Fletcher Christian facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Fletcher Christian
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 25 September 1764 Moorland Close, Eaglesfield, Cumberland, England
|
| Died | Uncertain, probably 20 September 1793 (aged 28) Uncertain, probably Pitcairn Island
|
| Occupation | Master's Mate |
| Spouse(s) | Mauatua 'Isabella' Christian |
| Children | Thursday October Christian I Charles Christian Mary Ann Christian |
| Parent(s) | Charles Christian Ann Dixon |
| Relatives | Edward Christian (brother) Edmund Law (uncle) |
Fletcher Christian (born September 25, 1764 – died probably September 20, 1793) was a master's mate on the famous ship HMS Bounty. He sailed with Lieutenant William Bligh to Tahiti from 1787 to 1789. Their mission was to collect breadfruit plants.
Christian became famous for leading a mutiny against Bligh on April 28, 1789. After the mutiny, some sailors stayed on Tahiti. Christian, eight other mutineers, six Tahitian men, and eleven Tahitian women settled on the faraway Pitcairn Island. They burned the Bounty there. When the settlement was found in 1808, the only mutineer left gave different stories about how Christian died.
Contents
Fletcher Christian's Early Life
Fletcher Christian was born on September 25, 1764. His family lived at Moorland Close, near Cockermouth in Cumberland, England. His family came from the Isle of Man. Many of his ancestors were important judges called Deemsters.
Fletcher had two brothers, Edward and Humphrey. Their father, Charles Christian, was a lawyer. He owned a large estate called Ewanrigg Hall. Fletcher's mother was Ann Dixon.
When Fletcher was not yet four, his father died in 1768. His mother, Ann, was not good with money. By the time Fletcher was fifteen, in 1779, she owed a lot of money. The family lost their home, Moorland Close. Ann and her three younger children had to move to the Isle of Man. English creditors (people they owed money to) could not reach them there.
Fletcher and his older brothers helped their mother. They arranged for her to receive a small amount of money each year. This allowed the family to live simply. Fletcher went to Cockermouth Free School for seven years, starting at age nine. The famous poet William Wordsworth also went to this school. Christian was six years older than Wordsworth. His mother, Ann, died on the Isle of Man in 1819.
Fletcher Christian started his navy career later than most. He joined the Royal Navy as a cabin boy when he was seventeen. Most cabin boys were 12 to 15 years old. He served for over a year on a large warship called HMS Cambridge. His future commander, William Bligh, was also on this ship.
Christian then became a midshipman on HMS Eurydice. Six months after the ship sailed, he was promoted to Master's Mate. This ship traveled to India. Christian's good behavior led to his promotion.
After his time on the Eurydice, Christian left the Royal Navy for a while. He joined the British merchant fleet. He worked on William Bligh's merchant ship, Britannia. Bligh had also left the Royal Navy and was now a merchant captain. Bligh treated Christian like an officer, even though he was listed as an able seaman. On a second trip to Jamaica with Bligh, Christian was promoted to Second Mate.
In 1787, Bligh asked Christian to join HMAV Bounty. This ship was going on a two-year trip to take breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies. Bligh wanted Christian to be the ship's Master. But the Navy Board said no because Christian was not senior enough. Instead, John Fryer became Master. Christian was made Master's Mate. A year later, during the Bounty's voyage, Bligh made Christian an acting lieutenant. This made Christian higher in rank than Fryer.
On April 28, 1789, Fletcher Christian led the mutiny on the Bounty. After this, he was considered an outlaw. The navy officially removed him from his rank in March 1790. This happened after Bligh returned to England and reported the mutiny.
The Famous Mutiny on the Bounty
In 1787, Christian became master's mate on the Bounty. Bligh had suggested him for the job. The ship's goal was to bring breadfruit plants from Tahiti. During the journey, Bligh made Christian an acting lieutenant. The Bounty reached Tahiti on October 26, 1788. Christian stayed there for five months.
The Bounty left Tahiti with its breadfruit cargo on April 4, 1789. About 1,300 miles west of Tahiti, near Tonga, the mutiny began. This was on April 28, 1789. Christian led the mutiny. Stories say the sailors loved the peaceful life on Tahiti. After the mutiny, some people said Bligh treated the crew very harshly.
Eighteen mutineers put Bligh and eighteen loyal crew members into a small boat. They were left to survive on their own.
After the mutiny, Christian first went back to Tahiti. There, he married Maimiti, who was the daughter of a local chief. He then tried to start a new home on Tubuai. But the mutineers had problems with the local people there. So, they left Tubuai. They stopped briefly in Tahiti again. Sixteen crew members were left there. These included four men loyal to Bligh and two who did not join the mutiny.
The remaining nine mutineers, six Tahitian men, and eleven Tahitian women sailed east. They eventually landed on Pitcairn Island. They took everything useful from the Bounty before Matthew Quintal set it on fire. This left them stranded on the island. The mutineers treated the Tahitian men unfairly. This led to fighting and the deaths of most of the men.
Fletcher Christian's Death
The American ship Topaz visited Pitcairn Island in 1808. They found only one mutineer still alive. His name was John Adams (who used the name Alexander Smith on the Bounty). Nine Tahitian women were also alive. The mutineers who had died had children with their Tahitian wives. Most of these children were still living.
Adams and Maimiti said that Christian was killed during the fighting between the Tahitian men and the mutineers. A Pitcairn woman named Jenny, who left the island in 1817, also told a story. She said Christian was shot while working near a pond by his pregnant wife's home. Four other mutineers and all six Tahitian men who came to the island were also killed in this conflict.
William McCoy, one of the four mutineers who survived, fell off a cliff and died. Quintal was later killed by Adams and Ned Young. This happened after Quintal attacked them. Young became the new leader of Pitcairn.
John Adams told different stories about Christian's death to other ships that visited Pitcairn. He sometimes said Christian died naturally, or went crazy, or was murdered.
_Fletcher_October_Christian.jpg)
Christian had a wife, Maimiti, and three children. His oldest son was Thursday October Christian (born 1790). He also had a younger son, Charles Christian (born 1792), and a daughter, Mary Ann Christian (born 1793). Thursday and Charles are the ancestors of almost everyone named Christian on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands. Many of their descendants also live in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
For over two hundred years, there have been rumors that Christian did not die. Some believe he faked his death, left the island, and returned to England. Many experts think these rumors inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
There are no real pictures or drawings of Fletcher Christian made when he was alive. Bligh described Christian as "5 feet 9 inches tall. He had a very dark complexion and very dark brown hair. He was strong. He had a star tattooed on his left chest and on his backside. His knees were a little bent, and he was a little bow-legged. His hands sweated a lot, so he would soil anything he touched."
Fletcher Christian in Books and Movies
Stories in Books
Christian appears in many books about the Bounty story. These include Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), Pitcairn's Island (1934), and After the Bounty (2009). He is also in The Lonely Island; or, The Refuge of the Mutineers (1880) by R. M. Ballantyne. And he is in The Long Voyage (1853) by Charles Dickens.
In Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn books, Fletcher Christian's ghost appears. He takes over a human body and helps two girls escape. William Kinsolving's 1996 book Mister Christian and Val McDermid's 2006 thriller The Grave Tattoo are about Christian possibly returning to England. They use the fact that he went to school with William Wordsworth. Dan L. Thrapp's 2002 book Mutiny's Curse has a similar idea. In 1959, Louis MacNeice produced a BBC Radio play called I Call Me Adam. It was written by Laurie Lee and was about the mutineers' lives on Pitcairn.
Christian in Films
Fletcher Christian has been played by these actors in movies:
- Wilton Powers in The Mutiny of the Bounty (1916)
- Errol Flynn in In the Wake of the Bounty (1933)
- Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
- Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
- Mel Gibson in The Bounty (1984)
The 1935 and 1962 movies are based on the 1932 book Mutiny on the Bounty. In this book, Christian is a main character and is usually shown in a good way. The authors, Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, wrote two more books. One, Pitcairn's Island, tells the sad story of what happened after the mutiny. It describes Christian's death and other violent events on Pitcairn Island. The other book, Men Against the Sea, is about Bligh's journey after the mutiny. These books use made-up versions of minor crew members to tell the stories.
The movie The Bounty, released in 1984, shows Christian in a less positive way than earlier films.
Christian in Music
- David Essex in Mutiny! (1985)
- Mekons "(Sometimes I Feel Like) Fletcher Christian" from So Good It Hurts (1988)
- Rasputina "Cage in a Cave" from Oh Perilous World (2007)
- The Rolling Stones “(Dancing in the Light)”
See also
In Spanish: Fletcher Christian para niños
- Garth Christian – a relative
- Descendants of the Bounty mutineers – Thomas Colman Christian, who died July 7, 2013.
