Bounty Mutiny, a revolt aboard a British ship, HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific Ocean in 1789. The Bounty, under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh, sailed to Tahiti to pick up a shipment of breadfruit trees for the West Indies. While the crew was on Tahiti, discipline became lax. At sea again, some members resented Bligh's attempts to reimpose discipline and mutinied. The mutineers, led by one of Bligh's officers, Fletcher Christian, seized Bligh and 18 members of the crew loyal to him and set them adrift in an open boat.
Bligh managed to sail the boat some 3,600 miles (5,800 km) to a Dutch settlement on the island of Timor. The Bounty returned to Tahiti, where 16 of the mutineers remained. In 1790 14 of them were captured by British authorities and sent back to England to stand trial. Four died on the voyage, and the rest were tried; three were executed.
Meanwhile, Christian and the remaining mutineers had sailed with some Tahitian women to Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific Ocean, where they established a settlement. Descendants of the mutineers still inhabit the island. The story of the Bounty mutiny has been popularized in literature and motion pictures.
