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‘Bounty’ Mutineers and Postage Stamps
On the 14th June, 1983, Pitcairn Islands issued four stamps recalling the 175th anniversary of the 1808 visit to their island of Captain Mayhew Folger. In command of the sealing vessel ‘Topaz’, the American skipper discovered the colony of thirty-five settlers when he hove to roadstead and was greeted by three islanders in a canoe. The six cent value shows the ‘Topaz’ nearing Pitcairn and, on the twenty cent version, the three men in the outrigger are depicted approaching the vessel.
Folger reported that of the fifteen young men who had originally landed on Pitcairn, John Adams was the sole survivor. Adams was said to have told the captain that all the others had met violent deaths. In 1808, the colony of thirty-five consisted of Adams, nine or ten Tahitian women and around twenty-four children of varying ages up to near adulthood. John Adams, who gave this first account of the fate of ‘The Bounty’ and its complement, is shown on the seventy cent postage stamp which portrays him greeting Folger.
The accidental visit of the roving sealer captain produced at least three different versions of what happened to the mutineers. Folger reported that “about six years after they landed at this place (Pitcairn), their male Polynesian servants attacked and killed all the English excepting Adams, the informant, and he was seriously injured.” In another personal report said to be Folger’s words – “about four years after their arrival, a great jealousy existed and the Tahitians secretly revolted and killed every Englishman except Adams whom they severely wounded in the neck with a pistol ball.” Yet another version claimed that “the colony lived under Christian’s government for several years after they landed; that during the whole time, they enjoyed considerable harmony; that Christian became sick and died a natural death; and that it was after this that the Tahitian men joined in a conspiracy and killed the English husbands of the Tahitian women, and were by the widows killed in turn on the following night”.
At the time of his departure, the islanders considered because the visit of the ‘Topaz’ was the first ever to Pitcairn, the Captain should be given a worthy farewell gift. The one dollar and twenty cents postage stamp shows him being presented with a chronometer from ‘The Bounty’. He was also given an azimuth compass salvaged from the wreck.
So many stories of voyagers of that time have proved conflicting when presented to the civilized outside world. It is remarkable that the short stay of four or five hours by Captain Mayhew Folger on Pitcairn could have resulted in such a variety of contentious versions of the same event. All four postage stamps were printed in multicolour lithography and are a reminder that history has many versions – all based on the same facts.
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