Posted on January 23, 2019
About half a year ago, I wrote about Bounty Day on Norfolk Island. I told the dramatic tale of the HMS Bounty and the mutiny that led to novels, movies, and at least one play - AND that led to settlements on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands, and that led to a sort of unique English-Polynesian mash-up culture.
On that post, I included a few details of how the day is celebrated on Norfolk Island and posted a couple of photos of that beautiful island. Today I'll be doing the same on behalf of Pitcairn Island.
But first, here is the tale of the mutiny, copy-pasted from that earlier post:
Once upon a time, in 1787, there was a British ship especially outfitted to carry breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies. The Brits who paid for this expedition apparently hoped that breadfruit would grow well on the Caribbean islands and become a good, cheap source of food for the enslaved people who labored in the Caribbean sugar cane fields.
This ship sailed from England across the Atlantic to Cape Horn - the southern tip of South America - but couldn't get through the difficult passage because of bad weather. After a month of failure, the ship's captain headed east, rounded the southern tip of Africa, sailed across the Indian Ocean, and finally arrived in Tahiti after ten months at sea.
For the next six months, the crew lived in Tahiti - a place that some people consider a paradise. They collected and prepared more than a thousand breadfruit plants to be transported to the Caribbean. Eventually it was time to sail on to the Caribbean.
Apparently, some of the men had fallen in love with Tahiti's wonderful weather. Some of the men had fallen in love with Tahiti's easy pace of life. Some of the men had fallen in love with Tahitians!So...soon after leaving Tahiti, there was a mutiny. I'm happy to report that it was a bloodless mutiny - in other words, nobody died. The captain, William Bligh, was put into a small, open boat along with the men still loyal to him, and those men made a difficult journey to a Dutch settlement - it took 47 days! - losing only one man who was attacked on an island when they tried to get some supplies. Except for that one casualty, they all lived to tell the tale of the mutiny.
The mutineers sailed back to Tahiti and dropped off those who wished to remain there even though they knew the Royal Navy would surely capture them and take them back to England to face trial. (They did.) The 9 mutineers who wished to flee that fate sailed off with 6 Tahitian men and 11 Tahitian women (probably at least some whom were kidnapped) and landed the uninhabited Pitcairn Island.
They offloaded all the people, livestock, other supplies, and I presume the breadfruit plants - and then the mutineers burned the ship! They didn't want the ship to be discovered by the Royal Navy, and they didn't want anyone to flee the island. In order to survive as a community, they needed enough people - and they especially needed women!
The burning of the ship, the HMS Bounty, happened on January 23, 1790. The bay where that occurred is called Bounty Bay, and the anniversary of the burning is celebrated as a holiday on Pitcairn Island as Bounty Day.
On Pitcairn Island, Bounty Day is celebrated by as a public holiday. People may picnic and participate in boat races - but the biggest traditional activity is burning a model of Bounty in or near the bay.
I was surprised to read that there are only about 50 people living on Pitcairn! They are apparently all descended from four families from the original handful of British mutineers and handful of Tahitians.
Pitcairn is one island - but there are four volcanic islands that are called "the Pitcairn Islands," and although Pitcairn is the only one that is inhabited, another island, Henderson, is way larger!
The four islands are considered a British Overseas Territory. Tourism is a big part of the economy, with people coming by cruise ships for a day, or by charter ships for "home stays." I gather that there are no hotels - remember, there are only 50 inhabitants in the entire island! - but tourists who stay overnight stay with local families, and a few Pitcairners have built rental units next to their home for tourists to use.
There is only one church building on the island (Seventh-day Adventist, a denomination of Christianity). Apparently only a handful of people attend regularly. There is only one school, and it only goes up to age 12. Teens either go to New Zealand for their schooling, take long-distance courses / correspondence school, or homeschool.
What a surprising and strange corner of the world...although quite lovely:
Also on this date:
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