Ned Young - Pitcairn Island

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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    When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.
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