In 1787, William Bligh undertook a voyage to collect breadfruit and transport it to the Caribbean where, if successful, its cultivation was intended to provide a staple food source for enslaved people working on plantations in the West Indies. The project was initiated by Sir Joseph Banks, who, along with the owners of the plantations, had petitioned George III for an expedition to be outfitted.
The Admiralty converted a requisitioned merchant ship, Bethia, for the voyage. Renamed Bounty, it was armed with guns and part of its living quarters set aside for 700 plants.
The voyage to Tahiti, which set sail from Deptford in October 1787, was poorly organised. Bounty was far too small for the journey and the cramped conditions below deck saw tensions run high among the crew. The expedition faced numerous delays and Bounty did not reach Tahiti until the following October.

Soon after his arrival in Tahiti, the Ship’s Master, Fletcher Christian, began a sexual relationship with a Tahitian woman he named ‘Isabella’ and several other members of the crew pursued similar relationships with other women. The island was viewed by Europeans as a paradise and misleading stories of Tahitian promiscuity (arising from misinterpretations of Tahitian culture) were popularised in published accounts of Pacific voyages. Visiting sailors often traded iron goods such as nails in return for sex with Tahitian women, introducing sexually transmitted diseases among the population. Initially, Bligh had little opposition to such behaviour but became irritated once it began to impact on the collecting of breadfruit plants and the undertaking of necessary repairs to the ship.

During his time on the island, Bligh made several observations on Tahitian culture and society, most notably the Tahitian concept of a third gender, known as māhū ('in the middle'). Historically only attributed to people who had been designated male at birth with no equivalent for those designated female, Māhū held an important role in Tahitian society, serving as teachers and record keepers. Bligh's record, made on 15 January 1789, is included in his log books but is missing from this printed account.

Bounty left Tahiti in April 1789 and soon Christian led a mutiny, during which Bligh and loyal crew members were set adrift. The mutineers then sought to return to Tahiti where they arrived on 22 September. Divisions led to sixteen of the men leaving Bounty on its arrival, hoping to settle on the island. Christian, meanwhile, abducted a group of 20 Tahitians (mainly women and including ‘Isabella’) and set sail once more.
Bligh and his men miraculously made it back to Britain in 1790. He was acquitted from a court-martial investigating the loss of the ship and published this account of the voyage in 1792.

Nothing more was heard of Christian and the mutineers until 1808, when the American whaler Topaz visited the remote island of Pitcairn and encountered the last surviving mutineer, John Adams (1767-1829).

Adams was found living with nine of the women remaining from those taken by the crew and 19 of their children. He and another of the mutineers, Ned Young, had used the Bible taken from Bounty to teach literacy and the Christian faith to the community. Adams, being perceived to have redeemed himself, was later granted a pardon for his participation in the mutiny. However, despite the peaceful scene reported in 1808, for much of the preceding decade, the community on Pitcairn faced violence. The crew viewed the Tahitians as their property and the fourteen women taken by the men were raped and sexually assaulted. Tensions between the mutineers themselves and between the mutineers and the Tahitians were rampant and many men from both groups were killed in violent clashes.

The story of the ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ was romanticised in the nineteenth and twentieth century and the violence, rape and abduction of Tahitians was regularly ignored in published accounts. Books (and later films) instead focused on the ship, portraying Bligh as a tyrant, with Christian and the mutineers swashbuckling heroes.