Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #46: Mutiny on the Bounty!

Episode Date: November 28, 2025

We sail back to 1789 and find out why the real Mutiny on the Bounty was way less “noble sailors vs brutal tyrant” and way more “horny, possibly rapey young officer snaps on his short, cheese-hoarding, coconut-obsessed captain.” In today's Short Suck, we dig into the petty ego clashes, disastrous decisions, and deeply messed up sexual dynamics that led to one of history’s most infamous mutinies.For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to another edition of Time Sucks Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins, and today I will be sharing the story of one of the most well-known episodes in world naval history, the Mutiny on the Bounty, the event that has captured Hollywood's attention multiple times over the years, with the infamous target of the rebellion, Captain William Bly, being portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, amongst others, and the young leader of the mutiny, Fletcher Christian, being played by actors like Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson. The mutiny is often presented as the inspiring tale of a righteous. young sailor, refusing to submit to the brutal will of his imposing, physically abusive captain. But was that what really happened? Ah, nah. What if I told you that it really went more like this? A horny, quite possibly very rapy, young officer. Already upset that he had to leave behind his Tahitian mistress, or sex slave, or sex slaves, eventually couldn't take any more hits to his fragile ego from his short, chubby cheese-stealing captain, so he kicked him off his own boat

and hit out on a remote island, mostly known today for a preposterously pervasive amount of sexual abuse. Let's look at the true, not reimagined for Hollywood, not whitewashed story of the mutiny on the bounty. Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream. I'll plead not guilty right now. Your only chance is to leave with us.

Early in the morning of September 23rd, 1789, the HMS bounty, sailed out of the port of Matawahi, to hear him. for the final time. By this point, the ship had been in control of the mutineers for almost five months, and things had not been going well. After a failed attempt by the mutineers to colonize a nearby Polynesian island, Fletcher Christian and the rest of the mutineers made the decision to return to Tahiti. Since her mutiny in April, the group had already been to the prosperous Polynesian island multiple times in order to gather supplies, and also have sex with, and very possibly, if not likely, kidnap and traffic, some local women. And finally,

The Tahitians were beginning to grow wary of this clearly aimless crew of young Scalawag sailors that kept leaving and coming back. The fact that the bounty was returning in order to drop off all the crew members that lost faith in Christian's leadership, or those that never had any to begin with, certainly didn't help. The already small group of mutineers would drop from two dozen to just nine. The bounty had arrived in Matawahee the previous day, September 22nd, and it took a few hours for Fletcher Christian's consort. a local woman named Mawa Tua to discover that the Tahitians were planning to take over the ship. So after only 16 hours in port, the mutineers took off yet again.

Alongside the nine mutineers, the ship also carried three Polynesian men that the sailors knew about, three Polynesian men that were hiding and would be discovered shortly, and 19 kidnapped Polynesian women, most of whom were being passed around by the men. While leaving early in the morning prevented the Tahitians from seizing the ship, It also prevented the women on board from having a chance to leave. Even still, one of the kidnapped women would risk her life and jump off and swim back after waking up to see that the ship was over a mile from shore. Strong swimmer. After this, six of the remaining 18 women would be sent ashore on the neighboring and preposterously beautiful island of Moria for being rather ancient.

My God. Not sure how old they were, probably over like 20 or something. So now there were a dozen women left on the ship. And after the discovery of the three stowaways, the ratio of 15 men to 12 women would cause quite a bit of dangerous sexual tension and jealousy and more than a few problems on the boat. And now before we find out what happened to these remaining mutineers and their Polynesian, uh, well, possessions, uh, we'll have to do some backtracking. What led to this mutiny? Before going into the infamous voyage itself, let's start with the biography of the man responsible for organizing the journey. the infamous Captain William Blye was born somewhere. The precise location is lost to historical records on September 9th, 1754 to parents Francis and Jane Bly.

Let's pretend he was born on the planet Mars. Spice this story up a bit more. Yeah, he was a Martian, sent to Earth to star on an old-timey sea story that will entertain millions, if not billions, over the subsequent centuries. Martian or not, he was also an only child and grew up near the small village of Sintuti in Cornwall, England. He's probably born at home near this village. His father Francis was a customs officer

in the nearby city of Plymouth. Plymouth. Plymouth, oh my gosh. That would have been quite the pronunciation now. Okay. I think there's a you in there. I felt confident before I started recording. Now I'm second guessing myself.

He was a customs officer in the nearby port city of Plymouth. In 1762, Blythe was listed as a 12-year-old captain-servant on the HMS Monmouth. Probably Plymouth and Monmouth. Okay. Although he was only eight years old. Some sources claim the ship set sail in 1761 when he would have been seven years old. Clearly child labor laws, a bit different back then, as in non-existent.

Shit like that, it's always so hard for me to fully wrap my head around. Like, I can't imagine sending my son, Kyler, out on his ship to work for some dude, who I guess I would just hope, wouldn't beat or molest him, and also protect him from other dudes. on the ship beating and or molesting him when he was 16 or 70, let alone 12 or 8 or 7. And even if all the dudes on the ship were noble, respectable men, still a ship, and people used to die pretty often on ships. Anyway, very young Billy's work on the ship was likely connected to the practice of earning time, which was common back then. Basically, young Bly's resume might have been gused up with this claim years later, as

then he wasn't actually ever on that ship. Or maybe he really was on the ship and his parents just wanted. wanted him to, I don't know, start living life real young. If he did work on that ship, he would have been out to sea for seven months. Either way, Bly would next be recorded as an able seaman, kind of catch-all term for sailors on a ship without a specific role in 1769 on the HMS hunter when he was still very young, just 15 years old now. Some sources claim this happened in 1770, that ship would also be out to sea for most of seven months. Two years later, at 17, Bly would be transferred to the HMS Crescent, where he would serve as a midshipman. Not sure how long that ship was out sailing around the sea, but probably quite a while.

September of 1775, Bly would be transferred yet again, now 20 years old, this time to the HMS Ranger, where he would serve again under John Henshaw, who had also been his captain on the hunter. Bly likely had his first meetings with his future wife, Elizabeth Betham, on some of the rangers' frequent stops to the city of Douglas on the Isle of Man. Bly clearly had a gift for the whole seafaring thing, since after only a few months in the ranger, he would be selected by famed captain,

world explorer James Cook, to take part in the renowned navigator's third voyage of exploration to the Pacific Ocean. This would be a massive deal for any sailor of Bly's age, as he was entrusted with overseeing the day-to-day operations of the HMS Resolution, which was actually the more important ship of the two, part in the voyage. Bly would join the Resolutions team on March 20th, 1776, and it would be an eventful

four years before Bly and the rest of the crew would make it back to England. Holy shit, such a wild way to live. All right, see you in half a decade, everybody. Wish me luck. The goal of the expedition was to locate the fabled Northwest Passage, an Arctic passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific and longtime obsession of the British government, since it would allow ships to bypass. the treacherous Cape Horn in South America on their way to the East Indies. While they were unsuccessful in finding this passage, mostly because it does not exist,

finding that out the hard way when they were all confronted with a massive 12-foot wall of ice after attempting to travel up between Siberia and Alaska to the Bering Strait, Cook's previous discovery of Hawaii on the same voyage would make headlines back home in Britain. Those guys really experienced some serious weather shifts. Went from Hawaii to an ice wall,

and then actually back to Hawaii. I hope they packed a lot of wardrobe options. Their return to Hawaii would lead to Captain Cook's demise when he made the poor decision to try and kidnap the Hawaiian king and he got beaten and stabbed death for it. But young William Bly, of course, made it out alive and brought home some exciting stories. Actually, can you imagine the kinds of stories

that you would be able to bring back from sea voyages in the 18th century when you were part of a crew that discovered lands literally no one in your country or any other country that had relations with your country had ever heard of, let alone visit it. You could regale them with stories of new animals, bugs, plants, new people, and new customs. And they couldn't fact-check you if you bullshitted them, right? They could think you were wrong, but they couldn't prove it. You could be like, you know, the scariest creature we encountered was probably the great shrizzly,

half great white shark, half grizzly bear, a truly fearsome beast, equally at home in the sea and on land, hungry for human flesh in both places. Also, did you know that Polynesian women have two vaginas and three titties? Oh, yes. One of the vaginas is just for fun. Impossible to impregnate, unable to catch or transmit venereal disease. They call it their pickle tickler, and their third titty leaks liquid gold instead of milk. I really hope you can visit Hawaii someday.

Truly a magical place, wonderful, except for the bloodthirsty great shrizzlies, of course. Back to real history now. The big journey around much of the world provided young Bly with a chance to sharpen his expert navigational ability, since his role also saw him assisting with the charting of various islands and coastlines that the ships were sailing through. However, Bly's reputation amongst his fellow officers in the Royal Navy saw a little benefit from this trip. A cook whom Bly viewed as a mentor, of course killed in a skirmish with the Hawaiians on the return to the islands, as I mentioned. And after a second command, Charles Clerk died of tuberculosis on the return home. That left Bly with very few friends

among the rest of the crew. John Gore, who assumed command after the death, of Clark and James King, who wrote the official narrative of the voyage, both did not like Bly. You'll see as we go forward that a lot of people did not like this guy. Apparently, he had a pretty abrasive, unlikable personnel. And because of that, Bly was one of the only men not recommended for promotion after the journey. And even though he charted much of the Hawaiian Islands after Cook's death, his contributions were not given much attention in the aftermath of the expedition.

Bly's frustration can be seen in an annotation he made to the official account, which was released four years after the voyages end in 1784. None of the maps and charts in this publication are from the original drawings of Lieutenant Henry Roberts. He did no more than copy the original ones from Captain Cook, who besides myself was the only person that surveyed and laid the coast down in the resolution. Every plan and chart from C. Cook's death are exact copies of my works. William Bly. Just me and Cook, bro. We did that shit. Don't listen to Gore and King. They'd be haters. Even with this setback, career and personal life were still looking pretty bright. And in February of 1781, less than a

year after returning, he married Elizabeth Betham on the Isle of Man. And Elizabeth had a rich uncle, a wealthy West Indies merchant named Duncan Campbell, who would now become one of Bligh's biggest supporters. Yeah, he did not just court her out of love. Dude was calculating. That's the way it was back then. Old Uncle Duncan, or Uncle Duncle, as I've always called him, would help Bligh gained the position of lieutenants on a few different ships with competent officers in high demand as the Royal Navy was fighting in the Revolutionary War. After the war was over, however,

the Navy's size was greatly reduced and Bly would go on half pay. But then Uncle Dunkle would come to the rescue yet again. Classic Uncle D'uncle, always coming up clutch, given Bly the opportunity to command some of his ships that were involved in the West Indies trade scene. Bly would leave the Navy in 1783 and would spend the next four years

leading a few commercial voyages across the Atlantic before returning in 1787. Worth noting that Bly's time in the West Indies was where he would meet the young sailor Fletcher Christian. Christian was from an aristocratic family on the Isle of Man, and Bly became a mentor to the aspiring young officer. Anyway, Bly's subsequent return to the Royal Navy was brought about by a recommendation for him to lead an expedition to the South Pacific and grab some breadfruit, since it was hoped that the recently discovered fruit could function as a cheap source of food for slaves working on Caribbean plantations. I have never eaten breadfruit.

It sounds kind of amazing. One tree can produce up to around 450 pounds of fruit each season. That's a hell of a yield. Ripe red fruit is bright green, about the size of a grapefruit. Before being eaten, the fruit is almost always roasted, baked, fried, or boiled, said it tastes a lot like a potato or like, unsurprisingly, fresh, baked bread. Bly's recommendation to use breadfruit to fuel the work of slaves, clearly he didn't have any moral qualms about the slave trade, like most people of his day, came from the influential Joseph Banks, the wealthy patron of the sciences and the president of the Royal Society,

Britain's foremost research academy. And if you're wondering how Blyde became acquainted with one Joseph Banks, I'll give you one guess. Hell yes, Uncle Dunkel, baby. Duncan was an acquaintance of Banks and used his familiarity to suggest Bligh as the leader of the breadfruit expedition. While Bligh had a few other things going from as well, like his experience on Cook's third voyage, it was family connections. It sealed the deal. So with the help of Uncle, Muffolkin, Duncan, we have finally arrived at the actual voyage of the bounty. Bounty was a small ship, originally being a collier or coal transport named the Bethia before being bought, renamed, and refitted by. the Royal Navy. It would carry 44 men, all selected by Bly, with Fletcher Christian serving as

the master's mate. The master's mate. One letter away from him serving as the master's bait. Just want to make sure everybody caught that. Due to its small size, Bly was the ship's only commissioned officer, and no Marines would be on board. And that lack of professional soldiers on board will not encourage good discipline. And it definitely increased the chances of a mutiny if one were to be attempted being successful. And now let's jump into the Bounty's big voyage. Right after this week's first of two

mid-show sponsor breaks, if you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a space littered on Patreon. Thank you to all of our space littered supporting this show, getting the catalog ad-free. These episodes early, contributing to charity and more. Thank you for listening to those ads, and now let's begin the infamous final voyage

of the HMS bounty. After, well, I guess it'd be, I guess the voyage would be, would be final, first and final, under that name. After a long wait to get started, due to unfavorable wins, the voyage finally began on December 23rd, 1787. And it wouldn't be long before they saw their first signs of trouble. Just a few days after the trip began.

On December 27th, that's crazy they couldn't wait until after Christmas. By the way, I'm just thinking that just now. Really, you got to leave for this fucking multi-year journey on December 23rd. You can't leave on December 26? Anyway. On December 27th, a massive. massive storm would wreak havoc on the ship. The stern windows on the back of the boat collapsed. The main cabin quickly flooded with water. Bligh barely saved the nautical instruments aside, some of which like the chronometer, were so important that losing them would have likely forced the boat to turn around entirely. Even worse than that, seven full hogsheads or large barrels of beer broke loose and were swept overboard and two casks of rum split open and drained into the bilge, a crushing early blow to the sailor's morale on a very long voyage. You know, since it's not like there were a lot of liquor stores floating around where they could easily restock.

And if that wasn't enough of a rough start, the cruise resolve would be tested again soon after. And one of the most horrifying naval events ever witnessed, if you don't have a strong stomach, you're going to want to be careful listening to this next part. Don't be afraid to turn this episode off. There's no shame in that. Sometime before the bounty crossed over the equator, an event labeled by one bounty historian as the now-famous cheese incident would occur. And this dreadful, deplorable, depraved, disgusting, probably some other adjectives that start with letter D as well. Cheese incident is often pointed to as one of the first signs of friction between Bly and his crew. The description of the event given by historian Sven Walrus, actual name, not some weird bullshit I made up, goes as follows.

This incident was related to the fact that Bly was not only captain of the ship, but also Pursar. The Admiralty apparently expected him to make a profit from this position. they had reduced his salary precisely because he could make an extra income by being purser. To ensure everything would be fair, however, all supplies were to be opened in the presence of the whole ship's company. One day, when a casket of cheese was opened, two cheeses were found to be missing. Instead of blaming this on the supplier, the suppliers were notoriously dishonest, and noting the fact in the log, Bly, for some inscrutable reason, asserted that someone on board must have stolen the cheeses. And then when the seaman named Hillbrandt ventured to say that the cheese had been sent to Bly's own residence on the orders of John Samuel, the ship's clerk, and Bly's personal servant, the captain flew into a rage and threatened to flog Hillbrand or anyone else making such horrible allegations.

So not a good look, right? Classic guilty slip-up. Bly had an easy out with the old notoriously dishonest cheese supplier, but that cheese-loving son of a bitch seems to have panicked and made an unforced error. This cheese incident is a good spot to try and figure out just what about Bly. Bade him such an unpopular captain. Because as we'll see later on, the famous mutiny didn't exactly come as a shock to those who knew or had served with Bly. So what was it? What made Bly such a bad boss? Was it merely insatiable, greedy lust for cheese or something else?

Well, for starters, we can be pretty sure that Bly didn't gain his bad reputation by being a physically abusive captain, as has been portrayed on film. In fact, Bly was actually much more lenient in that regard than the average British naval officer. Flogging the practice of punishing sailors by hitting them with a whip or rod, generally a whip, incredibly popular amongst Bly's contemporaries and brutal. Wasn't that uncommon for some poor son of a bitch to receive literally a thousand lashes? Holy shit. Most ever recorded was 1900, almost 2,000 wax. Usually when somebody was given that many lashes, they were doled out in phases. A guy would be lashed until he was beaten unconscious.

Then his wounds would be given time to mostly heal. Then he'd be lashed again until he passed out, given time to heal, lashed, and so on. And sometimes unsurprisingly, a guy could end up getting lashed to death. But Bly never punished a sailor under his command with anything above four dozen lashes. Actually, the total number of all flogings given out by Bly on the bounty's long journey came out to 229 lashes. Clearly, he wasn't a lash happy son of a bitch. You didn't have a strong lust for the lash. So if Bly's crew had it somewhat easy on the flog front,

that why would they ever want to mutiny? The answer many historians would give you is that while Bly led his crew off easy in terms of physical abuse, his pettiness, his constant fault finding, put the sailors on the bounty through, you know, psychological torment. Basically, he was perhaps a cheese, greedy, petty micromanaging dickweed. And Bly's incredible lack of self-awareness

regarding how his personality was insufferable. The dude might have been a member of the, you know, Prick Hall of Fame that may have made him even more unbearable. Bly desperately wanted to be revered by his crew, like his former captain and mentor, Captain Cook. But even though Captain Cook was known to have a bit of a temper, often lashed out of his crew, and he could be similarly petty.

He had something Bly did not. Charisma and a commanding presence. Also, compared to the tall, handsome Captain Cook, Bly was short and chubby. Additionally, while Captain Cook was considered manly and ruggedly handsome, as noted by a surgeon who described to amongst other contemporaries descriptions, Captain Bly was more bleh. He apparently looked rather soft and feminine with his pale skin,

clear blue eyes, pudgy build, lips shaped in a traditionally feminine Cupid's bow. Since his emotional outbursts generally included a lot of wild gesticulating, maybe getting yelled at him, kind of felt like getting yelled out by an angry little girl's doll. Add to it that Bly was in his early 30s at the time. of the journey, not much older than many of the sailors. And it gets a little easier to see why it was so difficult for him to maintain an air of authority over his crew. Sadly, one's looks have always affected how the world perceives you. Not fair, but true. Now back to the voyage. Bly planned to travel to Tahiti via Cape Horn, the point on the southernmost tip of the Americas where the Atlantic and

Pacific oceans clash. The bounty made reasonably good time on the way there, but quickly ran into trouble while attempting to make the crossing. It's notoriously rough, like supposedly one of the most brutal spots in the ocean of the rough seas surrounding Cape Horn infamous for giving sailors a difficult time thanks to the convergence of strong westerly winds, powerful ocean currents, a sharp rise in the ocean floor. It creates enormous unpredictable waves, plus the occasional presence of icebergs. And the bounty was attempting to make the crossing in April, the winter down there, which meant the weather was still super cold and perhaps kind of icebergy. While Bly pushed the crew of the Bounty Heart after spending almost 30 days trying to round the Cape and failing.

Damn, he was eventually forced to give up and accept the currents had defeated them. And now, since going around Cape Horn was not working out, they would have to travel to Tahiti the extra long way, going around the southern tip of Africa, across the Indian Ocean, and underneath Australia. My God, this was a massive increase in the length of the trip. The distance from Cape Horn to Tahiti traveling east was actually almost the same as the distance from England to Tahiti traveling west. So that meant they still had the entire length of the original journey ahead of them, even though they had already been sailing for four long months

without enough beer, rum, or cheese. Luckily, the weather was on the bounty side on their way to the Cape of Good Hope. And they made it to Simon Sound, South Africa on May 23rd, 1788, a major British resupply point. The ship had been damaged pretty badly by their attempted crossing at Cape Horn, so it would be a little over a month before the voyage could continue

due to all the needed repairs. The stay was relatively uneventful, and the crew set sail again on July 1st. Not sure about their beer, rum, and cheese resupply levels, but I think they got what they needed. And in a nice little display of near symmetry, it took Bly and the rest of the bounty 51 days to make it to Tasmania,

where they stopped for about two weeks to resupply, and then 52 days to travel from Tasmania to Matawai Bay, the main European port in Tahiti at the time. It had been an absolutely massive journey. Up to this point, by the ship's log, the crew had traveled 27,086 miles since leaving England. For reference, that's over 2,000 miles further than the entire circumference of the earth. Thankfully, the crew would now have some much-needed time to relax.

In order to successfully get the breadfruit tree to the Caribbean, Since the entire trip would be worthless without them, new trees would have to be grown from seeds into saplings large enough to survive that journey. And that was a lengthy process, of course. And the bounty stayed floating in Matawai Bay for over five months, during which time the sailors were mostly concerned with relaxing on shore, which meant mostly having sex with as many local Tahitian women as possible. More than 40% of the men would end up being treated for sexually transmitted diseases, mainly syphilis, that had been imported to Tahiti years before by English and French explorers.

And since penicillin was not around, the treatment's not very effective. And while there had already been a few instances on the journey to Tahiti, where the crew's lack of respect for Bly's authority could be seen, it became much more evident now. As mentioned earlier, Bly was a fault finder. And I guess with five months,

without much else to do, apparently he wasn't, you know, hitting up to Tahitian women, this side of his personality became a big problem. Bly became increasingly concerned with the lack of discipline shown by his men, but he wasn't really able to do anything to win back their respect. In January, after only two months on the island, Bly faced his first instance of desertion

when he discovered that three men in a small boat were missing from the bounty, along with some guns and ammunition. Traditionally, if deserters were found after pulling a stunt like that, the punishment would be severe. However, after the three bounty deserters were discovered near the end of the month, they were only given a few dozen lashes each. Not a thousand. Not 500, not even 100, or even 50.

I wonder if they maybe weren't delivered with that much gusto either. Delivered more with a, eh, than like a, you know, kind of, kind of hit. Feels like you signal to the rest of the crew that the consequences for disobeying Bly's authority were pretty low with this move. After a few more months, the breadfruit plants were ready to go, though. And on April 4th, 1789, the bounty set sail and leaves Tahiti for the next leg of his journey. And by this point, we're only a few weeks away from the mutant. But before I get into the incident that sparked the infamous event, there's some more background. I need to add on the relationship between Captain Bly and Fletcher Christian, the man who led the actual mutiny.

Like I said earlier, Bly viewed himself as somewhat of a mentor to Christian, and the two had been sailing together for literally years before the bounty's voyage. But for some reason, he'd started picking on Christian more and more throughout this particular trip. The main reason that's worth saying is because without context, the incident I'm about to share feels ridiculously insignificant. but it's considered by many historians to be the spark for the bounty's infamous mutiny. So just keep in mind that this probably wasn't Christian losing it all because of this, but more likely because of a hundred incidents like this. This was the straw that broke his back. According to an account from Professor Douglas O. Linder, here's what happened.

On the morning of April 27th, Bligh concluded that some coconuts are missing from the pile kept between the guns. Don't you think those coconuts have shrunk since last night? he asked Friar. Bly announced that he would find and punish the coconut thief. He questioned one person after another about the missing nuts. According to Boatswain's mate, James Morrison, Christian responded to Bly's interrogation of him by saying, I hope you don't think me guilty of stealing. And Bly answered, yes, you damned hound, I do. You must have stolen them from me, or you could give a better account of them. I suppose you'll steal my yams next, but I'll sweat you for it, you rascals. I'll make

half you jump overboard before you're through endeavor straits. He ended the confrontation with orders that rations for yams be cut in half. Christian was left devastated by this incident. William Purcell reported that Christian left Bligh with tears, quote, running fast from his eyes in big drops. Bligh seemed to shrug off the blow up and later invited Christian to dine with him, as had been his custom on every third evening that night. Uh-huh.

Not sure what I expect the insubes. inciting incident to be, but that wasn't it. A hardened sailing, weeping over accusations over coconut treachery, over getting their portion of yams reduced and being called a rascal and a damned hound. Apparently Christian just couldn't take it anymore. Shortly after this, upon being woken up for his 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. round of watch duty, this rascal impulsively decided to seize the ship. And before I go over how he pulled off his mutiny, time for today's second of two

mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to the sponsors. Now let's return to our mutiny. On April 28, 1789, the other men on watch were equally as fed up with Captain Bly by this point. He must have shot them some sideways yam glances as well, maybe called them hounds. And Fledger Christian had a little difficulty with the first parts of the mutiny. According to Bly's own later account, Christian and a few other mutineers snuck into their captain's quarters while he was asleep, into his cabin, tied his hands behind his back with the cord, threatened him to not make any noise, and then hauled him. him out onto the deck.

From here, things got a bit more tricky for Christian. He ordered the lowering of a small launch, a.k.a. boat into the water for Bligh, another loyalist to be cast off into. But after doing so, quickly found that many more of the men wished to leave with Bly than he had originally estimated. Well, Christian was probably correct to assume that most of the crew hated Bly by this point.

Mutiny was a big commitment with potentially very serious lethal consequences, like being hanged. Not as scary as being attacked by damn great shrizzly, but still scary. many of the bounties other sailors were unwilling to leave their lives back in England behind just to get rid of one annoying cheese thief and coconut losing captain 18 men joined bligh in the small boat and even more would have done so but the boat was perilously full by that point there was less than a foot of distance between the water and the top of the launch of sides

which sounds terrifying christian and the other mutineers tossed supplies into the small boat while bligh attempted to remind christian of their former relationship Christian was fully committed at this point, though, replying, I am in hell. I am in hell. Okay? I know we don't really know much about Fletcher Christian, but does not, it doesn't he seem like super melodramatic? Dude literally cried his little eyes out, over being accused of taking some coconuts. And now when his captain is like, are you sure you want to do this, dude? He responds with, I am in hell.

I am in hell. Eventually Christian cut the small boat loose. leaving Bly and the eight and other sailors to fend for themselves and quite possibly all perish. I guess he could have just killed them all, but I don't know. Maybe that kind of confrontation would have been riskier for them, but this is just the sailor way. I'm going to take a mutiny, just let the people go on a raft, I guess. As the bounty sailed away, Bly called out to the loyalists that were unable to join him saying, never fear, my lads.

I'll do you justice if I ever reach England. And that was it. Bly and the 18 loyalists that had decided to travel with him were now in a cramped 20, three foot long open boat. That is not big, with very little in terms of provisions and navigational equipment. The crew also had only four cutlasses for weapons, which made them quite vulnerable to attack. One of the reasons Christian barely gave the men any supplies was that he assumed Bly would sail to the nearby Tongan Islands to wait for an English ship. But he underestimated Bly's determination not to take this event lying down, because Bly was set on making it back to

England. Not in this boat, but a little ways back. Even though he only had supplies for a five-day journey, Bly would sail for over a month before making it to a major European port. My God. Bly's first goal was to make, that's crazy. Over a month and a 23-foot boat with like what, what is it, like 19, yeah, 19 guys in there. How are they sleeping, just sleeping sitting up, I guess. Uh, Bly's first goal was to make it to the nearby Tongan Island of Tofua, where he had hoped to gather enough provisions to make the massive journey to Dutch East Indies.

He made it there safely, sent out a few parties to gather food, but then quickly made a mistake in his first interaction with the local Polynesians living on that island. He told him that he had been shipwrecked and once the local islanders

saw how little the English sailors had in terms of weapons, tension started to rise, as the locals thought some version of, hey, how about instead of trading with these guys? What if we just, hear me out,

kill them and take their shit? And on May 2nd, After only a few days on Tofua, the locals attacked blind as men. The men made it to the boat in time to escape, but they failed to cut the line, keeping the boat tied to the shore, and local islanders now started to literally pull the boat into shore. Fortunately, one of the sailors bravely jumped out of the boat, swam over, unfastened the line, you know, succeeding and freeing them, saving their lives, and then he got killed on the way back to the boat. The Tofuans then sent out some canoes, attempted to track down the rest of the men, more canoes,

but Bly was able to safely guide the boat back into the open ocean. From there, he and the 17 other loyalists now embarked on an almost 4,000-mile journey through completely unfamiliar territory facing massive storms the entire time on this tiny boat. Oh, fucking kill me. And although Bly may have been a horrible boss as far as people skills went, he was still one of the best navigators of his age. And he successfully charted the Fiji Islands as the men were the very first Europeans to ever sail through them. and after almost a month of sailing,

he made it to the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. Here, the crew would stop at a few small islands to replenish as best they could since their provisions were running so low, the men were now at risk of starvation. After gathering as much food as they could, the men set sail again,

and after two more weeks of sailing in this fucking tiny boat, they successfully arrived at the Dutch port of Kupong, today in Indonesia, June 14, 1789. While you might expect that the men would have a few problems with each other now, after surviving such a miraculous escape together. It is a testament to Bligh's difficult nature

that disagreement sprung up quickly. After one of these, the carpenter, William Purcell, was apparently unable to hold on any longer to something he had noticed while on their journey, giving us a look at another example of Bligh being a terrible captain. Purcell, the carpenter, told Bligh to his face that during the boat voyage, he had seen him frequently drop a piece of bread

while serving out the rations, and afterwards, when he thought no one was looking, pick it up and pop it into his mouth. Link Letter, one of the quartermasters, backed Purcell up. He too had seen Bly, conjuring an extra piece of bread for himself. Bly retaliated in the customary service way. Within 24 hours, he had picked on Purcell and Link Letter and had them imprisoned on board Captain Spikerman's ship.

Maybe Bligh wasn't a terrible boss overall. Maybe he just agreed a little chunk when it came to rations. Not going to lie, I get so hungry. This could have been me. I'd like to think I wouldn't take extra rations for myself, but I'm also the guy who sneaks into the kitchen on Thanksgiving and steals a little bits of turkey and other scraps of food before anybody else gets a chance to eat.

Unlike the dad in the Christmas story. For context, Captain Spikeerman was not somebody Bly had known previously. He was just the first officer to greet Bly after his arrival on Coupon. Thankfully, this was the only time Bly needed to imprison his men on another officer's ship while staying in Coupong. He and the rest of the crew spent the month of July recovering from their job. journey before Bly was able to purchase a small schooner so that he could get off that tiny boat, which he named the HMS resource to sail to Jakarta, a much larger port where he would be

able to catch a bigger boat back to England. Even this journey to Jakarta would not go smoothly, however, because Bly ran into more trouble attempting to discipline his crew. At a stop, partway through the trip, Bly was entertaining the governor of a small district on the island of Java and wanted to show him around the resource. But when his sailing master, John Friar, failed to bring the boat around at the correct time, Bly became enraged. Bly and Friar had squabbled constantly since the start of the bounty's trip, and Friar was fed up, responding to Bly's frustrated comments by saying, quote, you're not only used me ill, but every amount in the vessel will say the same.

And apparently after saying that, multiple other crew members were like, yeah, fuck yeah. They joined in. They voiced your contend, like, yeah, you're a dickhead. And at this, Bly grabbed a bayonet, arrested Friar and William Purcell, who was apparently the biggest complainer of the group, put them both in irons for a few weeks. I got to say, none of this is making me want to jump into a time machine and go back and sail to high seas. I mean, even if I didn't get motion sickness easily and wasn't terrified of deep, dark water, I still would not want to go back, at least not with Captain Bligh.

Finally, on October 1st, Bligh and his crew arrived in Jakarta. At this point, most of his crew were finally freed from dealing with their boss while Bligh took passage on a ship heading towards Britain with his clerk, John Samuel, and his servant John Smith. Bly was hailed as a hero upon his return to England and the Royal Navy quickly dispatched the HMS Pandora commanded by Captain Edward Edwards Awesome Cool parents Our last name is Edwards

What should we name our son? Probably Edward Let's just have him be Edward Edward Edward Anyway Edwards went to locate and arrest the mutineers And where were then? What did Christian and the rest of the bounty crew been up to While Bly and the Loyalists were making this treacherous journey After taking control of the ship Christian had set sail for the island of Tobuay, today part of French Polynesia, and arrived

at around the same time, Bly's boat made it to Restoration Island in Australia. Tobuoy was around 350 miles south of Tahiti. Still is. I don't know why I put it in past tense there. It hasn't moved. And although it had been spotted by Captain Cook on one of his voyages, it had never actually been visited by Europeans. Christian hoped to establish a settlement here, since its inconvenient location and relative

of obscurity made it unlikely that the mutineers would ever be found by any Royal Navy ships. His plans got up to a rocky start, though, when the local Tobwians met the bounty off the shore with 50 war canoes carrying around 1,000 people. Holy shit. Christian, the mutineers pushed on anyway, firing at the canoes, killing 11 men and one woman, while the Tobwians clearly had a manpower advantage. They definitely had a firepower disadvantage. However, after landing, the mutiners realized that Tobuoy had no large mammals for them to eat. Another big problem for the sailors was that the women of Tobwai were, quote,

not as accommodating as their Tahitian counterparts. Those mutineers were horny savages. Confronted with these problems, the mutineers decided they would head back to Tahiti, pick up some pigs, goats, chickens, and women, and then come back to try again. Pretty wild sequence of events for the Tobwians. These white people, this massive weird-looking boat pull-up

are undeterred by the thousand people you send out to confront them, shoot some of them, and then just leave. Once the bounty arrived back in Tahiti, the local Tahitians were understandably curious about what the hell had happened to Captain Bly and a good portion of the crew. In order to not raise suspicion,

Christian crouted up a quick lie. He said Bly was, he was hanging out, enjoying some coconuts probably or cheese, maybe some yams, you know, at a nearby island, Tutaki, today part of the Cook Islands. He was hanging out there with Captain Cook, actually. And not like zombie Captain Cook either.

No, no, totally still alive, Captain Cook. Since the Tahitians were still in the dark about Cook's death, they bought this bullshit story, allowed the crew of the bounty to gather supplies to return to Tobuai. So the mutineers stocked up. They collected 312 pigs, damasloat pork, 38 goats, 96 chickens, a couple rando dogs and cats,

a few Tahitian plants, a bull and a cow that Captain Cook himself had previously gifted the Islanders back in 1777. I really wish I could have seen the bounty after that. You know, it wasn't a massive ship, so fitting 300 pigs on that thing would not have been easy. All those other animals, it's like an 18th century Noah's Ark. After getting all packed up, the bounty set sail back to Tobuai. Beside the English sailors and the livestock, the ship was also carrying nine Tahitian men now, eight boys, ten women, and one female infant.

Jesus. Some important context here is that many of the mutineers were in their early 20s, so really not prime decision-making age. Some of the 30s, of course. The bounty arrived back in Tobuai, June 23. third, 1789, to much friendlier conditions. In fact, the mutineers were even offered a large piece of land by one of the local chiefs, Tomatoa. However, for some unknown reason, Christian declined, instead preferring a spot belonging to Taroa, Tahoa, a minor chief compared to Tomatoa, and that humiliated Tomatoa, and he would now be an enemy of the mutineers for the rest of

their stay. So not a great diplomatic move. Christian and the rest of the sailors then proceeded to go about their business, settling their part of the island, completely ignored. mourning the Tobwyan's existence. For instance, shortly after arriving, the 312 pigs that had been brought over were just let loose by the crew. Shockingly, that would create problems. Apparently, the Tobwians had a lot of really beautiful gardens, and since there had previously been no large mammals on the island, they hadn't had the need to build fences

to protect them. But now, there were a whole bunch of pigs running around fucking everything up, destroying their vegetables and flowers and shit. Who would have guessed that horny mutineers would make very shitty neighbors? This unneighborly act led to Tamatoa, forming an alliance against Christian with the third chief on the island. Tineru, and eventually he'd even pissed off Christian's original ally, Tara, Taroa, oh my gosh, Taroa, Tahoa, is a very long name. So much that he started to become an enemy as well. Meanwhile, the mutineers were busy trying to build a massive fort with very little success.

I love this part. None of them knew anything about engineering, right? any kind of advanced construction skills whatsoever. Still long before YouTube tutorials existed, or even IKEA instructions, these fucking idiots attempted to build a fortress surrounded by an 18-foot-wide, 20-foot-deep, 20-foot-deep moat with a functional drawbridge. Those morons might as well have tried to build like a skyscraper. I love it.

After a few months of making very little progress on the construction project, the planned Fort George, the mutineers had finally pushed it to Wyans too far, when Christian had tried to punish some locals for some unknown reason, he was met by 700 fully armed islanders. Uh-oh. A battle now took place between the two sides, which resulted in 60 deaths approximately amongst the Toboyans,

but somehow none of the people from the bounty were killed. I mean, very hard to win a battle, if the other side has gunpowder and steel, and you don't. Just ask the ancient Incas, the Aztecs, or dozens of other conquered peoples. Still, despite not losing any men, it was becoming increasingly clear to the mutineers that their presence was maybe like a little bit or maybe so much unwanted. And after holding the conference on September 10th, they decided to return to Tahiti.

Also, even though it feels obvious that this battle convinced them, a journal from one of the mutineers noted that the decision was actually made, quote, that they might secure women in Tahiti without force. It's fucking horny fucking bastards. Apparently they were trafficking the women on the Dubuance. So back to Tahiti, it was. and that reconnects us with the beginning of this episode when Christian dropped off those from the bounty crew that wanted to stay in Tahiti

and quickly set sail again with more kidnapped women. By this time, Captain Bly was already heading towards England. And only a few months later, by the summer of 1790, the Royal Navy's HMS Pandora, had been dispatched, as we talked about, to round up any bounty mutineers you could find. On board of the Pandora for this journey

would be midshipman Thomas Hayward, one of the loyalists that had sailed home with Bly. Less than a year later, March of 1791, the HMS Pandora would arrive in Tahiti. Three of the crew members swam out to the boat almost immediately hoping it would show that they weren't that involved in the mutiny. Hey, hey, guys, so glad you're here. Oh, man, we've really hated hanging out on these tropical islands, doing whatever we want

and impregnating countless local women. Let's go find that naughty coconut swindler, the real Rapscalli, Fletcher Christian. Let's string him up. The ship's captain, Mr. Edward Edwards. Unfortunately, the unfortunately named Edward Edwards would show them no murder mercy for coming out to apologize. After learning from one of these men, Joseph Coleman, that two of the other crew members had since been murdered. Edwards spent the next two weeks or so hunting down the remaining 11 crew members that were still on the island. They were all successfully captured

and placed in a newly constructed prison hut, a cramped 11-foot-by-11-foot shack nickname Pandora's box for transfer all the way back to England. Damn. Edwards then spent the next three months searching for Christian and the remaining bounty mutineers before eventually given up and turning back towards England. However, shortly after this, as the Pandora was sailing through the Great Barrier Reef, in late August of 1791, the ship would strike part of the reef. After a few hours spent attempting to save the ship, it became clear it was going to sink, and it was evacuated. All 89 crew members and 10 of the prisoners would make it off, 31 crew members and four of those prisoners would sink with the Pandor. Man, people who complain about travel now, you know,

how bad it is, they should have to listen to this episode. We bit easier. getting around the world now than it was then. Oh, you missed your next flight because your first plane was a little bit too late? Oh, poor baby. Was your first flight three months long? Did it then land in the ocean, but you survived and then floated around for a few more months on a tiny little raft, but then were found and hopped into another plane, and then that plane flew around for like most of a year before it exploded. That's kind of like what global travel was like back in the 18th century.

After spending a few days to recover on a nearby island, the 99 survivors, split between four small boats, now had to sail all the way to coupon in the Dutch East Indies, which for reference was basically just a shorter version of Captain Bly's earlier voyage after being thrown off the bounty. By the time the 10 surviving prisoners made it back to England, Bly had already been sent off on another breadfruit expedition, always breadfruit with that guy, this time on a larger ship with Marines to avoid a repeat of the events from the bounty's journey.

And since Bly was not present to say which the prisoners were truly mutineers and which were just unable to fit on the launch he sailed out on, the trials of those 10 prisoners became a bit murky. While four of the prisoners, Norman, McIntosh, Coleman, and Byrne were able to prove pretty clearly that they were not participants in the mutiny. Two of them even had letters from Bligh, declaring their innocence. It would not be so easy for the other six. For three of the remaining prisoners, Burkett, Millward, and Ellison,

the reverse was actually true. It's pretty obvious to everybody involved that they had supported the mutiny. Burkett, who was seen by multiple of the trial's witnesses, carrying a musket, and escorting Bly out of the cabin, attempted to claim that he was actually just playing the long game. He's playing on retaking the bounty from Fletcher, Christian, totally. But then he just never got enough support to do so, so he just kind of leaned into the whole raping and pillaging the local stuff. Milward and Ellison tried similar stories, but they had also been witnessed carrying weapons by multiple people. Unsurprisingly, these three were all found guilty. and would eventually hang for their crimes on October 29, 1794.

And what about the last three sailors? For two of them, Morrison and Haywood, it was pretty difficult to prove decisively if they'd actively opposed the mutiny or not, and for that reason they were found guilty, but with recommendations of the king's mercy. The king would pardon both men, only a few weeks later, and Haywood would actually go on to have a fairly successful naval career.

The third man, Musbrat, was found guilty, but still won his release on some kind of technicality. meanwhile after a successful breadfruit trip bligh arrived back in england in august of 1793 but contrary to his previous status as a national hero opinion had turned against bligh during the trials of his former crew Fletcher Christian's older brother, Edward Christian, so many Edwards back then, was a noted judge in England and dedicated himself to restoring his brother's good name and making Bly appear like a villain.

Also, the number of men from the bounty that had been pardoned was seen as a signal from the Navy that Bly had at least in part brought the mutiny about on himself through poor leadership. Luckily, he still had the support of the influential Joseph Banks. Thanks again for the hookup, Uncle Dunkle,

and Bly served in command of a number of different Royal Navy vessels throughout the next decade or so before catching his next big break. The Royal Colony of New South Wales, which would later become Australia, was having some pretty serious problems with corruption, and British officials apparently hoped that Bounty Bly's reputation as a strict disciplinary, even though it doesn't seem like it was, could help bring the territory in line. It would not. Bly arrived in the colony in 1806 and immediately got to work, sorted out corruption.

But it quickly became clear almost as immediately to everyone in the colony he interacted with that Bly's reputation as a difficult boss came less from him ruling with an iron fist and more from him just kind of being like really fucking annoying and dushy. Bly quickly came into conflict with important officers of the new South Wales Army Corps, otherwise known as the Rum Corps.

That nickname came from the rum-based barter system, the dominated the Australian economy at the time since paper notes and coins were in short supply. Anyway, Bly seemingly neglected to consider that by making enemies of the only fucking soldiers stationed on Australia, he might have been putting himself

a bit of danger. And after Blye indicated that he was planning on charging some of these uncooperative officers with treason, he became the target of the only military coup in the history of Australia. I'm sensing a pattern here. On January 26, 1808, less than two years after Bly had arrived, the New South Wales Corps marched through Sydney to the government house and arrested Blyde, whom they apparently found hiding under his bed. I picture him just laying under there. He's got like a gam in his pocket, maybe like one little coconut in his hand, just hoping he can just wait it out. Bly was put under house arrest and demanded to remain there until the lawfully appointed successor arrived. After a year of waiting, he finally agreed to leave the colony. But once put on a ship

heading back to England, he immediately demanded it head straight for Hobart, Australia, where he hoped to find support for Lieutenant Governor David Collins. But Collins did not support Bly. Nobody liked this guy. And Bly Bly went right back to Sydney, where his successor, Lachlan Macquarie, a guy sometimes now called the father of the nation of Australia, very well-liked, had just arrived. Lockland did a little bit better job than Billy Bly. Bly finally returned to England in 1810. No one was already seemingly to Australia, where he watched as George Johnson,

the leader of the Rum Corps, was given a very light sentence, even after being found guilty of treason. The court cited their reasoning for the sentence as Johnson having been placed under extraordinary circumstances during Bly's tenure as governor, which basically amounted to, yeah, that was definitely treason. but bligh is a fucking prick so you know we get it by this point bligh's days of active service

were over and then he lived relatively quietly back home in england for seven more years before he died his stomach cancer december 7th eighteen seventeen poor bastard so that's the end of bligh's story but what about fletcher christian and the remaining bounty mutineers who were not found by the british navy what happened to them this is way more interesting than the other guys well after pulling out of a uh pulling out of matavai bay that word gives me trouble every time i try to say it uh matavai bay for the last time on september 24th 1789 the bounty seemed to vanish completely and for almost two decades afterwards the outside world was left completely in the dark about what happened to fletcher christian and the rest of his crew but on february 6 1808 while the american

whaling ship towpaths was making its way across the pacific it happened across the very remote, extremely isolated, Pitcairn Island, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, almost fucking nothing around it, and the story of what happened was quickly revealed. After fleeing Tahiti, Christian traveled around the South Pacific,

looking for a suitable island to settle. This would take almost four months, in which time the rest of the mutineers began to grow restless. But finally, on January 15, 1790, Christian spotted Pitcairn Island, this small, uninhabited at the time, isolated, volcanic,

island, just 1.7 square miles in size, over a thousand miles east of Tahit. The island had been sighted by Europeans once previously, but luckily for the crew of the bounty, the longitude recorded by those previous sailors was off by a couple hundred miles, meaning it was unlikely to be found again by anyone relying on the location given by any available maps. Still, just to be safe, the mutineers would run the bounty ashore, burn it, let the wreckage sink so that no European vessels passing by would spot the ship. The island was seemingly perfect for settlement, but even though there were no locals for the mutineers to get in trouble with, things still started off badly. Land and women were divided up between the mutineers, who would essentially trade these women around, these poor women, and the Polynesian men were basically treated as slaves, which unsurprisingly led to tensions.

Fights quickly broke out between the mutineers and the Polynesian men, and before five years had passed, all six of the Polynesian men had been killed, as well as six of the ten remaining mutineers in various little scribes. skirmishes, including Fletcher Christian, who most historians believe was shot and then axed to death in his garden by some Polynesian men in an uprising. His last words were supposedly, oh dear! That's a great pair of last words. Oh, dear! Not the axe! A few more years passed in relative peace, but after William McCoy learned how to brew alcohol from the roots of a local plant, things got bad again. That's crazy. What?

Alcohol causing problems? It must be the only time that's ever happened. McCoy lost his mind, really effects of his fucking bootleg, island alcohol. And this is ridiculous. Committed suicide by tying his hands and feet together and then throwing himself into the ocean. That's a fucking extreme way to die. He must have rolled in the ocean rather than throwing himself since, you know, he's all tight up. Then in 1799, Matthew Quintall, another mutineer, became such an aggressive, threatening alcoholic.

He was, quote, put to death by the other two remaining men, Edward Young and John Adams. Not long after this, in December of 1800, Edward Young died of asthma. This meant that there was only one surviving mutineer, John Adams, as well as 10 women and an unknown number of children that have been born since moving to Pitcairn Island. For a while, Adam spent his days drinking, naturally, and the women kept the community alive. Then at some point he got so drunk, he began to hallucinate. And he had a transformative religious vision, and now, although he could barely read, he began leading Sunday services

and became a father figure to the rest of the community. Okay. With the growth of the whaling industry in the Pacific, ships like the Topaz came by increasingly often sharing the story of what happened

with the rest of the world and often being impressed by the moral character of the islanders. Adams would die at the age of 65, March 5th, 1829, and was mourned by the whole community of, I don't know, 50, 60 people

or so at that time. Unfortunately, since Adam's death, the rest of Pitcairn's history has been far less inspirational. But definitely interesting. The entire population left the island at numerous points, resettled by the British government, as it was and is a British territory. But every time a good number of people would miss the island and want to return. The population peaked at 233 people in 1937. It's around 40 people today. And many of them are descendants of the

mutineers. The tiny island has two different museums dedicated to the mutiny. They still have the ship's original Bible, the current mayor, Charlene, Evelyn, Dolly, Warren, Pugh is an eighth-generation descendant of the bounty mutineers.

She runs the island's post office, manages a homestay for visitors, and produces honey with her husband. It's crazy that people still live there. It's so remote and it's so tiny. The closest airport is over 300 miles away. You can only get there by ship. Mail is only delivered

three to four times a year from New Zealand. They do have electricity from a combination of a diesel generator and solar panels. They now have satellite internet, thanks to Starlink, no cell tower, unsurprisingly. They do have a doctor. A new doctor is rotated in every six months. They have a tiny school. A teacher is also rotated in. Teacher is also the principal, school nurse, counselor, everything.

They have one general store. I'm not kidding about these hours. Open for one hour a day, three days a week. They also have two police officers, which is crazy to me. One's a local officer. The other is somebody rotated in from New Zealand. It sounds like the kind of assignment you get if you're being punished. Do you want to go to fucking Pitcairn?

Huh? Then fucking stop complaining. It sounds like one of the strangest places to live in the world. And sadly, this remote tropical paradise has been a hell for many of the island's female children over the years. Most of Pitcairn Islands relevance today actually comes from a massive sexual assault scandal that came out a few years ago. In 1996, a woman originally from Pitcairn, but lived in England at the time, revealed that she had suffered constant sexual abuse throughout her childhood. And when an officer from the English county of Kent,

detective investigator, Peter George, has there ever been a more British name than Peter George? I was sent to the island to investigate claims of sexual assault. He was horrified by what he found. As an article in the Times writes, All the women he managed to speak to had a story about abuse. Quote, there wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn who, once they reached the age of 10, was still a virgin, he remembers one telling him. Oh, my God. Those involved with this case quickly realized the scale of what was happening on the island, an operation unique was established in the year 2000 to fully investigate this matter.

One of the most difficult things about dealing with the isolated community was that since literally almost every single dude on the island was involved. arresting all of them would just leave the island unable to function going forward and it would be doomed and because of that it wasn't until 2014 that the cases were officially taking to trial that is absurd

waited 14 more years all but one of the men were found guilty after all that but many of them were given very light sentences and most are back in the community today luckily the international attention brought by the cases has meant that the British government is keeping a much closer eye on the men of Pitcairn Island.

We've got those two officers now, but still that is fucked. And on that less than positive note, there you have it. The real story behind the mutiny on the bounty. Unfortunately, not too many inspirational characters in this one,

but that probably gives you a better idea of what life in the Royal Navy was really like, especially compared to popular depictions of the events. You know, there was an annoying cheese-swiping captain and a a bunch of horny, nefarious coconut-thieving sailors. And that's what life was really like.

And that's it for this edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. If you enjoyed the story, check out the rest of the bad magic catalog, beefier episodes at Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time. And new episodes of the now long-running paranormal podcast, care to death every Tuesday at midnight, with two episodes of Nightmare Fuel, some fictional horror thrown into the mix each month. Thanks to my son, Kyler, for their initial research on this one.

thanks to Logan Keith, or they're his. Yeah, it was cool work with my son on this one. And thanks to Logan Keith polishing up the sound of today's episode. Please go to bad magic productions.com for all your bad magic needs and have yourself a great weekend. Mad Magic Productions