William McCoy (mutineer)


William McCoy was a Scottish sailor and a mutineer on board HMS Bounty.

Bounty mutiny

Following the mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the Bounty was taken to Tahiti for a few days before being compelled to set sail. McCoy joined Christian and seven other mutineers. They took eleven Tahitian women and six men with them. After months at sea, the mutineers discovered the uninhabited Pitcairn Island and settled there in January 1790.

Personal life

McCoy had one consort, Teio, and fathered two children, Daniel and Catherine. After three years, a conflict broke out between the Tahitian men and the mutineers, resulting in the deaths of all the Tahitian men and five of the Englishmen. McCoy was one of the survivors.

Death

McCoy discovered how to distill alcohol from the sweet syrup of the ti tree root. He, Matthew Quintal, and some of the women would lie around all day in a drunken stupor. On 20 April 1798, while drunk, he killed himself by tying a stone to his neck and leaping off a cliff.