Transportation and organization of transportations The military-economic preparation of the country is inconceivable without a developed and uninterruptedly working transport. The coherence of the Soviet economy on the territory of 22.3 million square meters. km occupied by the Soviet Union depends on the degree of development

V. MILITARY TRANSPORT Development modern ways armed struggle is inextricably linked with increased troop mobility. Therefore, the role of military transport is now growing rapidly. This kind military equipment is less specialized. Here it can be like

Everyone has seen an advertisement for chocolate with a name consonant with the rebellious ship. Advertising clearly hints at freedom, peace and earthly paradise to those who consume this product. The commercial is clearly intended for people who do not know the real story about the Bounty ship.

The history of the campaign of the English warship "Bounty" for breadfruit seedlings, the ups and downs of this dramatic voyage were not lost even among the turbulent events of the 18th century, rich in mutinies, geographical discoveries and other exciting adventures.

The British warship Bounty on April 3, 1789 (according to some sources, on April 4), under the leadership of Captain Bligh, sailed from the coast of Tahiti towards the Caribbean archipelago with a valuable cargo on board. Breadfruit seedlings, the fruits of which were supposed to feed the slaves on the sugar cane plantations of the English colonists in the West Indies, however, did not reach their goal: a mutiny broke out on the ship, as a result of which not only the plants suffered.

As a result of this rebellion and subsequent events, a hitherto unknown island was discovered, novels were written, films were made, and thanks to the efforts of copywriters, the Bounty's dramatic trip to the southern seas is now tightly connected in the public mind with heavenly pleasure.

On Christmas Eve 1787, the three-masted schooner Bounty left the English harbor of Portsmund. There have been rumors about where and why this ship is heading for a long time, but the course and the official goal of the expedition were announced to the sailors already on the high seas. The ship had an exotic destination: not to the New World, not to wild Africa, not to fabulous, but already familiar India, not to the shores of New Holland (Australia) and New Zealand - the path lay on a paradise island in South Seas, as the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean was then called.

The mission, indeed, was unique: not in search of new lands and not to war with the natives, and not even for black slaves or countless treasures, the schooner of the British Royal Navy set off. The Bounty team had to reach paradise island Tahiti, to find and deliver to England a miracle plant, with the help of which it was planned to make an economic revolution. The goal of the long journey was breadfruit seedlings.

At the end of the 18th century, as a result of the American War of Independence, the British Empire lost its richest North American colonies. The infringement of political ambitions is nothing compared to the economic defeat suffered by British businessmen. Of course, in Jamaica and in St. Vincent they still harvested a good harvest of sugar cane, the sale of which brought a decent income to businessmen and the state treasury, but ... The fact is that this same cane was grown by black slaves from Africa, who were fed yams and bananas, and grain and bread flour for them were brought from the American continent.

The independence of the United States of America hurt the pockets of the British slave owners. Now the Americans had to pay completely different money for grain or import it from Europe. Both were expensive and significantly reduced the income from the sale of everything that the slaves raised on plantations. The increase in the cost of maintaining slaves, to put it mildly, upset English businessmen. It was necessary to somehow save the situation - to look for cheap bread. It was then that they remembered that travelers who had visited Tahiti often describe a certain “bread fruit”. These fruits grow on the branches of trees, have a pleasant sweet taste and are the main food for eight months of the year. local residents. For this manna from heaven, the schooner "Bounty" set off.

The famous English traveler Captain Cook wrote that in Polynesia, in Tahiti, bread grows on trees. It was not a metaphor - it was about a plant from the mulberry family, which gives nutritious and tasty fruits the size of a coconut. When the most advanced English planters from the West Indies read Cook's travel notes, which included breadfruit, they realized that the philosopher's stone, at least on the scale of one plantation, had been found. Their bright minds were struck by a brilliant business idea: to transport breadfruit seedlings from Tahiti and feed the slaves with its fruits, thus saving a lot of money on buying real bread. According to calculations, the profit from each plantation should have doubled from this innovation.

The people who mastered the overseas colonies in those days were decisive and fearless, therefore, not being afraid of the wrath of the higher authorities, they sent a petition to the King of England, George III, to contribute to the spread of breadfruit in the places of their settlements. The king was imbued with the needs of the colonists and issued an order to the Admiralty: to equip a ship to Tahiti in order to collect and deliver to the planters of the West Indies the shoots of an amazing plant.

The British navy could not find a suitable ship capable of accommodating, in addition to the crew and provisions, hundreds of seedlings, which needed special care on the way. Building a new ship was too long. The Admiralty bought from a private shipowner for £1,950 a three-masted sailing ship, the Betia, which was converted, equipped with guns and introduced into the Royal Navy under the name Bounty (Generosity). The relatively small size of the ship (displacement 215 tons, length along the upper deck 27.7 meters and width 7.4 meters), characteristic of other sailing ships of that time, was compensated by its large carrying capacity and excellent seaworthiness, and its flat bottom was supposed to protect against catastrophic reef collisions.

If even for a moment imagine life in the military sailing ships XVIII century, then it is not necessary to be surprised at the frequent riots on them. The captains had unlimited power over the crew, even over the officers - to say nothing of the lower ranks, who, for disobedience and intimidation of the rest, could simply be hung up on a yardarm without unnecessary delay. Punishment in the form of flogging was also common. Incredible crowding reigned on small, as a rule, ships, there was often not enough water, the crew suffered from scurvy, which claimed many lives. Strict discipline, arbitrariness on the part of captains and officers, inhuman living conditions more than once provoked bloody clashes on ships. In England, there were few volunteers to serve in the royal navy, forced recruitment flourished: special detachments caught the sailors of the merchant fleet and delivered them chained to the royal ships.

A young but experienced navigator, Lieutenant William Bligh, was appointed commander of the Bounty. By the age of 33, he had already managed to swim in the South Seas on the ships of the famous Cook, visited Polynesia, knew well the West Indies, where he was supposed to deliver breadfruit seedlings. Unfortunately, in addition to a good experience in navigation, Bligh had a bad temper and imbalance, and considered rude violence to be the best way to communicate with the crew.

William Bligh in 1792

November 29, 1787 "Bounty" with a team of 48 people left England to cross Atlantic Ocean, go around Cape Horn and, leaving the Pacific Ocean, go to the island of Tahiti. The purpose of the return journey was the island of Jamaica - across the Indian Ocean, past the Cape Good Hope. Swimming was designed for two years.

Due to a delay due to the fault of the Admiralty, the ship set off late when severe storms raged off Cape Horn. Unable to cope with the fierce winds, Bligh was forced to turn and go to the Cape of Good Hope, crossing the Atlantic in the stormy southern latitudes. Having passed the southern tip of Africa, the Bounty crossed the Indian Ocean for the first time in the history of navigation in the Roaring Forties and safely reached the island of Tasmania, and then Tahiti.

For five months the crew lived in Tahiti, gradually acquiring friends and romantic relationships with beautiful Tahitian women. Describing this period, historians note that the sailors became as swarthy and almost as freedom-loving as the indigenous inhabitants of the island, so when the ship with breadfruit seedlings, carefully dug out and carefully prepared for a long journey, set off for the destination, the crew could not withstand for long. the captain's tyranny, the humiliations that he invented for the crew without counting (according to some evidence, he even flogged an officer!), poor rations and lack of fresh water. Everyone was especially outraged by the fact that the captain saved on water for people in favor of plants that required watering. (However, it is a matter of honor for captains of all times to keep the cargo intact, and people are an easily replenished resource).

On April 28, a rebellion broke out on the Bounty, led by first assistant Fletcher Christian, to whom Despot Bligh showed particular dislike. Caught in bed by the rebellious sailors, bound hand and foot before he could offer any resistance, Bligh, in his shirtsleeve, was led on deck where a sort of trial was held, presided over by Lieutenant Fletcher Christien.

Although the rest of the ship's officers remained on the side of the captain, they showed themselves cowardly: they did not even try to resist the rebels. The rebellious sailors put Bligh together with his 18 supporters in a barge, provided them with water, food and edged weapons, and left the Tofua Islands in the sea in sight ... And the Bounty, after a short wander across the ocean, returned to Tahiti. There was a split among the rebels. Most were going to stay on the island and enjoy life, and a minority listened to the words of Christian, who predicted that one day the British fleet would come to the island and the rebels would fall to the gallows.

The crew of the longboat, led by Captain Bligh, with a minimum supply of food and without nautical charts made an unprecedented passage of 3618 nautical miles and after 45 days reached the island of Timor, the Dutch colony in the East Indies, from where it was already possible to return to England without any problems. During the voyage, the captain did not lose a single person, the losses were only during skirmishes with the natives.

“I invited my companions to land on shore,” says Bly. Some could barely move their legs. All that was left of us was skin and bones: we were covered in wounds, our clothes were in tatters. In this state, joy and gratitude brought tears to our eyes, and the people of Timor silently, with an expression of horror, surprise and pity, looked at us. Thus, with the help of Providence, we overcame the hardships and difficulties of such a dangerous journey!”

Portrait of William Bligh in 1814

The rebels who remained in Tahiti were captured in 1791 by Captain Edwards, the commander of the Pandora, which the British government sent in search of the rebels with orders to deliver them to England. But the Pandora ran into an underwater reef, killing 4 rebels and 35 sailors. Of the ten rebels brought to England along with the shipwrecked sailors of the Pandora, three were sentenced to death.

On his return to England, he continued his service in the Navy, and was soon sent again for the ill-fated breadfruit seedlings. This time he managed to bring them to Jamaica, where these trees quickly took root and began to bear fruit. But the Negro slaves refused to eat the fruits of this tree. However, this incident no longer had anything to do with Captain Bligh. Upon his return to England, he was met with a cold reception at the Admiralty. In his absence, a court session was held, where the former rebels brought charges against the captain and won the case (in the absence of Bligh). The main evidence of the events on the ship was the diary of James Morrison, who was pardoned, but longed to wash the shame of the rebel from the name of the family. The diary contradicts the ship's journal entries and was written after the events. These notes became the basis of the novel.

In 1797, William Bligh was one of the captains of the ships whose crews mutinied in the mutiny at Spithead and Burrow. Despite the fulfillment of some of the demands of the sailors at Spithead, other vital matters for the sailors were not resolved. Bligh was again one of the captains affected by the mutiny - this time in the Burrow. During this time, he learned that his nickname in the Navy was that Bounty Bastard.

In November of the same year, as captain of HMS Director, he took part in the Battle of Camperdown. Bligh fought with three Dutch ships: Haarlem, Alkmaar and Vrijheid. While the Dutch suffered heavy losses, only 7 sailors on HMS Director were wounded.

William Bligh took part under the command of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen on April 2, 1801. Bligh commanded HMS Glatton, a 56-gun ship of the line, which was experimentally armed exclusively with carronades. After the battle, Bligh personally thanked Nelson for his contribution to the victory. He got his ship safely between the banks while three other ships ran aground. When Nelson pretended not to notice signal 43 from Admiral Parker (stop fighting) and raised signal 16 (continue fighting), Bligh was the only captain who could see the conflict between the two signals. He followed Nelson's orders, and as a result, all the ships behind him continued firing.

Caricature of Bligh's arrest in Sydney in 1808 depicting Bligh as a coward

Bligh was offered the governorship of New South Wales in March 1805, with a salary of £2,000 a year, double that of the former governor, Philip Gidley King.

He arrived in Sydney in August 1806, becoming the fourth governor of New South Wales. There he survived another mutiny (the Rum Riot) when, on 26 January 1808, the New South Wales Corps under Major George Johnston arrested him. He was sent to Hobart on the Porpoise, with no support to regain control of the colony, and remained effectively imprisoned until January 1810.

Bligh returned from Hobart to Sydney on January 17, 1810, to formally hand over the post to the next governor and bring Major George Johnston to Britain for trial. On the ship Porpoise he left Sydney on 12 May 1810 and arrived in England on 25 October 1810. The Tribunal dismissed Johnston from the Marine Corps and the British military. Subsequently, Bligh was awarded the rank of Rear Admiral, and 3 years later, in 1814, he received a new promotion and became Vice Admiral.

Bligh died in Bond Street, London on 6 December 1817 and was buried in the family plot at St Mary's Church, Lambeth. This church is now the Horticulture History Museum. On his grave, a breadfruit is depicted. The plaque is on Bligh's house, one block east of the Museum.

Christian gathered a team of eight like-minded people, lured six Tahitians and eleven Tahitians to the Bounty and sailed away to look for a new homeland. In January 1790, nine rebels, twelve Tahitian women and six Polynesians from Tahiti, Raiatea and Tupuai and a child landed on an uninhabited island lost in the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

It was literally the end of the earth - four thousand miles southeast of the island, no land, an endless oceanic desert. southern part The Pacific Ocean is one of the most deserted and far from civilization regions of the planet, it is no coincidence that exhausted space stations are dropped here.

Having unloaded the food available on the Bounty and removed all the gear that could be useful, the sailors burned the ship. Thus the Pitcairn colony was founded.

Meanwhile, the colonists for some time were quite satisfied with life, since the gifts of nature on the island were enough for everyone. The aliens built huts and cleared land. The natives whom they had taken away, or who themselves voluntarily followed them, were graciously given over to the duties of slaves by the English. Two years passed without any major quarrels. However, there was one "resource" that was very limited on Pitcairn - women. It started because of them...

The Polynesian part of the male population demanded equality. First of all, the women were not divided. Each of the nine sailors had his own "wife", and for the six natives there were only three ladies. The discontent of the disadvantaged grew into a conspiracy.

When in 1793 the Tahitian wife died of one of the rebels, the white settlers did not think of anything better than to take the wife from one of the Tahitians. He was offended and killed the new husband of his girlfriend. The rebels killed the avenger, and the remaining Tahitians rebelled against the rebels themselves. Christian and four of his men were killed by the Tahitians. It would seem that everything, but the killings did not end there. The Tahitian wives of the sailors went to avenge their murdered husbands and killed the rebellious Tahitians. All male Polynesians were destroyed. Now four sailors remained on the island (midshipman Young and sailors McCoy, Quintal and Smith) with several women and children.

For a while there was a lull. The settlers equipped their homes, cultivated the land, harvested sweet potatoes and yams, raised pigs and chickens, fished, and had children. But if Young and Smith lived peacefully, then two bosom buddies McCoy and Quintal behaved aggressively. They learned how to make moonshine and regularly staged drunken brawls. In the end, McCoy died in a drunken stupor by jumping into the sea. And Quintal, having lost his wife (she broke while collecting bird eggs on a rock), became completely brutal: he began to demand the wives of Young and Smith, threatened to kill their children. It all ended with Smith and Yang conspiring to hack Quintal with an axe.

Since then, peace has reigned on Pitcairn. Two adult men felt their responsibility for the fate of the small colony, for the future of women and children. Young taught the illiterate Smith to read. Regular Bible readings and services began on the island. Young died of asthma in 1800. By the beginning of the 19th century, the sailor Alexander Smith (his adopted name was John Adams) became the sole ruler of Pitcairn.

This man, who had thought a lot about his former disorderly life, completely reborn as a result of repentance, had to fulfill the duties of father, clergyman, mayor and king. With his justice and firmness, he managed to win unlimited influence in this strange community.

An extraordinary mentor of morality, who in the days of his youth violated all laws, for whom nothing was sacred before, now preached mercy, love, harmony, and a small colony under the meek, but at the same time firm guidance of this man, who at the end of his life became a righteous man. .

Such was the morale of the Pitcairn colony at the time when William Beechey's ship appeared off its coast to supplement his cargo of sealskins.

In 1808 Pitcairn Island was discovered by the fishing vessel Topaz. They noticed that the island was inhabited by inhabitants of an unusual race. As it turned out later, these were the children of Alexander Smith, one of the rebels of the "romantic" ship. Smith himself, it turned out, was a priest on the island and taught literacy.

The captain considered the island uninhabited; but, to his great amazement, a pirogue came aboard the ship with three mestizo youths who spoke English quite well. The surprised captain began to question them and learned that their father served under the command of Lieutenant Bligh. The odyssey of this officer of the English fleet at that time was known to the whole world and served as the subject of evening conversations on the forecastles of ships of all countries.

The first visitors were struck by the small people living on a godforsaken island, and the atmosphere of goodwill and peace reigning in the colony. The patriarch of Pitcairn, John Adams, made a huge impression on everyone. When the question arose of his arrest, the British authorities forgave the former rebel and left him alone. Adams died in 1829, at the age of 62, surrounded by numerous and passionately loving children and women. The only village on the island, Adamstown, is named after him.

Pitcairn became part of the British Empire, an English colony in the South Seas. In 1831, London decided to resettle the islanders in Tahiti. It ended tragically: despite the warm welcome, the Pitcairns were unable to live away from their homeland, and within two months 12 people died (including Thursday October Christian, Fletcher Christian's firstborn). 65 islanders returned home.

In 1856, a second resettlement of residents was undertaken - this time to the uninhabited island of Norfolk, the former English penal servitude. But again, many of the Pitcairns wanted to return to their homeland. So the heirs of the "Bounty" were divided into two settlements: Norfolk and Pitcairn.

Today, direct descendants of the rebels still live on Pitcairn. The colony is a unique political, economic and socio-cultural entity in Pacific Ocean. The island has its own coat of arms, flag and anthem, but Pitcairn is not an independent state, but " overseas territory United Kingdom, the last vestige of the once great British Empire. The islanders speak a strange dialect - a mixture of Old English and several Polynesian dialects. There is no television, sewerage, running water, ATMs and hotels, but there is a satellite phone, radio and the Internet. The main source of income for local residents is the export of postage stamps and the sale of the .pn domain name.

Pitcairn is administratively subordinate to the British government in Auckland, located approximately 5300 km from the island. In 1936, up to 200 people lived on Pitcairn, but every year the number of inhabitants decreases, as people leave to work or study in New Zealand and never return. Currently, 47 people live on the island.

Among the few Pitcairn relics, Fletcher Christian's Bounty Bible, carefully preserved in a glass case in the church, is considered the main one. It was stolen (or lost - the details of its disappearance are still unknown) in 1839, but returned to the island in 1949. The Bounty anchor, discovered by the National Geographic Society expedition, flaunts on a plinth near the walls of the courthouse, and a little further down the The road was equipped with guns from the Bounty raised from the bottom of the sea. Among the sights of the island, you will definitely be shown the anchor from the ship "Acadia", which was wrecked on Ducie Island, and on the other side of Bounty Bay - the grave of John Adam, the only one preserved from the graves of the rebels.

The island became a British colony in 1838. Currently, the British High Commissioner in New Zealand is also Governor of Pitcairn. The island has a local self-government body - the Island Council, which consists of a magistrate, 5 members elected annually, 3 members appointed for one year by the governor, and the secretary of the island.

The story of the rebels continues to this day. In the fall of 2004, an unprecedented scandal around Pitcairn Island spilled onto the front pages of many Western newspapers: a trial was held in Adamstown over several men on the island, accused of numerous rapes and sexual harassment of underage girls.

Remembering the Bounty

The dramatic story of the voyage of the Bounty was subsequently replicated by writers, artists, filmmakers, in the 20th century it became especially popular thanks to films (there were four of them, the first in 1916, the last, with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, in 1984 , various travel essays and Merle's novel "The Island". And when the Mars company named its chocolate bar with coconut after the "Bounty", it became clear that the planetary glory of the rebellious ship went, apparently, not in vain.

The first significant writer who became interested in the history of the Bounty was Jules Verne - his story The Rebels from the Bounty was published in 1879. The writer collected material about the rebellion on the English ship while working on his History of Great Journeys and Great Travelers.

The most detailed study of the voyage of the rebel ship was made by Bengt Danielsson, a member of the famous expedition of Thor Heyerdahl on the Kon-Tiki raft, in the book On the Bounty to the South Seas.

Different authors differently obtained the main engine of the plot, Captain William Bly (Jules Verne, for example, saw him as a noble victim of circumstances), they painted the episodes of a happy stop in Tahiti and the details of the riot in different ways. But the grateful public, always with an unchanging and undying interest, reasonably exploited by the entertainment industry, perceived this distant story, which still boggles the imagination not only with the cruelty of morals and the exotic component, but also with the human desire for freedom.

By the way, so far in specialized publications you can find drawings of the lost ship, instructions describing the assembly of models. People play this game with passion: build your own Bounty.

Here you can watch the trip around the island of Theme Lebedev.

In the fall of 2012, there was a storm off the coast of America. Tropical Storm Sandy, which formed in the western Caribbean, began to gain strength after passing through Jamaica. It was reclassified as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale on Wednesday evening. After Cuba, the hurricane passed over Haiti and headed towards Bahamas. In the future, weather forecasters predict its path along east coast USA.

On the way of Hurricane Sandy in North Carolina, the legendary sailboat Bounty, which was used in the filming of the popular Pirates of the Caribbean series, sank.

The vessel carrying 16 people stopped communicating on Sunday night. On Monday morning, the Coast Guard began searching for the sailboat. When the rescuers, surveying the area from the air, found the sailboat, the crew had already left the sinking ship and moved into a life raft. Despite the difficult weather, caused by Hurricane Sandy - winds reaching 65 kilometers per hour and waves more than three meters high - rescuers were able to lift sailors aboard a helicopter.

However, later it turned out that not everyone managed to escape. According to the owner of the ship, Bob Hansen, while boarding the raft, three sailors were washed away into the water by a wave. One of them managed to get to the raft, two more, including the captain of the ship, Robin Wolbridge, were carried away by the current.

The sailboat also made tourist cruises in the Caribbean.

The Bounty, launched in Lunenberg, Canada in 1960, is a replica of a historic ship burned in a crew mutiny in 1790. The new ship became famous after it was used on the set of the film Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando. Most often, the ship was used as a training ship.

The replica HMS Bounty tall ship is shown in this 2011 handout photo supplied by HMS Bounty Organization LLC
Replica of HMS Bounty in Swinoujscie, Poland, 2012. (REUTERS/HMS Bounty Organization LLC/Handout)

Among the ancient marine chronicles, with their well-known episodes, amazing and often dramatic adventures, a certain place is occupied by the incident with the British military transport entitled " Bounty”, which means “generosity”.

At the end of the 18th century, command revolts on British warships were quite common. Severe discipline, bullying by the captains, as well as inhuman living conditions, more than once were the causes of bloody events. In those days, long-distance voyages were inevitably accompanied by heavy losses of people, mainly due to scurvy. Because of this, in British sailing courts there were very few volunteers to serve, so the forced recruitment of sailors flourished.

The captain in Tahiti began to arouse interest among merchants in the "breadfruit tree", which gives delicious fruits the size of cabbage. The English planters in the West Indies also became interested in this. They realized that if these fruits were replaced with real bread, their profits would double. A letter from the farmers was handed to the King of England George III, who ordered to equip a ship to Tahiti and deliver the shoots of this amazing plant.

captain of the Bounty sailing ship William Bly

The Admiralty purchased for £1950 three-masted ship, which soon became known as the Bounty. The sailboat "Bounty" was distinguished by excellent seaworthiness. Lieutenant was appointed commander William Bly. The ship set sail on November 29, 1787. The voyage turned out to be extremely difficult, but the sailboat reached the island of Tahiti without much adventure. For five months, the team prepared seedlings for a long-term transportation to England.

After parking on April 4, 1789, the Bounty sailboat went to sea with cargo on board. Hateful everyday life began again in the life of an ordinary crew. The hatred for the commander accumulated during the voyage spilled out on April 28, when the ship was already at a distance of 1300 miles from Tahiti.

In the morning, the rebels broke into the captain's cabin, tied him up and dragged him on deck for trial. Trying to do without bloodshed, navigator Fletcher Christian, who became the object of cavils from outside captain, convinced the rebellious crew to put Bligh and 18 people on a longboat and send them from the Bounty sailboat to all four directions. There were 18 rebels on the ship, 4 supporters of the captain and two people who did not participate in the events.

The mutiny took place at a distance of about 30 nautical miles from the island of Tofua, on which Bligh wanted to land to replenish provisions. But the natives of Tofua threw stones at the boat, as a result of which midshipman John Norton died. Left with nothing and fearing local cannibals, William Bly decides to go to the island of Timor, located at a distance of 3618 nautical miles (6710 km) from Tofua. Oddly enough, but after a 47-day journey on a 7-meter launch, the team reached the goal. Lieutenant Bligh returned to Britain and on 15 March 1790 reported the mutiny to the Admiralty.

Subsequently, William Bly, already in the rank of captain, made a second expedition for breadfruit and botanical specimens of the flora, which ended in success. Bligh was later promoted to vice admiral and in 1808 was appointed governor of New South Wales.

undesirable crew landed from the sailboat "Bounty"

Meanwhile, the rebels on the Bounty sailed to the island of Tubai, where they tried to establish a colony, but three months later, after the attack of the natives, they returned to Tahiti. Leaving there 12 rebels and 4 people loyal to Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian, eight sailors, six Tahitian men and 11 women (one with a child) sailed on the Bounty sailing ship in the hope of hiding from the British Royal Navy. The Tahitians were not warned about the departure, as the main goal was the abduction of women. The rebels passed Fiji and the Cook Islands. On January 15, 1790, the sailing ship Bounty moored at the Pitcairn Islands. The ship was unloaded and burned on January 23, 1790 in one of the lagoons. (The ship's ballast stones are still visible in the waters of the Bounty Bay lagoon).

map of wanderings of the sailboat "Bounty"

Bounty Bay

colony start new life. Fletcher Christian became the recognized leader of this small community and pursued a policy of justice and equality on the island. But in 1793, conflict broke out on the island between rebels and Tahitian men. Four sailors (Jack Williams, Isaac Martin, William Brown, John Mills) and Fletcher Christian himself were killed by the Tahitians. All six Tahitian men were also killed (some were killed by sailors' widows). Of the men on the island, four rebellious sailors remained.

Women's rebellions broke out on the island several times. The reason for them was the eternal drinking of men who produced alcohol from local plants. Soon one of the rebels died of alcohol poisoning, another was killed by John Adams and Need Young. After that, peace reigned in the community.

In 1800, Need Young died of asthma and John Adams was the only adult male on the island. He organized regular Sunday services and took responsibility for the education of the youth. At this time, besides him, nine Tahitian women and more than a dozen children lived on the island.

In 1808, a British fishing vessel approached the island lost in the ocean. vessel"Topaz". To the surprise of the sailors, Pitcairn Island was inhabited. Only then did it become clear that it was inhabited by the descendants of the ill-fated crew of the marine « Bounty» . The last of the rebels, John Adams (calling himself Alexander Smith), acted as priest and teacher.

In 1825, John Adams was amnestied and the capital of the island was named after him - Adamstown. On November 30, 1838, the Pitcairn Islands (including the uninhabited Henderson, Ducie, Sandy and Oeno Islands) were incorporated into the British Empire. In 1856, the population of the islands reached a population of 193 people and the British government provided Norfolk Island for resettlement to the Pitcairns.

Pitcairn Island from space

Adamstown is the capital of the Pitcairn Islands.

Pitcairn Islanders in 1916

On the this moment The Pitcairn Islands is a British Overseas Territory of 67 people (Anglo-Polynesian Mestizo 2011 census) administered by the British High Commissioner in New Zealand. The main memorable day of the islanders is considered January 23 to commemorate the burning of the Bounty sailing ship. total area Pitcairn Islands - 47 km², of which the largest is Henderson (37.3 km²). area of ​​the only inhabited island Pitcairn - 4.6 km², dimensions - an average of 3 × 1.5 km. There are no sources of fresh water on uninhabited islands.

Movie buffs, of course, remember the Hollywood movie The Bounty (1984) with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. Advanced movie connoisseurs will name pictures with Marlon Brando, Clark Gable and even, possibly, with Errol Flynn. Someone must have read the colorful illustrated edition of The Mutinies (from the History of Piracy series) or the translated novel Bounty Riot (The Library of Adventure and Fiction). Older Russian-speaking readers and fans of non-fiction literature are also likely to be familiar with the names "Rebel Ship", "On the Bounty in the South Seas" and "Paradise on the left side of the ship."

Our historians and geographers will certainly refer to the published works of Vladimir Dahl, Otto Kotzebue and, of course, Thor Heyerdahl. Sophisticated librarians and literary critics will find on this subject translated into Russian, but slightly forgotten works of art by the classics: J. G. Byron (“The Island, or Christian and His Comrades”), J. Verne (“Mutiny on the Bounty”), M Twain ("The Great Pitcairn Revolution"), J. London ("Descendant of McCoy"). In addition, there is an essay by L. Jacollio “The Pitcairn Crime” and a novel by R. Merle “The Island”.

This is the basis of the story about the ship, part of which is emphasized in advertising. The attentive reader will note that all of the listed materials are intended, so to speak, "for adolescence." Meanwhile, this story is not a children's story at all. Behind the beautiful external "pirate" romance and tropical exoticism, absolutely adult passions boil inside this drama. In poetic terms, blood and love. Seriously, sex and violence. Cruelty and tenderness. Debauchery and murder. A clash of primal instincts and high intelligence. The conflict between feeling and duty is in the best traditions of classicism. The contradictory fusion of civilization and savagery is in the best traditions of romanticism. Vileness and feat. Loyalty and betrayal. Men and women, or rather, gentlemen and wahinas: British sailors and Polynesian girls.

Only knowing the ending of the story, I perceive advertising .... according to my mood. Who will be able to read to the end, will draw his own conclusion.
When word of the breadfruit reached the most advanced English planters in the West Indies, they had a brilliant business idea: to transport breadfruit seedlings from Tahiti and feed the slaves, thus saving a lot of money on buying real bread. According to calculations, the profit from each plantation should have doubled from this innovation. A petition was sent to King George III of England. Like, come on, the king, help spread the manna tree. The king was imbued with the needs of the colonists and issued an order to the Admiralty: to equip a ship to Tahiti in order to collect and deliver to the planters of the West Indies the shoots of an amazing plant, advertised by Cook in his reports.

The Admiralty, having scratched where it was necessary (well, there was no vessel in service for transporting seedlings that needed care on the way) bought from a private shipowner for £1950 a three-masted sailing ship Betia, which was converted, equipped with guns and introduced into the Royal Navy called "Bounty" ("Generosity"). The relatively small size of the ship (displacement 215 tons, length along the upper deck 27.7 meters and width 7.4 meters), characteristic of other sailing ships of that time, was compensated by its large carrying capacity and excellent seaworthiness, and its flat bottom was supposed to protect against catastrophic reef collisions.

A young but experienced navigator, Lieutenant William Bligh, was appointed commander of the Bounty. By the age of 33, he had already managed to swim in the South Seas on the ships of the famous Cook, visited Polynesia, knew well the West Indies, where he was supposed to deliver breadfruit seedlings. Unfortunately, in addition to a good experience in navigation, Bligh had a bad temper and imbalance, and considered rude violence to be the best way to communicate with the crew. Although on sailing ships of the 18th century, the captains had unlimited power over the crew, even over the officers - what can we say about the lower ranks, who, for disobedience and intimidation of the rest, could simply be hung on a yardarm without unnecessary delay. Punishment in the form of flogging was also common. Incredible crowding reigned on small, as a rule, ships, there was often not enough water, the crew suffered from scurvy, which claimed many lives. Strict discipline, arbitrariness on the part of captains and officers, inhuman living conditions more than once provoked bloody clashes on ships. In England, there were few volunteers to serve in the royal navy, forced recruitment flourished: special detachments caught the sailors of the merchant fleet and delivered them chained to the royal ships.

November 29, 1787 "Bounty" with a team of 48 people left England. According to the instructions of the Admiralty, he was supposed to cross the Atlantic Ocean, go around Cape Horn and, having entered the Pacific Ocean, go to the island of Tahiti. He had to make the return journey, continuing his journey west, across the Indian Ocean, past the Cape of Good Hope and again crossing the Atlantic Ocean, to follow the island of Jamaica. The entire voyage was designed for two years.

Due to a delay due to the fault of the Admiralty, the ship set sail late, when winter had already set in, severe storms and contrary winds raged at Cape Horn, which did not allow to go around this insidious cape. After a long and exhausting struggle with a contrary wind, Bligh was forced to turn 16 points and go to the Cape of Good Hope, crossing the Atlantic in the stormy southern latitudes. After passing the southern tip of Africa, the Bounty crossed the Indian Ocean for the first time in the history of navigation in the Roaring Forties and safely reached the island of Tasmania.
Continuing on its way to the intended goal, the Bounty reached the island of Tahiti without incident - the goal. your swimming. For five months the crew lived in Tahiti, gradually acquiring friends and romantic relationships with liberated Tahitians. Describing this period, historians note that the sailors became as swarthy and almost as freedom-loving as the indigenous inhabitants of the island, so when the ship with breadfruit seedlings, carefully dug out and carefully prepared for a long journey, set off for the destination, the crew could not withstand for long. the captain's tyranny, the humiliations that he invented for the crew without counting, the meager diet and the lack of fresh water. Everyone was especially outraged by the fact that the captain saved on water for people in favor of plants that required watering. (However, it is a matter of honor for captains of all times to keep the cargo intact, and people are an easily replenished resource).

On April 28, a rebellion broke out on the Bounty, led by first assistant Fletcher Christian, to whom Despot Bligh showed particular dislike. Caught in bed by the rebellious sailors, bound hand and foot before he could offer any resistance, Bligh, in his shirtsleeve, was led on deck where a sort of trial was held, presided over by Lieutenant Fletcher Christien.
Although the rest of the ship's officers remained on the side of the captain, they showed themselves cowardly: they did not even try to resist the rebels. The rebellious sailors put Bligh together with his 18 supporters in a barge, supplied them with water, food and edged weapons, and left the Tofua Islands in the sea ... And the Bounty, after a short wander across the ocean, returned to Tahiti. There was a split among the rebels. Most were going to stay on the island and enjoy life, and a minority listened to the words of Christian, who predicted that one day the British fleet would come to the island and the rebels would fall to the gallows. Christian gathered a team of eight like-minded people, lured six Tahitians and eleven Tahitians to the Bounty and sailed away to look for a new homeland. In January 1790, nine rebels, twelve Tahitian women and six Polynesians from Tahiti, Raiatea and Tupuai and a child landed on an uninhabited island lost in the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

It was literally the end of the earth - four thousand miles southeast of the island, no land, an endless oceanic desert. The southern part of the Pacific Ocean is one of the most deserted and far from civilization regions of the planet, it is no coincidence that space stations that have spent their lives are dropped here.
Having unloaded the food available on the Bounty and removed all the gear that could be useful, the sailors burned the ship.
Thus the Pitcairn colony was founded.
The rebels who remained in Tahiti were captured in 1791 by Captain Edwards, the commander of the Pandora, which the British government sent in search of the rebels with orders to deliver them to England. But the Pandora ran into an underwater reef, killing 4 rebels and 35 sailors. Of the ten rebels brought to England along with the shipwrecked sailors of the Pandora, three were sentenced to death.

Bligh's journey with his companions was perilous; for forty-one days they sailed across poorly explored seas in a boat that did not even have a deck, with more than a meager supply of food; at the cost of unheard of hardships, they managed to swim over 6,000 kilometers, losing during this time only one sailor, who was killed at the very beginning by the natives of Tofua!
Having experienced the pangs of thirst and hunger, happily avoiding terrible storms and the teeth of the wild natives of Tofua, Bligh managed to reach the island of Timor, where he was given a warm welcome.
“I invited my companions to land on shore,” says Bly. Some could barely move their legs. All that was left of us was skin and bones: we were covered in wounds, our clothes were in tatters. In this state, joy and gratitude brought tears to our eyes, and the people of Timor silently, with an expression of horror, surprise and pity, looked at us. Thus, with the help of Providence, we overcame the hardships and difficulties of such a dangerous journey!”

On his return to England, he continued his service in the Navy, and was soon sent again for the ill-fated breadfruit seedlings. This time he managed to bring them to Jamaica, where these trees quickly took root and began to bear fruit. But the Negro slaves refused to eat the fruits of this tree. However, this incident no longer had anything to do with Captain Bligh. Upon his return to England, he was met with a cold reception at the Admiralty. In his absence, a court session was held, where the former rebels brought charges against the captain and won the case (in the absence of Bligh). The main evidence of the events on the ship was the diary of James Morrison, who was pardoned, but longed to wash the shame of the rebel from the name of the family. The diary contradicts the ship's journal entries and was written after the events. These notes became the basis of the novel.

Meanwhile, the colonists for some time were quite satisfied with life, since the gifts of nature on the island were enough for everyone. The aliens built huts and cleared land. The natives whom they had taken away, or who themselves voluntarily followed them, were graciously given over to the duties of slaves by the English. Two years passed without any major quarrels. However, there was one "resource" that was very limited on Pitcairn - women. Because of them, it started...

When in 1793 the Tahitian wife died of one of the rebels, the white settlers did not think of anything better than to take the wife from one of the Tahitians. He was offended and killed the new husband of his girlfriend. The rebels killed the avenger, and the remaining Tahitians rebelled against the rebels themselves. Christian and four of his men were killed by the Tahitians. It would seem that everything, but the killings did not end there. The Tahitian wives of the sailors went to avenge their murdered husbands and killed the rebellious Tahitians. All male Polynesians were destroyed. Now four sailors remained on the island (midshipman Young and sailors McCoy, Quintal and Smith) with several women and children.

For a while there was a lull. The settlers equipped their homes, cultivated the land, harvested sweet potatoes and yams, raised pigs and chickens, fished, and had children. But if Young and Smith lived peacefully, then two bosom buddies McCoy and Quintal behaved aggressively. They learned how to make moonshine and regularly staged drunken brawls. In the end, McCoy died in a drunken stupor by jumping into the sea. And Quintal, having lost his wife (she broke while collecting bird eggs on a rock), became completely brutal: he began to demand the wives of Young and Smith, threatened to kill their children. It all ended with Smith and Yang conspiring to hack Quintal with an axe.

Since then, peace has reigned on Pitcairn. Two adult men felt their responsibility for the fate of the small colony, for the future of women and children. Young taught the illiterate Smith to read. Regular Bible readings and services began on the island. Young died of asthma in 1800. By the beginning of the 19th century, sailor Alexander Smith (his adopted name was John Adams) had become the sole ruler of Pitcairn.

This man, who had thought a lot about his former disorderly life, completely reborn as a result of repentance, had to fulfill the duties of father, clergyman, mayor and king. With his justice and firmness, he managed to win unlimited influence in this strange community.
An extraordinary teacher of morality, who in the days of his youth violated all laws, for whom nothing had previously been sacred, now preached mercy, love, harmony, and the small colony flourished under the meek, but at the same time firm management of this man, who at the end of his life became righteous.
Such was the morale of the Pitcairn colony at the time when the ship of William Beechey appeared off the coast of the island to replenish her cargo of sealskins. The captain considered the island uninhabited; but, to his great amazement, a pirogue came aboard the ship with three mestizo youths who spoke English quite well. The surprised captain began to question them and learned that their father served under the command of Lieutenant Bligh. The odyssey of this officer of the English fleet at that time was known to the whole world and served as the subject of evening conversations on the forecastles of ships of all countries.

The first visitors were struck by the small people living on a godforsaken island, and the atmosphere of goodwill and peace reigning in the colony. The patriarch of Pitcairn, John Adams, made a huge impression on everyone. When the question arose of his arrest, the British authorities forgave the former rebel and left him alone. Adams died in 1829, at the age of 62, surrounded by numerous and passionately loving children and women. The only village on the island, Adamstown, is named after him.

Pitcairn became part of the British Empire, an English colony in the South Seas. In 1831, London decided to resettle the islanders in Tahiti. It ended tragically: despite the warm welcome, the Pitcairns were unable to live away from their homeland, and within two months 12 people died (including Thursday October Christian, Fletcher Christian's firstborn). 65 islanders returned home.

In 1856, a second resettlement of residents was undertaken - this time to the uninhabited island of Norfolk, the former English penal servitude. But again, many of the Pitcairns wanted to return to their homeland. So the heirs of the "Bounty" were divided into two settlements: Norfolk and Pitcairn.

Dominican Republic - Island Bounty exist! Today, direct descendants of the rebels still live on Pitcairn. The colony is a unique political, economic and socio-cultural entity in the Pacific Ocean. The island has its own emblem, flag and anthem, but Pitcairn is not an independent state, but a "overseas territory of the United Kingdom", the last fragment of the once great British Empire. The islanders speak a strange dialect - a mixture of Old English and several Polynesian dialects. There is no television, sewerage, running water, ATMs and hotels, but there is a satellite phone, radio and the Internet. The main source of income for local residents is the export of postage stamps and the sale of the .pn domain name.

The story of the rebels continues to this day. In the fall of 2004, an unprecedented scandal around Pitcairn Island spilled onto the front pages of many Western newspapers: a trial was held in Adamstown over several men on the island, accused of numerous rapes and sexual harassment of underage girls.