Mutiny on the Bounty Mutiny on the Bounty The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel occurred in the south Pacific 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 18 loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island. Bligh meanwhile completed a voyage of more than in the launch to reach safety, and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice. "Bounty" had left England in 1787 on a mission to collect and transport breadfruit plants
Mutiny on the Bounty Endeavour Strait and across the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans to the West Indies islands in the Caribbean. "Bounty" would thus complete a circumnavigation of the Earth in the Southern Hemisphere. "Bounty"'s complement was 46 men, comprising 44 Royal Navy seamen (including Bligh) and two civilian botanists. Directly beneath Bligh were his warrant officers, appointed by the Navy Board and headed by the sailing master John Fryer. The other warrant officers were the boatswain, the surgeon, the carpenter, and the gunner. To the two master's mates and two midshipmen were added several honorary midshipmen—so-called "young gentlemen" who were aspirant naval