolteacher, and had stayed to help Adams teach the islands many children. Young himself was a schoolteacher by trade. He spent several years on Norfolk Island but returned to Pitcairn in 1864. Young's marriage produced 13 children, including two future Magistrates, Benjamin Stanley Young, William Alfred Young and Arthur Herbert Young, and the historian Rosalind Amelia Young.
The complement of HMS Bounty, the Royal Navy ship on which a historic mutiny occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789, comprised 46 men on its departure from England in December 1787 and 44 at the time of the mutiny, including her commander Lieutenant William Bligh. All but two of those aboard were Royal Navy personnel; the exceptions were two civilian botanists engaged to supervise the breadfruit plants Bounty was tasked to take from Tahiti to the West Indies. Of the 44 aboard at the time of the mutiny, 19 were set adrift in the ship's launch, while 25, a mixture of mutineers and detainees, remained on board under Fletcher Christian. Bligh led his loyalists 3,500 nautical miles to safety in the open boat, and ultimately back to England. The mutineers divided—most settled on Tahiti, where they were captured by HMS Pandora in 1791 and returned to England for trial, while Christian and eight others evaded discovery on Pitcairn Island.
Rosalind Amelia Young was an historian from Pitcairn Islands.
Teraura, also Susan or Susannah Young, was a Tahitian woman who settled on Pitcairn Island with the Bounty Mutineers. She took part in Ned Young's plot to murder male Polynesians who had travelled on HMS Bounty and killed Tetahiti. A tapa maker, examples of her craft are found in the British Museum and at Kew Gardens.
Mauatua, also Maimiti or Isabella Christian, also known as Mainmast, was a Tahitian tapa maker, who settled on Pitcairn Island with the Bounty mutineers. She married both Fletcher Christian and Ned Young, and had children with both men. Fine white tapa, which was her specialty, is held in the collections of the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum, amongst others.
Teio, also known as Te'o, Mary, and Sore Mummy, was a Tahitian woman who settled on Pitcairn Island with the Bounty mutineers. Alongside Mauatua and Teraura, she is one of the island's six original matriarchs.
Pitcairn Islands 
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