The Pitcairn Bible

Story: The story of the Mutiny on the Bounty has been told many times.

But the one part of the story that does not make the news is the transformation made by one book to Pitcairn Island.

You probably know the story well of the Mutiny on the Bounty.

Fletcher Christian , the second in command led a mutiny of over half the crew of the Bounty against the Captain, Lieutenant Bligh on 28th April 1789.

The Captain and his party were sent adrift, and after much hardship and brilliant seamanship on the part of Bligh reached the island of Timor.

Fletcher Christian took the Bounty and the rest of the crew to Tahiti

In September 1789, he and eight other men from the Bounty, six Tahitian men, eleven Tahitian women and one child, left Tahiti on the Bounty

In the beginning of the following year 1790, they landed on an uninhabited island, Pitcairn Island.

They burnt the ship in order to escape detection.

At first, the island seemed a paradise.

But then the Englishmen mistreated the Tahitians and stole one of their wives, causing a rebellion.

Within four years, all the Tahitian men and all but four of the Englishmen had been murdered.

The only survivors were Alexander Smith, Edward Young, Matthew Quintall, William McCoy, together with ten women and some children.

McCoy learnt how to distill liquor from the roots of the ti plant, and soon the men were drunk almost all the time.

Fearing for their lives, the women and children fled to another part of the island and build a fort for protection.

McCoy threw himself over the cliffs in a drunken stupor.

Matthew Quintal became so dangerous when drunk that he threatened the lives of everyone else

So Smith and Young killed him for the safety of the others on the island.

Smith finally destroyed the still and all the liquor on the island, and went through several months of “cold turkey”

.

Young, who was dying of consumption was taken in by the women to nurse him.

While Smith was living alone for months, he discovered among the stores taken off the Bounty - before it was destroyed - a copy of the Bible and a Book of Common Prayer.

However these weren’t much use to him as he was illiterate.

Eventually, Young recovered and he and the women returned to the village where Smith was living.,

Young was literate and so he taught Smith to read using the Bible

.

In 1801, Young died.

Alexander Smith continued to read to Bible in its entirety, and grew to understand it over a period of several years.

Seeing the importance of teaching it to others, he began teaching the children how to read, and eventually some of the mothers learned to read as well.

Using the Bible, he taught everyone about the Christian faith and instituted a daily prayer time, grace before meals, and Sunday worship.

One of his prayers was as follows:

“Suffer me not O Lord to waste this day in Sin or folly. But Let me Worship thee with much Delight. Teach me to know more of thee and to serve thee better than ever I have done before, that I may be fitter to dwell in heaven, where thy worship and service are everlasting. Amen.”

In 1808, Pitcairn's Island was discovered by captain Mayhew Folger of an American ship the USS Topas.

The members of the crew were amazed to find that the island was inhabited by thirty five English-speaking people of Polynesian descent who were practicing the Christian faith.

It wasn’t long before the outside world was fascinated with the news that Fletcher Christian's community had been found.

The English authorities instructed every captain sailing to the south Pacific to search for any mutineers so that they could be arrested and deported to England to be punished for their crimes.

Later, when two British ships did visit Pitcairn's Island.

They found such an orderly colony that they decided to disobey orders and not report their find of the Bounty survivors to London - although they did annex the Island as a British colony.

King George later sent Captain Waldgrave to visit Pitcairn's. And Waldgrave wrote this:

“It was with great gratification that we observed the Christian simplicity of the natives. They appeared to have no guile. Their cottages were open to all and all were welcome to their food.”

A Church and a school were later built on the island.

Smith died in 1829 at the age of seventy, but by 1840, Pitcairn's Island was still a thriving Christian colony.

A visitor at that time wrote as follows:

“I then walked round and questioned several of the people on the texts, and some of the chief Scripture facts and doctrines, and most of them gave ready and suitable answers. . . .

The islanders have prayers twice on the Sabbath; after which Mr. Nobbs reads sermons from Burder, Watts, Blair, or Whitefield. There is also a Sabbath-school, a Bible-class is held on the Wednesday, and a day-school every morning and afternoon.

We are blessed with a book that has the ability to change lives.

We are sitting on a powder keg and we don’t realise it