Norfolk Island - where convicts, Cook, Captain Bligh and BOUNTY left an indelible mark on its history

Norfolk Island is a tiny old volcanic outcrop in the South Pacific. Apart from being isolated, it is steeped in history – both heroic and brutally inhumane.

On his voyage of discovery aboard RESOLUTION, Captain James Cook stepped ashore briefly on this section of the coast of the small island (6 x 8 km). The year was 1774.

Though the sheer cliffs and inhospitable rocky shore made further investigation impossible, Cook named the island NORFOLK. He saw value in the natural vegetation - the tall timbers (now called Norfolk Island pines) for shipbuilding and the flax-like plants for sail making.

The Island is a natural paradise and, today, is World Heritage listed with the best examples of Georgian architecture in the Southern hemisphere. It’s a place where the cattle graze the long paddock and have right of way on the roads.

 

Unfortunately, Norfolk Island has no natural harbour and the transport ships which arrive once a month are off–loaded in the old-fashioned manner by lighters (longboats/whaleboats).

Its museums reflect a history of shipwrecks (HMS SIRIUS) and settlement and events from N.I.’s early visitations by Polynesians around 700 years before Captain Cook ‘discovered’ it and gave the island its name; to the eras of the early colonial settlements and its dark convict stain; to the arrival of the descendants of the ‘BOUNTY’ mutineers from Pitcairn Island in the mid-1800s. 

Despite this bronze memorial standing in the square, the BOUNTY itself never came to Norfolk Island After the mutiny against Captain Bligh, the ship was sailed to Pitcairn Island by Fletcher Christian and his ‘crew’ where it was fired and sunk. In the years that followed, the mutineers and their Tahitian women spawned a unique population and it was their descendants who landed on Norfolk Island in 1856. 
The 'Pitcairners' consisted of 40 men, 47 women, 54 boys and 53 girls, in all, 194 people whose names appear beneath this monument. They were to become the ‘torch bearers for the Norfolk Island heritage’.  

Today’s small population (less than 2000) is made up of many direct descendants of Fletcher Christian, Quintal, Nobbs, Adams and McCoy. Their names are engraved on the gravestones in the cemetery.

 
I have just spent a week on Norfolk Island and would thoroughly recommend a visit.

The following posts have more details and pics.

Firehearth links to Captain Bligh

When the replica of Captain Cook’s bark ENDEAVOUR was built, the fireplace in the Great Cabin was based on one recovered from the wreck of the PANDORA – a ship built in the eighteenth century.
Following the court martial of Captain William Bligh for loss of his ship BOUNTY, Captain Edward Edwards sailed on the PANDORA in an attempt to find the mutineers made famous by the Mutiny on the BOUNTY (in which Captain Bligh was set adrift in a small boat and remarkably managed to navigate the boat 4000 miles to safety).
After surviving both the mutiny and the court martial, Bligh was determined to find the BOUNTY and its remaining survivors. At his insistence, the Admiralty despatched the PANDORA to search for it but was unable to find any trace and was wrecked in the process.
A few survivors of the mutiny were picked up in Tahiti and confined on the ship in what is now referred to as 'Pandora's Box'. Those men survived the shipwreck only to be returned to England to face trial.
Today the wreck of the PANDORA (discovered in the 1980s) is regarded as the most significant wreck in the South Pacific, and extensive archaeological and recovery work is being done on the site, including recovering the bones of some sailors who went down with the ship.
Pic: Great Cabin on the ENDEAVOUR replica with the open fireplace. The design is based on one from the Pandora (see pic centre left).

HM Bark ENDEAVOUR - an ignominious end

After her voyages under Captain Cook, ENDEAVOUR was used as a Navy store ship, and in 1775, she was sold and her name changed to LORD SANDWICH. When the British occupied the city in the American Revolution, she became a transport vessel carrying German troops to Newport in 1776. In 1777 and 1778 the LORD SANDWICH was used as a prison ship to secure American patriots.

In July 1778 when the French fleet arrived at Narragansett Bay to support the American army, in order to avoid capture and protect Newport, Rhode Island, from the French fleet, the British burned and/or sank 10 Royal Navy vessels plus 13 transports (including the LORD SANDWICH ex ENDEAVOUR).

The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) is engaged in a multi-year process to locate and identify the 13 British transports scuttled in1778. One of its aims is to positively identify the LORD SANDWICH.

http://www.rimap.org/

PS: I'm looking forward to spending 3 days as a tour guide on HMB ENDEAVOUR replica in Hobart, and hope to learn a little more of the ship's eventual demise.