Revised Jun 12 2021
They had not long set foot upon the island, ere it became a stage for the display of every evil passion. They were "hateful, and hating one another." During the frightful period of domestic warfare between the Europeans and the blacks, in which the former often adopted the tremendously simple rule of might against right, the blacks made common cause together; and having planned the murder of their imperious masters, they went, from time to time, into the woods to practise shooting at a mark, and thus became tolerably good marksmen. Their murderous plot reached the ears of the wives of the mutineers; and the females are said to have disclosed it to their husbands, just before the time appointed for the massacre, by adding to one of their songs these words, "Why does black man sharpen axe? To kill white man."
In the course of the deadly struggles occurring between the members of this small community, Christian, Mills, Williams, Martin, and Brown, were murdered in the year 1793, by the Otaheitan men whom they had brought to the island with them. Christian was the first who fell a victim to their revenge. Mills was the next. Adams was shot; the ball entering at his shoulder, and coming out at his neck. He fell; but suddenly sprung up and ran. They caught him; and a blow was aimed at his head with the butt-end of a musket. This he warded off with his hand, having his finger broken by the blow. . On his again escaping, he ran down the rocks towards the sea; but his pursuers called out to him, that if he would return he should not be hurt. He returned accordingly, and they troubled him no more. All the Otaheitan men were killed in the same year; one of them having been destroyed by Young's wife with an axe. As soon as she had killed him, she gave a signal to her husband to fire upon the only remaining Otaheitan. This was done with fatal precision. This woman, Susannah, afterwards married Thursday October Christian, Fletcher Christian's son, and died at an advanced age in the year 1850. She was the last survivor of the Bounty.
The sanguinary frays among the members of the small body of inhabitants, from the time of their landing to 1794, have been described at different times. These painful particulars shall be passed over. One point, however, connected with the murders deserves mention, as it may serve to clear up some doubt regarding the death of Fletcher Christian. As the spot in which he was buried on the island is not known, and as a person resembling him was seen, about the year 1809, in Fore Street, Plymouth, by Captain Peter Heywood, who imagined, from a transient view, that the stranger was Fletcher Christian himself, an impression in some quarters prevailed, that Christian had escaped the massacre of 1793, and had returned to England. It was said that the stranger, as if he knew himself to have been recognised, had fled from Captain Heywood, who, after pursuing him for some distance in vain, felt persuaded that he had seen Christian. But the man, whoever he was, might have run off for other reasons; and some manuscript documents of the island are stated by Admiral Beechey to be clear as to the death of Christian and the others. In 1794, when only four men, Young, M'Coy, Adams, and Quintal, were left alive, the women of the place were seen holding in their hands the five skulls of the murdered white men. The Otaheitan women were compelled, after some difficulty, to give up the heads to be buried.