Descendants of the Bounty mutineers Descendants of the Bounty mutineers The descendants of the "Bounty" mutineers and their Tahitian consorts include the modern-day Pitcairn Islanders as well as a little less than half of the population of Norfolk Island. Their descendants also live in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. Because of the scarcity of people on the island, many of the mutineers' children and grandchildren intermarried, with some marrying cousins and second cousins. Occasionally a new person would arrive on the island bringing with them a new surname (like the American Samuel Russell Warren, whose descendants still live on the island today). Fletcher
Mutiny on the Bounty on a British warship, , and arrived at Portsmouth on 19 June. There they were transferred to the guardship to await trial. The prisoners included the three detained loyalists—Coleman, McIntosh and Norman—to whom Bligh had promised justice, the blind fiddler Michael Byrne (or "Byrn"), Heywood, Morrison, and four active mutineers: Thomas Burkett, John Millward, Thomas Ellison and William Muspratt. Bligh, who had been given command of HMS "Providence" for a second breadfruit expedition, had left England in August 1791, and thus would be absent from the pending court martial proceedings. The court martial opened on 12 September 1792 on in