The history of the rebellious “Bounty”: how it happened (20 photos). Heaven on Earth or a History of Cruelty: Mutiny on the Breadfruit Bounty

The story of one riot

"Bounty" (eng. Bounty - generosity)- a small three-masted ship that became famous thanks to only one voyage.

The ship was built for trading purposes in 1784 at a shipyard in English city Kingston upon Halle (Hulle) and bore the name “Bethia”. It was ninety feet long, twenty-four feet wide, and displaced 215 tons. In 1787 it was bought by the Admiralty for £1,950. The ship was rebuilt and renamed "Bounty". In the process of reconstruction the bottom "Bounty" sheathed with copper sheets, the sides above the waterline were painted blue with two yellow stripes, the masts, yards, topmasts and bowsprit became brown. The figurehead depicted an Amazon. The ship was armed with four cannons - it was prepared for a long and responsible voyage.

The voyage was scheduled to begin at the end of November, but it was not until December 23, 1787 that a ship with a crew of 43 people set off from Portsmouth to Tahiti to pick up breadfruit seedlings to later deliver them to Jamaica ( Antilles). It was believed that breadfruit would be eaten by slaves on sugar cane plantations in the West Indies, which would be much cheaper than feeding them regular grain bread. The author of the project for breeding breadfruit in Jamaica was the famous British biologist Joseph Banks, who took part in James Cook's voyages in the Pacific Ocean. "My ship "Bounty" will be a real floating garden,” said Banks. It was planned to take on board the ship about a thousand breadfruit seedlings in flower pots; the Bounty’s flat bottom and fairly large carrying capacity helped protect the valuable cargo during the voyage from the reefs, of which there were a great many off the coast of the West Indies.

Bounty Captain William Bligh

The ship reached the shores of Tahiti almost a year later - October 26, 1788. And after another six months, on April 4, 1789, he set off from Tahiti to the shores of Jamaica. The ship was commanded by Captain William Bligh. According to the testimony of contemporaries, he was often rude to the crew, did not disdain corporal punishment, moreover, poor-quality provisions were purchased on the ship during the voyage, and the crew members experienced a noticeable lack of fresh water, while the transported plants were watered abundantly and often. All this provoked a mutiny on the ship; on April 28, 1789, near the island of Tofua, a riot led by Fletcher Christian occurred on board the ship. Captain "Bounty" and the 18 crew members loyal to him were put out to sea on a seven-meter longboat with a small supply of food and water and sent to all four directions.

Captain Bligh and his companions spent almost seven weeks at sea, during which time the small longboat covered 6,700 kilometers (more than three thousand nautical miles). Despite all the hardships and hardships, Bligh and his team were surprisingly lucky: during all their travels they lost only one person - midshipman John Norton, who was killed by the inhabitants of Tofua Island, where the exiles wanted to replenish their supplies of provisions. After all the wanderings, the longboat landed on the island of Timor, and from there Lieutenant Bligh and his supporters returned to Great Britain. On March 15, 1790, the English Admiralty learned about what had happened on "Bounty" mutiny

And you "Bounty" and the remaining 25 crew members went back to Tahiti, where some of the mutineers remained permanently. But the main conspirators understood that one day the British government would catch up with them, and they would have to answer for their actions in court. Therefore, the most determined and desperate went to the Bounty to look for an island where no one could overtake them.

Fourteen of the sixteen crew members remaining in Tahiti were arrested in 1791 when they were discovered by the British ship Pandora, specially sent to search for the missing man. "Bounty". On the way to England, the Pandora was shipwrecked in the Enterprise Strait, resulting in the death of 35 sailors of the Pandora and four crew members of the Bounty. Arriving in England, the surviving rebels were brought to trial, three were sentenced to death penalty, hanging on the yards of the ship "Brustvik".

Meanwhile on board "Bounty" nine former crew members (Fletcher Christian, John Adams, William McCoy, Isaac Martin, John Mills, Matthew Quintal, John Williams, Edward Young, William Brown) went to seek their fortune in the ocean, as well as eighteen inhabitants of the island of Tahiti: six men, eleven women and one child. The fugitives also took several types of domestic animals and seeds of various plants on the voyage.

The island they decided to settle on is called Pitcairn. This small island(with an area of ​​4.6 sq. km.) in the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean was discovered by the English sloop Swallow in 1762 and named after the sailor who first noticed it. On January 23, 1790, rebels from "Bounty" and their Tahitian companions became the first inhabitants of this island, organizing a colony. Everything that could be used in the household was removed from the ship, right down to the planks, after which the ship, which lived a very short life, was burned and scuttled.

But life on the island turned out to be difficult, in addition to the fact that the settlers had to arrange their life from scratch, plow the land, build houses, soon disagreements began between them, which arose mainly because of women, as well as because of the status of slaves of Tahitian men. Quarrels gradually developed into bloody feuds, as a result of which four years after landing on the island, only four English men remained alive, three of whom also subsequently died (one was killed, one died from asthma and one was poisoned by alcohol). And the community, consisting only of women and children who had been born by that time, began to be ruled by a single man, John Adams, who called himself Alexander Smith. Largely thanks to him, the colony survived, overcoming all difficulties. Adams became the children's father, teacher and ruler of the island.

Ten years later, in 1808, the English frigate Topaz arrived at the island to replenish its supply of seal skins and discovered a community there. In 1814, 2 English frigates arrived on the island to investigate the story that happened on the Bounty. Having seen the community and met Alexander Smith, the judges were very impressed and forgave the last of the rebels. Gradually, the population of Pitcairn Island grew and already in 1856, some of the islanders moved to Norfolk Island, and later the descendants of the first settlers of Pitcairn settled throughout all the islands of Oceania. About seventy people now live on Pitcairn Island. The island has its own flag and anthem, but belongs to Great Britain. The islanders receive their main income from the export of postage stamps commemorating the mutiny on "Bounty".


Events that happened on "Bounty", are known all over the world. The memory of the sailors who once rebelled against violence and gave life to a small island is alive to this day.

Hundreds of books and tens of hundreds of articles are devoted to the history of the ship and its crew. The mutiny on the famous sailing ship was most fully studied by the Swedish scientist Bengt Danielsson, who in the mid-twentieth century wrote the book “On the Bounty in the South Seas.”

In addition to him, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, J. G. Byron, Jack London and many others wrote about the Bounty.

In 1916, the first film was made in Australia, dedicated to the events on "Bounty". In 1935, an American film about a sailboat starring Clark Gibble was released. In 1962, a new film about "Bounty", where the famous Marlon Brando played the main role. And twenty years later, in 1984, another film “Bounty” with Mel Gibson was released in the USA. Replicas of the Bounty ship, built for the 1962 and 1984 films, survive to this day and are located in Massachusetts, USA, and Sydney, Australia, respectively. The American replica of the Bounty, built according to drawings from the archives of the British Admiralty, was until recently one of the oldest replicas of sailing ships in the world. Due to the fact that during the filming of the film, it was necessary to install bulky cameras on board the ship, its size differs from the original by about a third. Filmed in France in 2003 documentary"Survivors of the Bounty."

All that remains for us from the legendary sailing ship is the Bible and the steering wheel. The Bible is kept in London historical museum, and the helm is in the Fiji Museum.

October 29, 2012, caught in Hurricane Sandy, an American replica of the famous sailing ship sank off the coast of New Carolina (USA). 14 crew members were evacuated, the ship's captain died.

"Bounty" in our minds is strongly associated with heavenly pleasure, freedom and peace. But few people know what the voyage of the sailing ship "Bounty" actually was like and how it ended.

The history of the voyage of the English warship "Bounty" for breadfruit seedlings, the vicissitudes of this dramatic voyage were not lost even among the turbulent events of the 18th century, rich in mutinies, geographical discoveries and other exciting adventures.

The British warship "Bounty" on April 3, 1789 (according to some sources, April 4), under the leadership of Captain Bligh, sailed from the shores of Tahiti towards the Caribbean archipelago with valuable cargo on board. Breadfruit seedlings, the fruits of which were supposed to feed slaves on the sugar cane plantations of English colonists on the islands of the West Indies, however, did not achieve their goal: a mutiny broke out on the ship, as a result of which not only the plants suffered.
As a result of this mutiny and subsequent events, a hitherto unknown island was discovered, novels were written, films were made, and thanks to the efforts of copywriters, the dramatic voyage of the Bounty to the southern seas is now tightly linked in the public consciousness with heavenly pleasure.

On Christmas Eve 1787, the three-masted schooner Bounty set sail from the English harbor of Portsmund. There have been rumors for a long time about where and why this ship is heading, but the course and official goal of the expedition were announced to the sailors already on the open sea. The ship had an exotic destination: not in New World, not to wild Africa, not to fabulous, but already familiar India, not to the shores of New Holland (Australia) and New Zealand - the path lay to the paradise island in South Seas, as the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean was then called.

The mission, indeed, was unique: the schooner of the British Royal Navy did not set off in search of new lands or to fight the natives, and not even for black slaves or untold treasures. The Bounty team had to reach paradise island Tahiti, find and deliver to England a miracle plant, with the help of which it was planned to carry out an economic revolution. The goal of the long journey was breadfruit seedlings.

At the end of the 18th century, as a result of the American War of Independence, the British Empire lost its richest North American colonies. The infringement of political ambitions is nothing compared to the economic defeat that English businessmen suffered. Of course, in Jamaica and St. Vincent there was still a good harvest of sugar cane, the sale of which brought decent income to businessmen and the state treasury, but... The fact is that this very cane was grown by black slaves from Africa, who were fed yams and bananas, and grain and bread flour for them were brought from the American continent.

The independence of the United States of America hit the British slave owners hard. Now Americans had to pay completely different money for grain or import it from Europe. Both were expensive and significantly reduced the income from the sale of everything that slaves grew on the plantations. The increased costs of maintaining slaves, to put it mildly, upset English businessmen. It was necessary to somehow save the situation - to look for cheap bread. It was then that they remembered that travelers who had visited Tahiti often described a certain “bread fruit”. These fruits grow on tree branches, have a pleasant sweet taste and are the main food for eight months of the year. local residents. The schooner "Bounty" set off for this manna from heaven.

The famous English traveler Captain Cook wrote that in Polynesia, in Tahiti, bread grows on trees. This was not a metaphor - it was about a plant from the mulberry family that produces nutritious and tasty fruits the size of a coconut. When the most advanced English planters from the West Indian Islands read Cook's travel notes, which included information about breadfruit, they realized that the philosopher's stone, at least on the scale of one plantation, had been found. A brilliant business idea dawned on their bright heads: to transport breadfruit seedlings from Tahiti and feed the slaves with its fruits, thus saving a lot of money on the purchase of real bread. According to estimates, the profit from each plantation should have doubled from this innovation.

The people who mastered the overseas colonies in those days were decisive and fearless, therefore, without fear of the wrath of their superiors, they sent a request to King George III of England to help spread breadfruit in the places of their settlements. The king was inspired by the needs of the colonists and issued an order to the Admiralty: to equip a ship to Tahiti to collect and deliver shoots of the amazing plant to the planters of the West Indies.

The British navy did not have a suitable ship capable of accommodating, in addition to crew and provisions, hundreds of seedlings that required special care along the way. It took too long to build a new ship. The Admiralty bought the three-masted sailing ship Betia from a private shipowner for £1,950, which was rebuilt, equipped with cannons and entered into the Royal Navy under the name Bounty. The relatively small dimensions of the ship (displacement 215 tons, length on the upper deck 27.7 meters and width 7.4 meters), typical of other sailing ships of that time, were compensated by its large carrying capacity and excellent seaworthiness, and its flat bottom was supposed to protect against catastrophic collisions with reefs.

If you imagine for just a minute life in the military sailing ships XVIII century, then one should not be surprised at the frequent riots in them. The captains had unlimited power over the crew, even over the officers - let alone the lower ranks, who could simply be strung up on the yardarm for disobedience and intimidation of others without unnecessary delay. Punishment in the form of flogging was also common. On small ships, as a rule, there was incredible crowding, there was often not enough water, the crew suffered from scurvy, which claimed many lives. Strict discipline, arbitrariness on the part of captains and officers, and inhuman living conditions more than once provoked bloody clashes on ships. In England, there were few people willing to voluntarily serve in the Royal Navy; forced recruitment flourished: special detachments caught merchant marine sailors and delivered them in chains to the Royal ships.

A young but experienced navigator, Lieutenant William Bligh, was appointed commander of the Bounty. By the age of 33, he had already sailed in the South Seas on the ships of the famous Cook, visited Polynesia, and knew the West Indies well, where he was supposed to deliver breadfruit seedlings. Unfortunately, except good experience in navigation, Bligh had a bad temper and instability, and the best way communication with the team was considered gross violence.

William Bligh in 1792

On November 29, 1787, the Bounty, with a crew of 48 people, left England to cross Atlantic Ocean, go around Cape Horn and, emerging into the Pacific Ocean, go to the island of Tahiti. The destination of the return journey was the island of Jamaica - via Indian Ocean, past the cape Good Hope. The voyage was planned for two years.

Due to delays caused by the Admiralty, the ship set off late when severe storms raged off Cape Horn. Unable to cope with the fierce winds, Bligh was forced to turn and go to the Cape of Good Hope, crossing the Atlantic in the stormy southern latitudes. Having passed the southern tip of Africa, the Bounty crossed the Indian Ocean for the first time in the history of navigation in the Roaring Forties and safely reached the island of Tasmania, and then Tahiti.

For five months the crew lived in Tahiti, gradually making friends and romantic relationships with beautiful Tahitian women. Describing this period, historians note that the sailors became as dark-skinned and almost as freedom-loving as the native inhabitants of the island, so when the ship with breadfruit seedlings, carefully dug up and carefully prepared for the long journey, set off for its destination, the crew could not stand it for long the tyranny of the captain, the humiliations that he endlessly invented for the crew (according to some evidence, he even flogged an officer!), a meager ration and a lack of fresh water. Everyone was especially outraged by the fact that the captain was saving on water for people in favor of plants that required watering. (However, keeping the cargo intact is a matter of honor for captains of all times, and people are an easily replenished resource).

On April 28, a mutiny broke out on the Bounty, led by first mate Fletcher Christian, for whom Despot Bligh showed particular hostility. Seized in bed by the mutinous sailors, bound hand and foot before he could offer any resistance, Bligh, wearing only his shirt, was brought onto the deck where a kind of trial took place, presided over by Lieutenant Fletcher Christien.

Although the rest of the ship's officers remained on the captain's side, they showed themselves to be cowardly: they did not even try to resist the rebels. The rebel sailors put Bligh and his 18 supporters in a barge, supplied him with water, food and bladed weapons and left him at sea in sight of the island of Tofua... And the Bounty, after a short wandering around the ocean, returned to Tahiti. Here a split occurred among the rebels. The majority planned to stay on the island and enjoy life, while the minority listened to the words of Christian, who predicted that one day the British fleet would come to the island and the rebels would go to the gallows.

The crew of the longboat, led by Captain Bligh, with a minimum supply of food and without nautical charts made an unprecedented journey of 3,618 nautical miles and after 45 days reached the island of Timor, a Dutch colony in the East Indies, from where it was already possible to return to England without any problems. During the voyage, the captain did not lose a single person; losses occurred only during skirmishes with the natives.

“I invited my companions to go ashore,” says Bligh. - Some could barely move their legs. All that was left of us was skin and bones: we were covered with wounds, our clothes turned into rags. In this state of joy and gratitude brought tears to our eyes, and the people of Timor looked at us in silence, with expressions of horror, surprise and pity. So, with the help of Providence, we overcame the hardships and difficulties of such a dangerous journey!”

Portrait of William Bligh in 1814

The rebels who remained in Tahiti in 1791 were captured by Captain Edwards, commander of the Pandora, which the English government sent in search of the rebels with instructions to deliver them to England. But the Pandora hit an underwater reef, killing 4 rebels and 35 sailors. Of the ten rebels brought to England along with the shipwrecked sailors of the Pandora, three were sentenced to death.

Upon returning to England, he continued to serve in the navy, and was soon again sent for the ill-fated breadfruit seedlings. This time he managed to bring them to Jamaica, where these trees quickly took root and began to bear fruit. But the black slaves refused to eat the fruits of this tree. However, this incident no longer had anything to do with Captain Bligh. Upon his return to England, he received a cold reception at the Admiralty. In his absence, a trial was held, where the former rebels brought charges against the captain and won the case (in the absence of Bligh). The main evidence of the events on the ship was the diary of James Morrison, who was pardoned, but longed to wash away the shame of the rebel from the name of the family. The diary contradicts the ship's log and was written after the events. These notes became the basis of the novel.

In 1797, William Bligh was one of the captains of the ships whose crews mutinied in the Mutiny at Spithead and Nore. Although some of the demands of the sailors at Spithead were met, other issues of vital importance to the sailors were not resolved. Bligh was once again one of the captains affected by the mutiny - this time at the Burrow. During this time, he learned that his nickname in the navy was that Bounty Bastard.

In November of the same year, as captain of HMS Director, he took part in the Battle of Camperdown. Bligh fought three Dutch ships: Haarlem, Alkmaar and Vrijheid. While the Dutch suffered serious casualties, only 7 sailors on HMS Director were wounded.

William Bligh took part under the command of Admiral Nelson in the Battle of Copenhagen on April 2, 1801. Bligh commanded HMS Glatton, a 56-gun battleship, which was armed exclusively with carronades as an experiment. After the battle, Bligh was personally thanked by Nelson for his contribution to the victory. He navigated his ship safely between the banks, while three other ships ran aground. When Nelson pretended not to notice Admiral Parker's signal 43 (cease battle) and raised signal 16 (continue battle), Bligh was the only captain who could see the conflict between the two signals. He carried out Nelson's orders, and as a result all the ships behind him continued to fire.

Caricature of Bligh's arrest in Sydney in 1808, depicting Bligh as a coward

Bligh was offered the governorship of New South Wales in March 1805, with a salary of £2,000 a year, double that of the former governor, Philip Gidley King.

He arrived in Sydney in August 1806, becoming the fourth Governor of New South Wales. There he survived another mutiny (the Rum Riot) when, on 26 January 1808, the New South Wales Corps under the command of Major George Johnston arrested him. He was sent to Hobart on the ship Porpoise, with no support to regain control of the colony, and remained virtually imprisoned until January 1810.

From Hobart to Sydney, Bligh returned on 17 January 1810 to formally hand over the post to the next governor, and to bring Major George Johnston to Britain for trial. On the ship Porpoise he left Sydney on May 12, 1810 and arrived in England on October 25, 1810. The tribunal dismissed Johnston from Marine Corps and the British armed forces. Subsequently, Bligh was awarded the rank of Rear Admiral, and 3 years later, in 1814, he received a new promotion and became Vice Admiral.

Bligh died in Bond Street, London, on 6 December 1817 and was buried in the family plot at St Mary's Church, Lambeth. This church is now the Museum of Horticultural History. On his grave there is a depiction of a breadfruit. The plaque is located on Bly's house, one block east of the Museum.

What happened to the Bounty next?

Christian assembled a team of eight like-minded people, lured six Tahitians and eleven Tahitians onto the Bounty and sailed away to look for a new homeland. In January 1790, nine rebels, twelve Tahitians and six Polynesians from Tahiti, Raiatea and Tupuai and a child landed on an uninhabited island lost in the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

It was literally the end of the earth - four thousand miles southeast of the island there was no land, an endless ocean desert. South part The Pacific Ocean is one of the most deserted and remote regions of the planet from civilization; it is no coincidence that it is here that spent space stations are dumped.

Having unloaded the food available on the Bounty and removed all the gear that could be useful, the sailors burned the ship. This is how the Pitcairn colony was founded.

Meanwhile, the colonists were quite happy with life for some time, since there were enough gifts of nature on the island for everyone. The newcomers built huts and cleared areas of land. To the natives whom they carried away, or who themselves voluntarily followed them, the English graciously assigned the duties of slaves. Two years passed without any major quarrels. However, there was one “resource” whose reserves were very limited on Pitcairn - women. It started because of them...

The Polynesian part of the male population demanded equality. First of all, the women were not divided. Each of the nine sailors had his own “wife,” and for every six natives there were only three ladies. The discontent of the disadvantaged grew into a conspiracy.

When the Tahitian wife of one of the rebels died in 1793, the white settlers could think of nothing better than to take the wife away from one of the Tahitians. He was offended and killed his girlfriend’s new husband. The rebels killed the avenger, and the remaining Tahitians rebelled against the rebels themselves. Christian and four of his men were killed by the Tahitians. It would seem that’s it, but the killings did not end there. The Tahitian wives of the sailors went to avenge their murdered husbands and killed the rebel Tahitians. All Polynesian men were destroyed. Now there were four sailors left on the island (midshipman Young and sailors McCoy, Quintal and Smith) with several women and children.

There was a lull for some time. The settlers built their homes, cultivated the land, harvested sweet potatoes and yams, raised pigs and chickens, fished, and had children. But if Young and Smith lived peacefully, then two bosom buddies McCoy and Quintal behaved aggressively. They learned to distill moonshine and regularly engaged in drunken brawls. In the end, McCoy died in an alcoholic stupor by jumping into the sea. And Quintal, having lost his wife (she crashed while collecting bird eggs on a rock), became completely brutal: he began to demand the wives of Young and Smith, and threatened to kill their children. It all ended with Smith and Young conspiring to kill Quintal with an ax.

This man, who reflected a lot on his former disorderly life, completely reborn as a result of repentance, had to fulfill the duties of father, clergyman, mayor and king. With his justice and firmness, he managed to gain unlimited influence in this strange community.

The extraordinary teacher of morality, who in the days of his youth had broken all the laws, for whom nothing had previously existed, now preached mercy, love, harmony, and the small colony flourished under the meek, but at the same time firm rule of this man, who at the end of his life became righteous.

Such was the moral state of the Pitcairn colony at the time that William Beechey's ship appeared off the coast of the island to replenish his cargo of seal skins.

In 1808, Pitcairn Island was discovered by the fishing vessel Topaz. They noticed that the island was inhabited by inhabitants of an unusual race. As it turned out later, these were the children of Alexander Smith, one of the rebels on the “romantic” ship. Smith himself, it turned out, was a priest on the island and taught literacy.

The captain considered the island uninhabited; but, to his greatest amazement, a pirogue with three half-breed youths who spoke English quite well came up to the side of the ship. The surprised captain began to question them and learned that their father served under the command of Lieutenant Bligh. The odyssey of this officer of the English fleet was known to the whole world at that time and served as the subject of evening conversations on the forecastles of ships of all countries.

The first visitors were struck by the small people living on a godforsaken island, and the atmosphere of goodwill and peace that reigned in the colony. Everyone was greatly impressed by the patriarch of Pitcairn, John Adams. When the question of his arrest arose, English authorities They forgave the former rebel and left him alone. Adams died in 1829, at the age of 62, surrounded by numerous children and women who passionately loved him. The only village on the island, Adamstown, is named in his honor.

Pitcairn became part of the British Empire, an English colony in the South Seas. In 1831, London decided to resettle the islanders to Tahiti. It ended tragically: despite the warm welcome, the Pitcairns were unable to live away from their homeland, and within two months 12 people died (including Thursday October Christian, Fletcher Christian's firstborn). 65 islanders returned home.

In 1856, a second resettlement of residents was undertaken - this time to the uninhabited island of Norfolk, a former English penal colony. But again, many of the Pitcairns wanted to return to their homeland. So the heirs of the Bounty were divided into two settlements: Norfolk and Pitcairn.

Today, direct descendants of the rebels still live on Pitcairn. The colony is a unique political, economic and socio-cultural entity in Pacific Ocean. The island has its own coat of arms, flag and anthem, but Pitcairn is not an independent state, but an “overseas territory of the United Kingdom,” the last remnant of the once great British Empire. The islanders speak a strange dialect - a mixture of old in English and several Polynesian dialects. There is no television, sewerage, running water, ATMs or hotels, but there is a satellite phone, radio and Internet. The main source of income for local residents is the export of postage stamps and the sale of the domain name.pn.

Pitcairn is administratively subordinate to the British government in Auckland, located approximately 5,300 km from the island. In 1936, up to 200 people lived on Pitcairn, but every year the number of residents decreases, as people leave for work or study in New Zealand and never come back. Currently, 47 people live on the island.

Among the few relics of Pitcairn, the main one is considered to be the “Bounty Bible” of Fletcher Christian himself, carefully preserved in a glass box in the church. She was stolen (or lost - the details of her disappearance are still unknown) in 1839, but returned to the island in 1949. The Bounty anchor, discovered by an expedition of the National Geographic Society, flaunts on a pedestal near the walls of the courthouse, and several further down the On the road there are guns from the Bounty, raised from the bottom of the sea. Among the island's attractions, you will definitely be shown the anchor from the ship "Acadia", which was wrecked on Ducie Island, and on the other side of Bounty Bay - the grave of John Adam, the only surviving grave of the rebels.

The island became a British colony in 1838. Currently, the British High Commissioner to New Zealand is also the Governor of Pitcairn. The island has a local government body - the Island Council, which consists of a justice of the peace, 5 members elected annually, 3 members appointed for one year by the governor, and the island secretary.

The story of the rebels continues to this day. In the fall of 2004, an unprecedented scandal surrounding Pitcairn Island spilled onto the front pages of many Western newspapers: a trial of several island men accused of numerous rapes and sexual assaults of young girls was held in Adamstown.

Remembering "Bounty"

The dramatic story of the Bounty voyage was subsequently replicated by writers, artists, and filmmakers; in the 20th century, it became especially popular thanks to films (four of them were made, the first in 1916, the last, with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, in 1984 , various travel essays and Merle’s novel “The Island.” And when the Mars company named its chocolate bar with coconut after “Bounty,” it became clear that the rebel ship’s worldwide fame was apparently not in vain.

The first significant writer to become interested in the history of the Bounty was Jules Verne - his story “The Mutiny of the Bounty” was published in 1879. The writer collected material about the mutiny on an English ship while working on his “History of Great Voyages and Great Travelers.”

The most detailed study of the voyage of the rebel ship was made by Bengt Danielsson, a participant in the famous expedition of Thor Heyerdahl on the Kon-Tiki raft, in the book “On the Bounty to the South Seas.”

Different authors portrayed the main driver of the plot, Captain William Bligh, in different ways (Jules Vernoux, for example, saw him as a noble victim of circumstances); they depicted the episodes of the happy stay in Tahiti and the details of the rebellion in different ways. But the grateful public has always perceived this distant history with constant and undying interest, intelligently exploited by the entertainment industry, until now amazing not only by the cruelty of morals and the exotic component, but also by man’s desire for freedom.

By the way, you can still find drawings of the lost ship and instructions describing the assembly of models in specialized publications. People play this game with passion: build your own “Bounty”.

In the fall of 2012, there was a storm off the coast of America. Tropical Storm Sandy, which formed in the western part Caribbean, began to gain strength after passing Jamaica. It was reclassified as a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale late Wednesday. After Cuba, the hurricane passed over Haiti and headed towards Bahamas. In the future, weather forecasters predict its path along east coast USA.

Here is one of the victims.

Top view of a sunken sailboat (Tim Kukl/AFP/Getty Images)

Along the path of Hurricane Sandy North Carolina The legendary sailing ship Bounty, which was used in the filming of the popular Pirates of the Caribbean series, sank.

The ship, which was carrying 16 people, stopped communicating on Sunday night. The Coast Guard began searching for the sailboat Monday morning. When rescuers searching the area from the air discovered the sailboat, the crew had already abandoned the sinking ship and climbed into a life raft. Despite the difficult weather caused by Hurricane Sandy - winds reaching 65 kilometers per hour and waves more than three meters high - rescuers were able to lift the sailors aboard the helicopter.

However, it later became clear that not everyone managed to escape. As the owner of the ship, Bob Hansen, said, while boarding the raft, three sailors were washed into the water by a wave. One of them managed to reach the raft, two more, including the captain of the ship Robin Walbridge, were carried away by the current

The sailing ship also made tourist cruises in the Caribbean.

The Bounty, launched in Lunenburg, Canada in 1960, is a replica of a historic ship that was burned as a result of a crew mutiny in 1790. The new vessel became famous after it was used in the filming of the film “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Marlon Brando. Most often, the vessel was used as a training vessel.

Replica of HMS Bounty in Świnoujście, Poland, 2012. (REUTERS/HMS Bounty Organization LLC/Handout)

On Christmas Eve 1787, the three-masted schooner Bounty set sail from the English harbor of Portsmund. There have been rumors for a long time about where and why this ship is heading, but the course and official goal of the expedition were announced to the sailors already on the open sea. The ship had an exotic destination: not to the New World, not to wild Africa, not to the fabulous, but already familiar India, not to the shores of New Holland (Australia) and New Zealand - the path lay to a paradise island in the South Seas, as then called the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean.


For what? The mission, indeed, was unique: the schooner of the British Royal Navy did not set off in search of new lands or to fight the natives, and not even for black slaves or untold treasures. The Bounty team had to reach the paradise island of Tahiti, find and deliver to England a miracle plant, with the help of which it was planned to carry out an economic revolution. The goal of the long journey was breadfruit seedlings.

At the end of the 18th century, as a result of the American War of Independence, the British Empire lost its richest North American colonies. The infringement of political ambitions is nothing compared to the economic defeat that English businessmen suffered. Of course, in Jamaica and St. Vincent there was still a good harvest of sugar cane, the sale of which brought decent income to businessmen and the state treasury, but... The fact is that this same cane was grown by black slaves from Africa, who were fed yams and bananas, and grain and bread flour for them were brought from the American continent.

The independence of the United States of America hit the British slave owners hard. Now Americans had to pay completely different money for grain or import it from Europe. Both were expensive and significantly reduced the income from the sale of everything that slaves grew on the plantations. The increased costs of maintaining slaves, to put it mildly, upset English businessmen. It was necessary to somehow save the situation - to look for cheap bread. It was then that they remembered that travelers who had visited Tahiti often described a certain “bread fruit”. These fruits grow on tree branches, have a pleasant sweet taste and are the main food of local residents for eight months of the year. The schooner "Bounty" set off for this manna from heaven.

Premonition of trouble

For such an exotic mission it was necessary to prepare long and carefully: choose a suitable vessel, recruit a crew. At that time, England was preparing for war with the French, so the ships of the Royal Navy could not be used. For the trip, it was decided to buy a small merchant ship. The choice fell on a coal schooner, which was converted, essentially turning it into a floating greenhouse where plants, but not people, would feel comfortable. All functional rooms: sailors' quarters, officers' cabins, galley, latrine - were located in the lower holds, where there was clearly a lack of fresh air and daylight.

Before sailing, as a token of gratitude to King George III, who deigned to help the suffering planters, the schooner was renamed, giving it the name “Bounty” (“Generosity”). Experienced sailors know that changing the name of a ship before a voyage is a bad omen.

The organizers of the expedition approached the personnel issue with all responsibility, but it is very strange: it is not yet clear who will lead this voyage, but the main botanists are already in place. The captain was not actually chosen, but was appointed on the recommendation of the main initiator of the expedition, Sir Joseph Banks. He offered the captain's position to Lieutenant William Bligh, the husband of the niece of the largest West Indian planter and shipowner Duncan Campbell. The entire officer corps of the team was recruited according to principles that did little to improve the coherence of the team - protectionism and nepotism became the basis for selecting “suitable” candidates. Sailors were recruited on a voluntary basis, and, nevertheless, during the preparation of the ship for departure, 14 people, and this is a third of the crew, deserted. This is also a bad omen.

In the end, the Bounty put to sea late. The planned route had to be changed. The ship's captain, Bligh, gave up trying to navigate the storms off Cape Horn at this time of year and was forced to turn toward the Cape of Good Hope, crossing the Atlantic in stormy southern latitudes. The schooner passed the southern tip of Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean for the first time in the history of navigation in the Roaring Forties, safely reached the island of Tasmania and then ended up on the island of Tahiti without incident. The first half of the trip went very well, all that was left now was to successfully return home with the miracle plant.

Riot on the ship

For five months, the team prepared the breadfruit seedlings for long-term transportation. During this time, most of the crew members became close to the local population, and the sailors were captivated by Tahitian women. Many seemed to find personal happiness in this paradise and did not want to part with their beloved. Captain Bligh reacted very negatively to the love interests of almost half the crew. He often awarded his team members with very offensive epithets. “Scoundrel”, “scoundrel”, “dastardly thief”, “dog” are the most affectionate of them. To punish the guilty, the captain often used molting. The captain's arrogant character and his rude and autocratic treatment of the crew turned most of the ship's crew against him. A conflict was brewing; all that was needed was an organizer. The conspirators now have a leader - assistant captain Christian Fletcher. A few days after the schooner set sail for the return trip, a mutiny broke out on the ship.

Before sunrise, when the Bounty was not far from Tofua, the mutinous sailors burst into the captain's cabin, tied Bligh hand and foot before he tried to resist, dragged him onto the deck in his shirt and carried out a kind of trial. The captain was accused of cruelty and injustice. The rebels put Bligh and the 18 crew members who remained loyal to him on a longboat, provided them with a small amount of fresh water and provisions, and abandoned them in the middle of the ocean to their fate.

The fate of the rebels

Christian Fletcher and his accomplices threw breadfruit seedlings overboard and decided to return to Tahiti in search of a carefree existence. On the island of happiness, only those who did not take the most active part in the rebellion risked staying next to their loved ones. It was clear that if Bligh and his supporters survived, then retribution for what they had done would be inevitable - those who would carry out the punishment would arrive from Britain. The conspiratorial activists took their women, replenished the holds with food and water and set off in search of a safe refuge - some kind of uninhabited island suitable for life.

20 years passed before the fate of Christian and those he led became known. In 1808, an American merchant ship landed on the shores of an island that was considered uninhabited. To the great amazement of the captain and the members of his crew, a pirogue with three mestizo youths who spoke reasonable English came up to the side of the ship. They said that their father served on the Bounty ship. Among the sailors, many knew the story of the trip for breadfruit and the mutiny on the schooner - Bligh himself, having finally reached his native shores, published a book in which he told his version of what happened. Now the American captain was lucky enough to hear this story from the lips of a man who was on the side of the rebels.

It turns out that Christian headed south from the Tuamotu archipelago to Pitcairn Island, which attracted the attention of the rebels due to its remoteness from trade routes. When Christian Fletcher and his accomplices landed on Pitcairn, the Bounty was burned in order, firstly, to hide traces and, secondly, so that none of the rebels could leave the island.

The newcomers cleared the land, built huts and started farming. However, dreams of a comfortable life in paradise on earth did not immediately come true. The natives whom the British took with them were assigned the role of slaves. There was a split between the white men and the natives. The Polynesian part of the male population demanded equality. First of all, the women were not divided. Each of the nine sailors had his own “wife,” and for every six natives there were only three ladies. The discontent of the disadvantaged grew into a conspiracy. The natives committed a bloody massacre on the island, as a result of which five sailors died.

A few days later, the remaining white men and women loyal to them struck back. All Polynesian men were killed. Four sailors from the Bounty and several women and children remained on the island. Peaceful coexistence did not last long. The discovery of a plant from which something like vodka could be distilled predetermined the life of the small community. One of the sailors jumped into the sea in a drunken stupor and drowned. His drunkard friend lost his wife, who died falling off the cliffs while collecting bird eggs. He began to assault the women of two other men and threatened their children with death. He ended up being hacked to death with an axe.

Finally, peace reigned on the island. Two adult men felt responsible for the future of their families. Training and regular Bible readings were organized on the island. In 1800, one of the men died of asthma. As a result, only one Englishman, Smith, remained alive. In his community there were 10 women and 19 children, the eldest of whom were barely 8 years old. Smith took a new name for himself - Adams - and decided to organize life in his small community according to Christian laws. There is finally peace on the island.

In 1808, the isolation of Pitcairn Island ended. When the question of arresting the former rebel arose, the British authorities showed leniency and left him alone. Pitcairn became part of the British Empire, an English colony in the South Seas. The islanders were resettled in Tahiti, but the Pitcairns were unable to live away from their homeland: some of them fell ill and died within a few weeks, the rest returned back. Pitcairn is still inhabited exclusively by descendants of the mutineers from the schooner Bounty.

Retribution for greed

The crew of the longboat, led by Captain Bligh, with a minimal supply of food and without nautical charts, made an unprecedented journey of 3,618 nautical miles and after 45 days reached the island of Timor, a Dutch colony in the East Indies, from where it was already possible to return to England without any problems. During the voyage, the captain did not lose a single person; losses occurred only during skirmishes with the natives.

Returning to Britain, Bligh made sure that the ship Pandora was sent to search for the rebels. Many rebels were found and chained in order to be brought home for trial. The ship with people hunting for criminals did not reach Pitcairn. On the way to Britain, the Pandora was wrecked, causing many to drown. The surviving rebels were brought to England, tried and three of them were hanged.

Captain Bligh continued to serve in the navy and a few years later finally delivered breadfruit to Jamaica, where the trees took root well and began to bear abundant fruit. But the black slaves refused to eat them. They started a bread riot. Thus, the efforts spent on this miracle plant were in vain. Even children know the true price of light bread - the tree on which the buns grow brought people only strife and blood.


Breadfruit (Artocarpus) in Polynesia, 30-45 feet high, with a very thick trunk, oval. blade leaves, round, childish. head, fruit The latter is mealy. nutritious pulp, consumed. Varen. or crushed. into flour and baked into bread. (Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron)

Elena Sokolova

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Among the ancient naval chronicles, with their famous episodes, amazing and often dramatic adventures, the incident with the British military transport entitled " Bounty”, which translated means “generosity”.

At the end of the 18th century, mutinies between crews on British warships occurred quite often. Cruel discipline, bullying by captains, as well as inhuman living conditions were the reasons for bloody events more than once. In those times long voyages inevitably accompanied by large losses of people, mainly due to scurvy. Because of this, in British sailing courts there were very few willing to serve voluntarily, so forced recruitment of sailors flourished.

The captain in Tahiti began to arouse interest among merchants in the “bread tree”, which produces tasty fruits the size of cabbage. English planters in the West Indies also became interested in this. They realized that if these fruits replaced real bread, their profits would double. A letter from the farmers was presented to King George III of England, who ordered a ship to be equipped to Tahiti and the shoots of this amazing plant to be delivered.

captain of the sailing ship "Bounty" William Bligh

The Admiralty purchased for £1,950 three-masted ship, which soon became known as “Bounty”. The sailing ship "Bounty" had excellent seaworthiness. Lieutenant was appointed commander William Bligh. The ship set sail on November 29, 1787. The voyage turned out to be extremely difficult, but the sailing ship reached the island of Tahiti without any special incidents. For five months, the team prepared seedlings for long transportation to England.

After anchoring on April 4, 1789, the sailing ship "Bounty" with cargo on board went to sea. Hated everyday life began again in the life of the ordinary crew. The hatred towards the commander accumulated during the voyage spilled out on April 28, when the ship was already 1,300 miles from Tahiti.

In the morning, the rebels broke into the captain's cabin, tied him up and dragged him onto the deck for trial. Trying to avoid bloodshed, navigator Fletcher Christian, who became the object of criticism from the outside, captain, convinced the rebel crew to put Bligh and 18 people on a longboat and send them from the sailing ship Bounty to all four directions. There were 18 rebels left on the ship, 4 supporters of the captain and two people who did not participate in the events.

The mutiny occurred at a distance of about 30 nautical miles from the island of Tofua, on which Bligh wanted to land to replenish provisions. But the Tofua natives threw stones at the longboat, resulting in the death of midshipman John Norton. Left with nothing and fearing local cannibals, William Bly decides to go to the island of Timor, located at a distance of 3,618 nautical miles (6,710 km) from Tofua. Oddly enough, after a 47-day journey on a 7-meter longboat, the team reached their goal. Lieutenant Bligh returned to Britain and reported the mutiny to the Admiralty on 15 March 1790.

Subsequently, William Bligh, already at the rank of captain, made a second expedition for breadfruit trees and botanical specimens of flora, which ended in success. Bligh was later promoted to vice-admiral and in 1808 was appointed governor of New South Wales.

the unwanted crew was disembarked from the sailing ship "Bounty"

Meanwhile, the rebels on the sailing ship "Bounty" sailed to the island of Tubai, where they tried to establish a colony, but three months later, after an attack by the natives, they returned to Tahiti. Leaving behind 12 mutineers and 4 people loyal to Captain Bligh, Fletcher Christian, eight sailors, six Tahitian men and 11 women (one with a child) sailed on the sailing ship Bounty in the hope of hiding from the British Royal Navy. The Tahitians were not warned about the departure, since the main purpose was to kidnap the women. The rebels passed through Fiji and the Cook Islands. On January 15, 1790, the sailing ship Bounty landed at the Pitcairn Islands. The ship was unloaded and burned on January 23, 1790 in one of the lagoons. (The ship's ballast stones are still visible in the waters of the Bounty Bay lagoon).

map of the sailing ship "Bounty"

Bounty Bay

The colony began new life. Fletcher Christian became the recognized leader of this small community and followed a policy of justice and equality on the island. But in 1793, conflict broke out on the island between rebels and Tahitian men. Four sailors (Jack Williams, Isaac Martin, William Brown, John Mills) and Fletcher Christian himself were killed by the Tahitians. All six Tahitian men were also killed (some were killed by the sailors' widows). Of the men on the island, four rebel sailors remained.

Women's riots broke out on the island several times. The reason for them was the eternal drinking of men who produced alcohol from local plants. Soon one of the rebels died of alcohol poisoning, another was killed by John Adams and Nied Young. After this, peace reigned in the community.

In 1800, Need Young died of asthma, leaving John Adams as the only adult male on the island. He organized regular Sunday services and took responsibility for the education of young people. At this time, besides him, nine Tahitian women lived on the island and more than a dozen children.

In 1808, a British fishing expedition approached the island lost in the ocean. vessel"Topaz". To the surprise of the sailors, Pitcairn Island was inhabited. Only then did it become clear that it was inhabited by the descendants of the ill-fated sea crew « Bounty» . The last of the rebels, John Adams (who called himself Alexander Smith), served as a priest and teacher.

In 1825, John Adams was pardoned and the capital of the island was named in his honor - Adamstown. On November 30, 1838, the Pitcairn Islands (including the uninhabited islands of Henderson, Ducie, Sandy and Oeno) were incorporated into the British Empire. In 1856, the population of the islands reached 193 people and the British government provided Norfolk Island for relocation to the Pitcairns.

Pitcairn Island from space

Adamstown - capital of the Pitcairn Islands

inhabitants of Pitcairn Island in 1916

On this moment The Pitcairn Islands are a British Overseas Territory with a population of 67 (Anglo-Polynesian Mestizos in the 2011 census) administered by the British High Commissioner to New Zealand. The main memorial day for the islanders is January 23, commemorating the burning of the sailing ship Bounty. total area Pitcairn Islands - 47 km², of which the largest is Henderson (37.3 km²). The area of ​​the only inhabited island of Pitcairn is 4.6 km², dimensions are on average 3 × 1.5 km. On uninhabited islands there are no sources of fresh water.

“Tahiti, Tahiti... And they feed us well here too!” - declares the cat in the cartoon "Return of the Prodigal Parrot." But the crew of the English ship "Bounty", who went to Tahiti at the end of the 18th century to buy breadfruit seedlings, fell in love with the island so much that the sailors did not want to leave it. Instead, they staged a riot, allowed the captain to sail freely on the ocean, and they themselves captured a couple of Tahitian women and colonized the island of Pitcairn. Ekaterina Astafieva will tell about the famous rebellion, similar to the plot of an adventure novel.

Bread is the head of everything

Late 18th century, American War of Independence. The British Empire is losing huge colonized territories in North America. There remain, of course, a few colonies, for example in Jamaica and St. Vincent, where sugar cane is grown. But the volumes are no longer the same, and incomes are decreasing. The fact is that black slaves from Africa working on plantations needed to be fed with something, and with America’s declaration of independence, the routes for cheap grain supplies were blocked.

The Bounty ship was supposed to deliver seedlings to Jamaica


And paying Americans or importing it from Europe is not a cheap pleasure. English businessmen became thoughtful, leafed through James Cook's travel notes and found a cure for their illnesses: breadfruit. The traveler wrote that for the inhabitants of Tahiti, these large fruits with hearty pulp form the basis of the diet for most of the year. We decided: we will plant breadfruit in Jamaica and save on our daily needs.

Tyrant on board

It was decided to equip an expedition for breadfruit seedlings to the mysterious and alluring island of Tahiti. William Bligh was appointed captain of the ship, who accompanied Cook on his last voyage. The young but experienced sailor, according to contemporaries, was strict and sometimes even cruel without reason. It was rumored that he beat his sailors for no apparent reason. But logbooks show that the captain resorted to punishment no more often than was required by the charter. In addition, he took care of his crew: on board there was a large supply of means to protect against seasickness and scurvy. All of Bly's charges were simple sailors: due to small sizes there were no more officers on the ship.

Replica of the Bounty ship

All the circles of the ocean

In December 1787, the three-sail ship Bounty left Portsmouth. It is important to note that, due to the fault of the Admiralty, the ship departed with a delay and missed a convenient time for travel. The Bounty headed for Cape Horn, but it was during this season that severe storms raged there.

Captain Bligh and the rest of his crew crossed the ocean in a boat without a compass.


Then the ship had to turn to the Cape of Good Hope, crossing the Atlantic. Then the path lay through the Indian Ocean along the dangerous forties latitudes to Tasmania, and, finally, Tahiti. We had to stop here for 5 months: the fruits on the trees had not yet ripened in the quantity required for seedlings. The crew, tired after a long voyage, indulged in all the joys life had to offer them. exotic island Tahiti: they started eating fruit, swimming in the sea and chasing after Tahitian women.


Paul Gauguin "Tahitian Pastorals", 1893

Riot on the ship

When the time came to return to Britain, the team was clearly in a bad mood. The seedlings taken on board required constant attention, and they also had to be regularly watered with fresh water. The sailors grumbled that the plants on the Bounty were better cared for than the people. And the memories of the beautiful islanders stirred my soul. On April 27, 1789, a rebellion broke out on the ship, led by assistant captain Fletcher Christian. William Bligh was disarmed and put into a boat with a small supply of food, a sextant and a pocket watch. Several sailors who remained loyal to the captain were sent along with him. In total there were 7 people on the boat.

Rebels with Tahitians founded a settlement on Pitcairn Island


Bligh and the remnants of his team made an incredible journey: they sailed almost 7,000 kilometers without maps, only from memory, managing to not die during the 47 days of the journey. Bligh arrived at Timor, where he was met by the British, having lost only one sailor to a native attack. “I invited my companions to go ashore,” says Bligh. “Some could barely move their legs. All that was left of us was skin and bones: we were covered with wounds, our clothes turned into rags. In this state of joy and gratitude brought tears to our eyes, and the people of Timor looked at us in silence, with expressions of horror, surprise and pity. So, with the help of Providence, we overcame the hardships and difficulties of such a dangerous journey!” Captain Bligh soon delivered breadfruit seedlings to Jamaica.


Robert Dodd "The mutineers disembark Captain Bligh and part of the crew from the Bounty into a boat"

Head off the shoulders

The rebels went back to Tahiti. Christian appealed to his comrades, trying to persuade them to leave the island: a British ship could arrive at any moment, and for overthrowing the captain they would certainly be sent to the gallows. Some sailors chose to stay in Tahiti, which they probably regretted later: everything happened as Christian predicted. In 1791, the British ship Pandora arrived on the island. The rebels were captured and sent to England, but on the way most of them died in a shipwreck. The three survivors were sentenced to death.

Heaven on earth

But a small group of nine rebels managed to leave the island in advance, taking with them 12 Tahitians and 6 Tahitians as slaves. They sailed to Pitcairn Island, burned the ship, and, as at first it seemed, found their paradise on earth. All the problems started because of women. When one of the sailors' Tahitian wife died, the British came up with nothing better than to take the woman away from the native. He killed his beloved's new friend, the sailors avenged their comrade. The Tahitians killed five whites, but the women went to avenge their English husbands and killed all the natives. As a result, not a single Tahitian remained on the island, only four sailors, several women and children.

Still from the film "Mutiny on the Bounty", 1935

Here, perhaps, we could calm down. But two sailors learned how to distill moonshine, began drinking and rowdying, so that one fell drunkenly into the sea, and the enraged second was hacked to death by his comrades with an axe. The remaining Smith and Young began to live in peace and harmony. Young, who suffered from asthma, taught Smith to read before his death, and people on the island regularly held Bible readings and worship services.

On Pitcairn Island they speak a mixture of 18th-century English and Tahitian


In 1808, the island was discovered by a British ship. Smith was still alive and considered the sole ruler of Pitcairn. The atmosphere on the island was extremely friendly. Smith died in 1829, and in 1831 the English government attempted to resettle all his offspring in Tahiti. But far from home, 12 people died, so 65 islanders returned to Pitcairn. Later, some of them moved to Norfolk Island.

Now the descendants of those same rebels from the Bounty ship still live on Pitcairn Island. About 50 people speak a strange language, a mixture of 18th-century English and Tahitian. The island is considered a British overseas territory, has a democratic system of government and lives mainly through tourism and the sale of postage stamps.

 

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