On this date in 1789 the Mutiny on the Bounty occured. The ship was on a mission to the South Pacific to pick up breadfruit plants and take them to the West Indies to be grown as food for slaves. Relations between Captain William Bligh and sailing master Fletcher Christian deteriorated over the course of the voyage. Because they could not navigate through the weather at Cape Horn they had to reverse direction and sail through the Cape of Good Hope and across the entire Indian Ocean. It was 10 months of hard sailing before they reached Tahiti. They spent five months there preparing the plants and enjoying the company of the scantily clad native women. On April 5th they set sail and by the 28th tensions boiled over. Given the choice between Bligh’s cruelty and Tahitian babes, the babes won hands down. Bligh and those loyal to him were set adrift and miraculously survived 47 day voyage in an open boat.
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