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 first and second cousins. Occasionally a new person would arrive on the island bringing with them a new surname.
The nine remaining mutineers arrived on the island on 15 January 1790 with eleven Tahitian women and six men. Each of the mutineers took one woman as a wife, with the three remaining women to be shared by the six Tahitian men, which they resented. According to author Caroline Alexander, the women were "passed around from one 'husband' to the other". Fletcher Christian, Ned Young, John Adams, John Mills, William McCoy, and Matthew Quintal had relationships with six Tahitian women. Mauatua, Toofaiti, Vahineatua, and Teio had children from two of the mutineers and one of their sons. Tevarua and Teraura had only one partner. Together they had 24 children, who in turn had 77 children.
When John Williams and John Adams' wives died, they commandeered two of the Polynesian men's wives, who plotted to kill the men in retribution. Two of the plotters were killed instead. On 20 September 1793, the four remaining Polynesian men stole muskets and killed Christian, Mills, Brown, Martin, and Williams. The remaining seamen—Adams, McCoy, Quintal, and Young, with the assistance of Teraura, the wife of Ned Young—who beheaded the Polynesian Tetahiti while he slept—soon killed the Polynesian men. In 1798, McCoy built a still. He, Quintal, and some of the women were continually drunk. On 20 April 1798, McCoy attached a rock to his neck with a rope and leaped over a cliff to his death. Quintal became increasingly erratic and threatened to kill the other seamen and their wives. In 1799, Adams and Young killed him. Young died of an asthma attack in 1800. Adams lived until 1829.
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The majority of the many rulers of the Pitcairn Islands have been descendants of the Bounty mutineers, till this day.
In 1935 – in the wake of their successful American blockbuster movie Mutiny on the Bounty, which premiered that year – the MGM Studios also shot a short documentary with the title "Pitcairn Island Today". It tells the story of some of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers, who were natives of Pitcairn and inhabitants of the only village of the island, Adamstown.
The list of descendants mentioned and presented in this MGM documentary includes:
On top of those, three more people are mentioned in the MGM documentary: Andrew Warren, as well as Dora Warren and Roy Clark, whose exact direct descent from the mutineers remains unclear, when judging only from the information that the documentary reveals.
A 1962 documentary, Pitcairn People, was produced by the British Petroleum Company. It featured many of the island residents of that time. Another documentary, Miracle on Pitcairn Island, was produced in the 1960s by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. It featured many of the same residents.