Pitcairn Island
After several years of living peacefully on the island, the Tahitian men grew tired of being treated badly, and not having as much access to the women as their white counterparts. Tension was also added by the pressure put on the colony by increasing alcoholism, after a small distillery was built by the mutineers. In October 1793, a war broke out between the mutineers and the four surviving Tahitian men who sailed with them. Five of the mutineers, including Christian, and all of the Tahitian men were killed. Young slept through most of this battle as well, and was protected by the Tahitian women, who largely supported the mutineers. Young did help to hunt down and kill Neho, one of the Tahitian men. The other three surviving mutineers were Matthew Quintal, William McCoy and John Adams. Young was accepted as the leader of the island, and Adams became his friend and deputy, though some sources seem to indicate that the two men had an equal amount of power. They gained much more respect than McCoy and Quintal, who became alcoholics. McCoy fell off a cliff while seriously drunk, possibly a suicide, and Quintal afterwards became even more alcoholic and threatened to kill the entire community. Adams and Young killed Quintal to prevent this from happening, making themselves the only two surviving mutineers. Meanwhile they had established fruit plantations and had multitudes of children by their Tahitian wives.
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Famous quotes containing the word island:
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)