Mark's Pages

"After leaving Tahiti, Christian had headed for the southern Cook Islands, where they visited an island called 'Purutea'. When a canoe from this island approached the Bounty, and one of its men admired the pearl-shell buttons on Christian's uniform jacket, Christian allowed him to put it on. As the man stood on the gunwale, preening himself, however, one of the mutineers shot him, to Christian's fury, and he toppled into the ocean. It has been suggested that this island was Rarotonga, because according to the missionary John Williams, who visited that island in 1823, the people told him about the visit of a ship that he identified as the Bounty, where one man had gone on board. [...] Although these hints may be suggestive, they do not prove that this ship was the Bounty, or that the island they visited was Rarotonga." — Anne Salmond, Bligh