Pitcairn  Source  Whalesite

island, which appeared to him to be well adapted for the purpose of security and seclusion. This island is the rugged and precipitous summit of a submarine volcanic mountain, the highest peak of which rises eleven hundred feet above the surface of the ocean. It is about six miles in length by three in breadth, and is terminated on all sides by cliffs and rocky projections. Around it lie scattered numerous fragments of rocks, rising like so many black pinnacles amidst the surf which rolls in from every side upon the shore. The interior of the island, with the exception of a few small valleys, is filled with rocks and precipices, and so small is the portion that can be cultivated, that even in the climate of perpetual summer, and the region of the banana and the bread fruit, it will barely support more than one or two hundred people. The Bounty arrived at this island in the first month 1790, and the crew, after taking out all that was valuable to them, ran her upon the rocks and burnt her. The names of these ill fated men were Christian, Young, Brown, Mills, Williams, Quintal, M'Coy, Martin, and Smith. They divided the island among them, into nine parts, built a village, and retaining the natives as friends and assistants, gradually made them their slaves, and obliged them to perform the severer labours of the field. They lived together peaceably for about two years, when Williams, who was their armourer, and whose wife died soon after their arrival, became very much dissatisfied, and threatened to leave the island unless they gave him another wife. As all the women had husbands, the only method of gratifying him was to take the wife of some other of the men and give her to him. Rather than lose the services of their armourer, the whites compelled one of the natives to give up his wife to Williams. Indignant at the outrage, the islanders formed a plan to murder all the whites. It was made known to the women, who betrayed the secret in a song, the words of which were, "Why does black man sharpen axe to kill white man." The native whose wife had been taken from him, and who was the leader in the plot, escaped to the mountains with another, and the rest finding themselves detected, submitted quietly and offered to take and kill the fugitives. This treacherous deed they performed, and the injured native, whose oppression had excited the insurrection, was murdered by the very woman who had been his wife.

      Tranquillity was then preserved for two years longer, when the tyranny of Quintal and M'Coy provoked another insurrection. The natives in this attempt were more successful; they killed Christian, Mills, Martin, Williams, and Brown. Quintal and M'Coy fled to the mountains. Smith was wounded, but his life was saved, as was also that of Young, who had always been a favourite with the women. The natives lived peaceably for nearly a week, when the men quarrelled about the women. Two of them fought, one of whom was killed, and the other fled to the mountains, and joined Quintal and M'Coy. They immediately shot him in order to make peace with the remaining natives. The women soon became tired of the remaining native men, and killed one in his sleep, at the same time that Young shot the other. Quintal and M'Coy now returned to the village, and as they and Young and Smith were all the men that were left, they lived peaceably together, occupying themselves with building, planting, fencing, fishing, and shooting.

THE MUTINEERS OF THE BOUNTY.

      The women soon became much dissatisfied with their situation, and very anxious to return to their native island. They persuaded the men to build a boat to enable them to perform the voyage. It was finished in 1794, but was so badly constructed that it upset as soon as it was launched, and the exiles were obliged to abandon the hope of regaining their native shores. The women suffered much from the cruelty of Quintal and M'Coy, and resolved to murder the men in their sleep; the plot was however discovered and prevented; and although frequent threats were held out of vengeance, they never succeeded in their purpose. Two canoes were built by the men, which they used successfully in fishing. In 1795, the first European ship they had beheld since the destruction of the Bounty came close to the island; but the heavy surf prevented the crew from landing.

      M'Coy, who had been a distiller in Scotland, fermented the juice of the tee plant (dracoena terminalis), and distilled it in a tea kettle, by which means he obtained a bottle of spirits. His success induced him frequently to repeat the experiment, and he gave himself up to the gratification of a passion for ardent spirits. In a fit of drunken delirium he threw himself from the rocks and was killed. His miserable end made so strong an impression on his companions, that they gave up entirely the use of spirits, and would not suffer any more to be made. In 1799 Quintals wife fell from a rock and was killed. He determined to have the wife of Smith or Young in her place, and sought to rid himself of them by violent means. Seeing him

thus desperate and ferocious, they agreed to treat him as an outlaw, in whose society they were never safe, and killed him by a blow with an axe.

      The death of Quintal terminated this bloody tragedy. Smith and Young, who were now the sole survivors, and appear to have been unwilling accomplices in the original plot of Christian, became anxious to atone for the crimes in which they had subsequently shared. They therefore resolved to live virtuous and moral lives, to impress upon the minds of their children the obligations of religion, and to train them up in piety and virtue.

      Young, whose constitution was delicate, did not long live to act up to these good intentions, but died of the asthma, and left Smith to accomplish alone the difficult task to which they had devoted themselves. He commenced his labours by endeavouring to convert the Tahitian women, being persuaded that unless they would second his efforts, he must labour in vain. Happily he succeeded in awakening in them that moral sense which, though it may slumber, never dies, and in persuading them to live moral and decent lives. They became tractable and docile, and were highly useful to him in his efforts to instruct the children. Among the few books that had been saved from the Bounty, was that volume which now became his consolation and chief delight. He instructed the children in the doctrines of Christianity; he taught them to delight in the holy Scriptures, and succeeded in implanting habits of morality and sentiments of piety. His little colony thus became a happy, peaceful and industrious community, and more than realized in the midst of the wilderness of waves, the fables of Arcadian felicity.

      It was in the eighth year of this patriarchal government, and after every hope and thought of discovering the lost mutineers had passed away from the minds of men, that the visit of the Topaz broke in upon the perfect seclusion of these simple islanders.

      Captain Folger, after his return home, communicated to the British government, the very interesting discovery he had made, and the island, probably in consequence thereof, was visited in 1813 by the Briton and the Tagus, under the command of Sir Thomas Staines. His account of his visit is deeply interesting.

      In order to understand it in connection with the preceding narrative, it must be mentioned, that Smith, after the visit of the Topaz, chose to be called John Adams, by which name he is mentioned in all the subsequent accounts.

      "When about two miles from the shore, some natives were observed bringing down their canoes on their shoulders, dashing through a heavy surf, and paddling off to the ships; but their astonishment was unbounded, on hearing one of them, on approaching the ship, call out, in the English language, 'wont you heave us a rope now?' The first man who got on board the Briton soon proved who they were; his name he said was Thursday October Christian, the first born on the island.

      "He was then about five and twenty years of age, and is described as a fine young man about six feet high; his hair deep black; his countenance open and interesting, of a brownish cast, but free from that mixture of a reddish tint which prevails on the Pacific Islands; his only dress was a piece of cloth round his loins, and a straw hat ornamented with the black feathers of the domestic fowl. 'With a great share of good humour,' says captain Pipon, 'we were glad to trace in his benevolent countenance all the features of an honest English face.' 'I must confess,' he continues, 'I could not survey this interesting person without feelings of tenderness and compassion. His companion was named George Young, a fine youth of seventeen or eighteen years of age.' If the astonishment of the captains was so great on hearing their first salutation in English, their surprise and interest were not a little increased on Sir Thomas Staines taking the youths below and setting before them something to eat, when one of them rose up, and placing his hands together in a posture of devotion, distinctly repeated, and in a pleasing tone and manner, 'for what we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful.' They expressed great surprise on seeing a cow on board the Briton, and were in doubt whether she was a great goat, or a horned sow. The two captains of his majesty's ships accompanied these young men on shore. With some difiiculty and a good wetting, and with the assistance of their conductors, they accomplished a landing through the surf, and were soon after met by John Adams, a man between fifty and sixty years of age, who conducted them to his house. His wife accompanied him, a very old lady, blind with age. He was at first alarmed lest the visit was to apprehend him; but on being told that they were perfectly ignorant of his existence, he was relieved from his anxiety. Being once assured that this visit was of a peaceable nature, it is impossible to describe the joy these poor people manifested on seeing those whom they were pleased to consider as their countrymen. Yams, cocoanuts, and other fruits, with fine fresh eggs, were laid before them; and the old man would have killed and dressed a hog for his visiters, but time would not allow them to partake of his intended feast. This interesting new colony, it seemed, now consisted of about forty-six persons, mostly grown up young people, besides a number of infants.

      "The young men all born on the island were very athletic, and of the finest forms, their countenance open and pleasing, indicating much benevolence and goodness of heart; but the young women were objects of particular admiration, tall, robust, and beautifully formed, their faces beaming with smiles and unruffied good humour, but wearing a degree of modesty and bashfulness that would do honour to the most virtuous nation on earth; their teeth like ivory, were regular and beautiful, without a single exception; and all of them, both male and female, had the most marked English features. The clothing of the young females consisted of a piece of linen reaching from the waist to the knees, and generally a sort of mantle thrown over the shoulders, and hanging as low as the ancles; but this covering appeared to be intended chiefly as a protection against the sun and the weather, as it was frequently laid aside, and then the upper part of the body was entirely exposed, and it is not possible to conceive more beautiful forms than they exhibited. They sometimes wreathe caps or bonnets for the head in the most tasty manner, to protect the face from the rays of the sun; and though, as captain Pipon observes, they have only had the instruction of their Otaheitian mothers, 'our dress makers in London would be delighted with the simplicity and yet elegant taste of these untaught females.' Their native modesty, assisted by a proper sense of religion and morality instilled into their youthful minds by John Adams, has hitherto preserved these interesting people free from all kinds of debauchery. They all labour while young in the cultivation of the ground, and when possessed of a sufficient quantity of cleared land and of stock to maintain a family, they are allowed to marry, but always with the consent of Adams, who unites them by a sort of marriage ceremony of his own. The greatest harmony prevailed in this little society; their only quarrels, and these rarely happened, being, according to their own expressions, quarrels of the mouth: they are honest in their dealings, which consist of bartering different articles for mutual accommodation. Their habitations are extremely neat. The little village of Pitcairn forms a pretty square, the houses at the upper end of which are occupied by the patriarch John Adams, and his family, consisting of his old blind wife, and three daughters from fifteen to eighteen years of age, and a boy of eleven; a daughter of his wife by a former husband, and a son in law.

      "On the opposite is the dwelling of Thursday October Christian; and in the centre is a smooth verdant lawn, on which the poultry are let loose, fenced in so as to prevent the intrusion of the domestic quadrupeds. All that was done, was obviously undertaken on a settled plan, unlike to any thing to be met with on the other islands. In their houses, too, they had a good deal of decent furniture, consisting of beds laid upon bedsteads, with neat coverings; they had also tables and large chests to contain their valuables and clothing, which is made from the bark of a certain tree, prepared chiefly by the elder Otaheitian females. Adams's house consisted of two rooms, and the windows had shutters to pull to at night. The younger part of the sex are, as before stated, employed with their brothers under the direction of their common father Adams, in the culture of the ground, which produced cocoa nuts, bananas, the bread fruit tree, yams, sweet potatoes and turnips. They have also plenty of hogs and goats; the woods abound with a species of wild hog, and the coasts of the island with several kinds of good fish."

.  .  .  . 

THE MUTINEERS OF THE BOUNTY.

      Pitcairn's island has since been visited by numerous voyagers, who all confirm the statements given by Captain Folger and Sir Thomas Staines. The most recent account which has been published, is that given by Captain Beechey, who touched at this island during his voyage in the ship Blossom, in search of Captain Franklin, in the year 1825. At this period the number of inhabitants on the island was sixty-six. Of the twenty-seven original settlers, all had died except Adams and six of the women, one of whom had left the island. There were ten male and ten female children of the first generation, and twenty-three male and fifteen female grand-children. Two white men had also settled on the island, and were incorporated into the happy community.

      Captain Beechey describes the islanders as a handsome people, with regular features, their eyes of a bright hazel, and betraying their Tahitian origin in the lips -- the flattened nose and distended nostrils. Their eye-brows are thin, their hair of a deep black, sometimes curled, and their complexion of a dark gipsy hue. The women are tall and handsome, and very muscular. Their features are feminine, and they have the same dark complexion as the men. Their eyes are dark and bright, and they wear their long black hair, turned back from the forehead, and braided with a chaplet of wild flowers. Their teeth are fine, and their countenances lively and good-natured. They wear the paper cloth of the island, and their dress is a petticoat and a mantle thrown over the shoulders. The degradation of the female sex, so universal among savage nations, is carried so far in Tahiti and other islands of the Pacific, that it is death for a woman to eat in the presence of her husband. It is not surprising, therefore, that some traces of this barbarous system were found at Pitcairn's island. The women performed all the domestic duties, carried home the wood for cooking; and at dinner they waited till the men had dined before they began to eat.

      The village, which is built in the midst of a grove of palm trees, consists of five houses, and there are three or four cottages on the plantations, one of which was occupied by Adams, who here withdrew himself from the cares and turmoil of his little kingdom. The houses are substantially but roughly built of wood, are thatched with palm leaves, and are two stories in height. The floor is raised a foot from the ground, and the weather-boards, instead of being nailed to the posts, are fitted in grooves, so as to admit of being taken out in warm weather. The access to the chamber is by a ladder and a trap-door. The lower room is appropriated for eating, and has a large table in the middle, with stools placed round it. The upper story is furnished with a bedstead in each corner, raised eighteen inches from the ground, and made of the wood of the paper mulberry or cloth tree. The mattrass is made of palm leaves, and each bed is furnished with three sheets of native cloth. There are several pathways leading from the village to different parts of the island. Around the houses are the gardens and small enclosures, for the hogs, goats, and poultry, and beyond, extending far up the mountains, are the plantations of plantain, bananas, yams, melons, the taro plant, sweet potatoes, and the cloth tree. Every cottage has its outhouse for making cloth, its poultry house, pig sty, and bake oven. This latter is the same as that used in Tahiti, and is merely an excavation in the earth, in which the meat is cooked by means of heated stones. Captain Beechey and his officers visited Thursday October Christian, the arrangement of whose household may be taken as a specimen of island manners. His table was spread with plates, knives and forks. A roasted pig very nicely cooked in the rude oven, was set before the strangers. A long grace preceded the dinner, and when the signal "turn to" was given, welcome cheer, hospitality, and good humour seemed to animate every countenance. Their drink was cold water, handed round in a pitcher, out of which all drank. The room was lighted with torches, made by stringing the nuts of the doodoe tree (aleurites triloba), on the fibres of the palm leaf, and sticking them in tin pots. At night they slept comfortably between sheets of paper cloth, fresh from the beater. After the lights were extinguished, the evening hymn was sung by the whole family in the middle of the room, and the day opened, as it closed, with family worship. When they arose, they found that ripe fruits had been placed by their bed side, and that their hats were crowned with chaplets fragrant with the morning dew. On looking round the apartment they perceived that it contained several beds, but neither partition nor screen was thought necessary. The men had gone off to their several occupations, and the women were busy with their domestic cares -- some had taken the linen of the strangers to wash -- others were beating cloth, and others were preparing the oven, and pig, and yams, for their morning meal. They soon collected in the chamber to bid their guests a good morning, and to enquire if they could assist them.

      The islanders had received a valuable accession to their number in the person of John Buffet, an intelligent man of an enthusiastic but religious turn of mind, belonging to a merchant ship that touched at the island, who was so charmed with their manners, that he resolved to end his days among them. He officiated as clergyman and schoolmaster, and was much respected and beloved by the natlves.

      The Tahitian woman who had been the inmate with Adams for so many years, was now old, and blind, and bedridden; yet so strong was his attachment for her, and so anxious was he to atone in every way in his power for his past misconduct, that he was importunate to be regularly married to her according to the forms of the English church, by an ordained minister. The chaplain of the Blossom therefore performed the ceremony at the bedside of the decrepid old woman.

      Captain Beechey bears testimony to the pure morals, correct principles, and amiable temper of these happy islanders. The sabbath is strictly observed; the most sacred regard is paid to truth, and swearing and jesting are unknown among them. They are virtuous, contented, cheerful, industrious, religious, and hospitable.

      Such is the unvarnished picture, in the main features of which all the witnesses agree, of this singular colony. I know of no similar instance in the annals of our race. Civilized and Christian men have never before returned to the state of rude or savage life, deprived of almost all the physical means and instruments, yet retaining the moral culture and the religious feelings of an advanced civilization, absolutely secluded from the world -- children in knowledge, and children also in simplicity and innocence. The experiment upon the capabilities of our nature would have been still more singular and interesting, had a much longer period elapsed before their discovery by Europeans. The mixture of English and Tahitian customs, which is now so curious, would, in all probability, have produced new modifications of human character. After the Bibles and the iron of the Bounty had been worn out and exhausted, the former would perhaps have been perpetuated in manuscripts on the paper cloth of the island; while, on the other hand, destitute of the means of procuring the metals, the arts would

have declined, and succeeding ages would have found a people filling this and the adjacent islands, similar in many respects to the Peruvians -- exhibiting the traces of an ancient and almost forgotten civilization, and carrying down the memory of Young and Adams to that remote posterity, as godlike heroes, the founders of their empire, perhaps as the originals of their species, blending their names with those derived from the traditions remaining among them of the Scriptures, and professing a faith, like that of the disciples of the Grand Lama -- a strange and monstrous corruption of the true religion.

      Happily for them, they were not doomed to undergo any such sad reverses, and happily for all who love to dwell with delight on the bright and sunny spots of human existence, this lovely romance of real life has closed without any dismal tragedy to sully its pages.

      Fearful of the failure of the means of support for the increasing population of the island, the British government, during the present year, has removed the whole colony to Tahiti, and by this act, has consecrated the memory of Pitcairn's island, as exhibiting at least one, if not the only example, of a purely virtuous and innocent community, practising, in the simplicity of unsophisticated nature, the morals of Christian civilization.

"The Mutineers of the Bounty."
      The Friend: a religious and literary journal.
Vol. 5, no. 4 (November 5, 1831), pp.25-26,
Vol. 5, no. 5 (November 12, 1831), pp.33-34,
Vol. 5, No. 6 (November 19, 1831), pp. 41-42.

Pitcairn  Source  Whalesite