Author: Glynn Christian
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781590480502
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
This is the heroic and bloody, untold story of Mauatua, Tahitian lover and wife of BOUNTY mutineer Fletcher Christian and of what she and 11 other women endured to survive on Pitcairn Island, the mutineers' secret refuge for almost twenty years. It is a story of Ma'ohi women succeeding where white men failed, women who then became first in the world to have the vote, in 1838, 90 years before the women of Britain. To secure and then protect two of womanhood's most precious rights, the right to bear children and the right of those children to a life of loving security, Mauatua had to endure and sometimes motivate unspeakable brutality. In response to the drunkenness, madness and physical cruelty of their European lovers, Mauatua and the other Ma'ohi women mutinied against their BOUNTY mutineer-kidnappers. They used Christian's revolutionary idea of voting to agree the only course to ensure the safe future of their children - an island with as few men as possible. But once they resorted to such extreme measures there were secrets that must never be told, confidences that must never be broken. A new history had to be written. When Pitcairn Island is rediscovered in 1808, a living reminder of Mauatua's past life on Tahiti challenges her certainties and everything she has done to protect the island's children. Thirty years later she led the Pitcairn community to ratifying two revolutionary concepts. Women had their right to vote written into law, ninety years before the UK. And education was to be compulsory for girls as well as boys. Eventually Mauatua is forced to disclose the truth about Pitcairn's two greatest mysteries. Who did plan the massacres? What did happen to Fletcher Christian? By telling her secrets, Mauatua/Mrs Christian subjects herself to the judgment and outrage of those she fought hardest to protect, her own children.
Mrs Christian, Bounty Mutineer - Fletcher Stole the Ship
Author: Glynn Christian
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781590480502
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
This is the heroic and bloody, untold story of Mauatua, Tahitian lover and wife of BOUNTY mutineer Fletcher Christian and of what she and 11 other women endured to survive on Pitcairn Island, the mutineers' secret refuge for almost twenty years. It is a story of Ma'ohi women succeeding where white men failed, women who then became first in the world to have the vote, in 1838, 90 years before the women of Britain. To secure and then protect two of womanhood's most precious rights, the right to bear children and the right of those children to a life of loving security, Mauatua had to endure and sometimes motivate unspeakable brutality. In response to the drunkenness, madness and physical cruelty of their European lovers, Mauatua and the other Ma'ohi women mutinied against their BOUNTY mutineer-kidnappers. They used Christian's revolutionary idea of voting to agree the only course to ensure the safe future of their children - an island with as few men as possible. But once they resorted to such extreme measures there were secrets that must never be told, confidences that must never be broken. A new history had to be written. When Pitcairn Island is rediscovered in 1808, a living reminder of Mauatua's past life on Tahiti challenges her certainties and everything she has done to protect the island's children. Thirty years later she led the Pitcairn community to ratifying two revolutionary concepts. Women had their right to vote written into law, ninety years before the UK. And education was to be compulsory for girls as well as boys. Eventually Mauatua is forced to disclose the truth about Pitcairn's two greatest mysteries. Who did plan the massacres? What did happen to Fletcher Christian? By telling her secrets, Mauatua/Mrs Christian subjects herself to the judgment and outrage of those she fought hardest to protect, her own children.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781590480502
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
This is the heroic and bloody, untold story of Mauatua, Tahitian lover and wife of BOUNTY mutineer Fletcher Christian and of what she and 11 other women endured to survive on Pitcairn Island, the mutineers' secret refuge for almost twenty years. It is a story of Ma'ohi women succeeding where white men failed, women who then became first in the world to have the vote, in 1838, 90 years before the women of Britain. To secure and then protect two of womanhood's most precious rights, the right to bear children and the right of those children to a life of loving security, Mauatua had to endure and sometimes motivate unspeakable brutality. In response to the drunkenness, madness and physical cruelty of their European lovers, Mauatua and the other Ma'ohi women mutinied against their BOUNTY mutineer-kidnappers. They used Christian's revolutionary idea of voting to agree the only course to ensure the safe future of their children - an island with as few men as possible. But once they resorted to such extreme measures there were secrets that must never be told, confidences that must never be broken. A new history had to be written. When Pitcairn Island is rediscovered in 1808, a living reminder of Mauatua's past life on Tahiti challenges her certainties and everything she has done to protect the island's children. Thirty years later she led the Pitcairn community to ratifying two revolutionary concepts. Women had their right to vote written into law, ninety years before the UK. And education was to be compulsory for girls as well as boys. Eventually Mauatua is forced to disclose the truth about Pitcairn's two greatest mysteries. Who did plan the massacres? What did happen to Fletcher Christian? By telling her secrets, Mauatua/Mrs Christian subjects herself to the judgment and outrage of those she fought hardest to protect, her own children.
Pitkern-Norf’k
Author: Peter Mühlhäusler
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501501437
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
"This book tells the story of the language of the Bounty mutineers and their Polynesian consorts that developed on remote Pitcairn Island in the late 18th century. Most of their descendants subsequently relocated to Norfolk Island. It is an in-depth study of the complex linguistic, ecological and sociohistorical forces that have been involved in the formation and subsequent development of this unique endangered language on both islands."--Publisher's description
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501501437
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
"This book tells the story of the language of the Bounty mutineers and their Polynesian consorts that developed on remote Pitcairn Island in the late 18th century. Most of their descendants subsequently relocated to Norfolk Island. It is an in-depth study of the complex linguistic, ecological and sociohistorical forces that have been involved in the formation and subsequent development of this unique endangered language on both islands."--Publisher's description
Mrs Christian Bounty Mutineer
Author: Glynn Christian
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781916298408
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 508
Book Description
Meet Mrs Christian, a real-life 18th century heroine of rebellion, women's rights and democracy.This is the bloodthirsty, true story of Mauatua Christian and the 11 other revolutionary Ma'ohi women of HMAV BOUNTY, the foremothers of Pitcairn Island. They succeeded where the mutineers failed and in 1838 became the first women in the world to have their full right to vote written into law, more than 80 years before just some British women over 30 were franchised......."Congratulations! It was fun and easy to read, and sheds tremendous light on the Pitcairn story. Sizzling sex scenes!": Distinguished Professor Dame Anne Salmond, South Pacific anthropologist and author"I read it with intense interest and fascination . . . not only a thoughtful but also a gripping and moving story, with wide implications. . . how much I admire your impressive achievement . . .": Rolf DuRietz, Bounty scholar......After a failed attempt to settle on Tubuai Island mutineer Fletcher Christian finally reaches uninhabited Pitcairn Island aboard BOUNTY in January 1790. Tahitian beauty Mauatua is with him, escaping the cruel, male-dominated life of Tahitian women. Together they hope to realise their joint dream of a better, more equal world for women and men.Stranded when the ship mysteriously burns, Pitcairn's Ma'ohi women endure and sometimes motivate unspeakable brutality to secure and then to protect two of womanhood's most precious rights, the right to bear children and the right of those children to a life of loving security.Once they resort to such extreme measures Mauatua knows these secrets must never be told, not even to their children. The women rewrite Pitcairn Island's violent history.Pitcairn Island is rediscovered in 1808. Only one mutineer is left alive and a living reminder of Mauatua's past life on Tahiti challenges her certainties about everything she has done to protect Pitcairn's children. After the community's brief and deadly return to Tahiti in 1831, where the Pitcairners are tragically abandoned by Church and Governments, she is forced to disclose the truth about Pitcairn's two greatest mysteries.Who did massacre Pitcairn's white and black men, and why? What did happen to Fletcher Christian?By telling her secrets Mauatua/Mrs Christian subjects herself to the judgment and outrage of those she fought hardest to protect, her own children
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781916298408
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 508
Book Description
Meet Mrs Christian, a real-life 18th century heroine of rebellion, women's rights and democracy.This is the bloodthirsty, true story of Mauatua Christian and the 11 other revolutionary Ma'ohi women of HMAV BOUNTY, the foremothers of Pitcairn Island. They succeeded where the mutineers failed and in 1838 became the first women in the world to have their full right to vote written into law, more than 80 years before just some British women over 30 were franchised......."Congratulations! It was fun and easy to read, and sheds tremendous light on the Pitcairn story. Sizzling sex scenes!": Distinguished Professor Dame Anne Salmond, South Pacific anthropologist and author"I read it with intense interest and fascination . . . not only a thoughtful but also a gripping and moving story, with wide implications. . . how much I admire your impressive achievement . . .": Rolf DuRietz, Bounty scholar......After a failed attempt to settle on Tubuai Island mutineer Fletcher Christian finally reaches uninhabited Pitcairn Island aboard BOUNTY in January 1790. Tahitian beauty Mauatua is with him, escaping the cruel, male-dominated life of Tahitian women. Together they hope to realise their joint dream of a better, more equal world for women and men.Stranded when the ship mysteriously burns, Pitcairn's Ma'ohi women endure and sometimes motivate unspeakable brutality to secure and then to protect two of womanhood's most precious rights, the right to bear children and the right of those children to a life of loving security.Once they resort to such extreme measures Mauatua knows these secrets must never be told, not even to their children. The women rewrite Pitcairn Island's violent history.Pitcairn Island is rediscovered in 1808. Only one mutineer is left alive and a living reminder of Mauatua's past life on Tahiti challenges her certainties about everything she has done to protect Pitcairn's children. After the community's brief and deadly return to Tahiti in 1831, where the Pitcairners are tragically abandoned by Church and Governments, she is forced to disclose the truth about Pitcairn's two greatest mysteries.Who did massacre Pitcairn's white and black men, and why? What did happen to Fletcher Christian?By telling her secrets Mauatua/Mrs Christian subjects herself to the judgment and outrage of those she fought hardest to protect, her own children
Fletcher Christian Bounty Mutineer: His Life. His Fate. The Repercussions.
Author: Glynn Christian
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781916298415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
Fully colour illustrated in a bigger size (10"x7"), this completely revised edition features new images, new facts and new conclusions that give fresh perspectives to Fletcher's social status and background and explain how these impact on the psychology behind his special friendship with William Bligh and how this turned to tragic personal betrayal on April 28th, 1789. And how his ideas of social revolution led to Pitcairn Island's women being first in the world to have the vote.Follow the sweep of young Fletcher Christian's extraordinary life from Cumbria and the Isle of Man to India, Cape Horn, Tahiti and then to the world's most famous mutiny in HMAV BOUNTY, to his almost forgotten settlement of Fort George on Tubuai, his long South Pacific search for a hidden home and to oblivion on his Pitcairn Island hideout. Still Fletcher Christian's only biography, the book explains why there was never a mutiny of BOUNTY but was a revolt of one man against another, Christian against Bligh.As well as the shocking truth about conditions aboard BOUNTY and how Bligh behaved on a second breadfruit expedition, this book also reveals what Fletcher discovered about Tahitian women's brutal life of infanticide, facial reshaping, food restrictions and more. BOUNTY's women, including his wife Mauatua, were not kidnapped but eagerly escaped with Fletcher Christian and were later willing to entirely reshape their lifestyles, endure bloodshed and massacre on Pitcairn Island to protect their children and to follow Fletcher's legacy of social revolution, eventually becoming first women in the word to have the vote. But who really burned BOUNTY and why are there so many versions of Fletcher Christian's fate? Did he escape and secretly return to Cumberland? Fletcher Christian's descendant Glynn Christian investigates his ancestor's life, his mutiny and the repercussions more thoroughly than any other author has done and finally sails in the wake of Fletcher Christian to Pitcairn Island hoping to solve the mysteries of his fate. This reality-packed narrative proves fact is stranger and more thrilling than fiction, even after two centuries, and further enhances FRAGILE PARADISE, Glynn Christian's widely acclaimed and respected earlier telling of the life of Fletcher Christian BOUNTY Mutineer.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781916298415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
Fully colour illustrated in a bigger size (10"x7"), this completely revised edition features new images, new facts and new conclusions that give fresh perspectives to Fletcher's social status and background and explain how these impact on the psychology behind his special friendship with William Bligh and how this turned to tragic personal betrayal on April 28th, 1789. And how his ideas of social revolution led to Pitcairn Island's women being first in the world to have the vote.Follow the sweep of young Fletcher Christian's extraordinary life from Cumbria and the Isle of Man to India, Cape Horn, Tahiti and then to the world's most famous mutiny in HMAV BOUNTY, to his almost forgotten settlement of Fort George on Tubuai, his long South Pacific search for a hidden home and to oblivion on his Pitcairn Island hideout. Still Fletcher Christian's only biography, the book explains why there was never a mutiny of BOUNTY but was a revolt of one man against another, Christian against Bligh.As well as the shocking truth about conditions aboard BOUNTY and how Bligh behaved on a second breadfruit expedition, this book also reveals what Fletcher discovered about Tahitian women's brutal life of infanticide, facial reshaping, food restrictions and more. BOUNTY's women, including his wife Mauatua, were not kidnapped but eagerly escaped with Fletcher Christian and were later willing to entirely reshape their lifestyles, endure bloodshed and massacre on Pitcairn Island to protect their children and to follow Fletcher's legacy of social revolution, eventually becoming first women in the word to have the vote. But who really burned BOUNTY and why are there so many versions of Fletcher Christian's fate? Did he escape and secretly return to Cumberland? Fletcher Christian's descendant Glynn Christian investigates his ancestor's life, his mutiny and the repercussions more thoroughly than any other author has done and finally sails in the wake of Fletcher Christian to Pitcairn Island hoping to solve the mysteries of his fate. This reality-packed narrative proves fact is stranger and more thrilling than fiction, even after two centuries, and further enhances FRAGILE PARADISE, Glynn Christian's widely acclaimed and respected earlier telling of the life of Fletcher Christian BOUNTY Mutineer.
Mutiny's Daughter
Author: Ann Rinaldi
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0064410102
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
A "what if?" story about Mary Christian, half-Tahitian daughter of Fletcher Christian, second in command and leader of the mutiny on the British ship Bounty.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0064410102
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
A "what if?" story about Mary Christian, half-Tahitian daughter of Fletcher Christian, second in command and leader of the mutiny on the British ship Bounty.
Coconut Chaos
Author: Diana Souhami
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497683734
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
A unique travelogue in which the author journeys to Pitcairn Island—of Mutiny on the Bounty fame—with detours to eighteenth-century Tahiti and beyond. It started with a coconut . . . In the early hours of April 27, 1789, Fletcher Christian, master’s mate on the HMS Bounty, took a coconut from a pile on the quarterdeck. This random, seemingly inconsequential act set in motion a snowballing series of events that culminated in a revolt. In this strikingly original book, equal parts travelogue, memoir, and time-travel adventure, Diana Souhami moves across time and place, from eighteenth-century Tahiti to modern-day Pitcairn Island, from Knightsbridge to Tauranga, Mangareva to Tubuai. Along with Fletcher Christian, the sprawling cast of characters includes the unforgettable Captain William Bligh, who is cast adrift in an open boat on ferocious seas with eighteen men and no maps or supplies. Along the way, Souhami also introduces us to Pitcairn Island sex offenders, the Native American crew of a seventeen-thousand-ton ship called the Tundra Princess, her own elderly mother, and a mysterious lesbian aristocrat known as Lady Myre. Weaving together history, destiny, and chaos theory, this captivating adventure is for anyone who has ever yearned to travel to an exotic, faraway place.
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497683734
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
A unique travelogue in which the author journeys to Pitcairn Island—of Mutiny on the Bounty fame—with detours to eighteenth-century Tahiti and beyond. It started with a coconut . . . In the early hours of April 27, 1789, Fletcher Christian, master’s mate on the HMS Bounty, took a coconut from a pile on the quarterdeck. This random, seemingly inconsequential act set in motion a snowballing series of events that culminated in a revolt. In this strikingly original book, equal parts travelogue, memoir, and time-travel adventure, Diana Souhami moves across time and place, from eighteenth-century Tahiti to modern-day Pitcairn Island, from Knightsbridge to Tauranga, Mangareva to Tubuai. Along with Fletcher Christian, the sprawling cast of characters includes the unforgettable Captain William Bligh, who is cast adrift in an open boat on ferocious seas with eighteen men and no maps or supplies. Along the way, Souhami also introduces us to Pitcairn Island sex offenders, the Native American crew of a seventeen-thousand-ton ship called the Tundra Princess, her own elderly mother, and a mysterious lesbian aristocrat known as Lady Myre. Weaving together history, destiny, and chaos theory, this captivating adventure is for anyone who has ever yearned to travel to an exotic, faraway place.
The Bounty Mutiny
Author: William Bligh
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101177098
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
The names William Bligh, Fletcher Christian, and the Bounty have excited the popular imagination for more than two hundred years. The story of this famous mutiny has many beginnings and many endings but they all intersect on an April morning in 1789 near the island known today as Tonga. That morning, William Bligh and eighteen surly seamen were expelled from the Bounty and began what would be the greatest open-boat voyage in history, sailing some 4,000 miles to safety in Timor. The mutineers led by Fletcher Christian sailed off into a mystery that has never been entirely resolved. While the full story of what drove the men to revolt or what really transpired during the struggle may never be known, Penguin Classics has brought together-for the first time in one volume-all the relevant texts and documents related to a drama that has fascinated generations. Here is the full text of Bligh's Narrative of the Mutiny, the minutes of the court proceedings gathered by Edward Christian in an effort to clear his brother's name, and the highly polemic correspondence between Bligh and Christian-all amplified by Robert Madison's illuminating Introduction and rich selection of subsequent Bounty narratives. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101177098
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
The names William Bligh, Fletcher Christian, and the Bounty have excited the popular imagination for more than two hundred years. The story of this famous mutiny has many beginnings and many endings but they all intersect on an April morning in 1789 near the island known today as Tonga. That morning, William Bligh and eighteen surly seamen were expelled from the Bounty and began what would be the greatest open-boat voyage in history, sailing some 4,000 miles to safety in Timor. The mutineers led by Fletcher Christian sailed off into a mystery that has never been entirely resolved. While the full story of what drove the men to revolt or what really transpired during the struggle may never be known, Penguin Classics has brought together-for the first time in one volume-all the relevant texts and documents related to a drama that has fascinated generations. Here is the full text of Bligh's Narrative of the Mutiny, the minutes of the court proceedings gathered by Edward Christian in an effort to clear his brother's name, and the highly polemic correspondence between Bligh and Christian-all amplified by Robert Madison's illuminating Introduction and rich selection of subsequent Bounty narratives. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Bligh
Author: Anne Salmond
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited
ISBN: 1742287816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 714
Book Description
In Bligh, the story of the most notorious of all Pacific explorers is told through a new lens as a significant episode in the history of the world, not simply of the West. Award-winning anthropologist Anne Salmond recounts the triumphs and disasters of William Bligh's life and career in a riveting narrative that for the first time portrays the Pacific islanders as key players. From 1777, Salmond charts Bligh's three Pacific voyages – with Captain James Cook in the Resolution, on board the Bounty, and as commander of the Providence. Salmond offers new insights into the mutiny aboard the Bounty – and on Bligh's extraordinary 3000-mile journey across the Pacific in a small boat – through new revelations from unguarded letters between him and his wife Betsy. We learn of their passionate relationship, and her unstinting loyalty throughout the trials of his turbulent career and his fight to clear his name. This beautifully told story reveals Bligh as an important ethnographer, adding to the paradoxical legacy of the famed seaman. For the first time, we hear how Bligh and his men were changed by their experiences in the South Seas, and how in turn they changed that island world forever. 'Remarkable . . . The mutiny has inspired some marvellous books, of which this is possibly the finest.' --Jim Eagles, New Zealand Herald
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited
ISBN: 1742287816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 714
Book Description
In Bligh, the story of the most notorious of all Pacific explorers is told through a new lens as a significant episode in the history of the world, not simply of the West. Award-winning anthropologist Anne Salmond recounts the triumphs and disasters of William Bligh's life and career in a riveting narrative that for the first time portrays the Pacific islanders as key players. From 1777, Salmond charts Bligh's three Pacific voyages – with Captain James Cook in the Resolution, on board the Bounty, and as commander of the Providence. Salmond offers new insights into the mutiny aboard the Bounty – and on Bligh's extraordinary 3000-mile journey across the Pacific in a small boat – through new revelations from unguarded letters between him and his wife Betsy. We learn of their passionate relationship, and her unstinting loyalty throughout the trials of his turbulent career and his fight to clear his name. This beautifully told story reveals Bligh as an important ethnographer, adding to the paradoxical legacy of the famed seaman. For the first time, we hear how Bligh and his men were changed by their experiences in the South Seas, and how in turn they changed that island world forever. 'Remarkable . . . The mutiny has inspired some marvellous books, of which this is possibly the finest.' --Jim Eagles, New Zealand Herald
Lost Paradise
Author: Kathy Marks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416597840
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Pitcairn Island -- remote and wild in the South Pacific, a place of towering cliffs and lashing surf -- is home to descendants of Fletcher Christian and the Mutiny on the Bounty crew, who fled there with a group of Tahitian maidens after deposing their captain, William Bligh, and seizing his ship in 1789. Shrouded in myth, the island was idealized by outsiders, who considered it a tropical Shangri-La. But as the world was to discover two centuries after the mutiny, it was also a place of sinister secrets. In this riveting account, Kathy Marks tells the disturbing saga and asks profound questions about human behavior. In 2000, police descended on the British territory -- a lump of volcanic rock hundreds of miles from the nearest inhabited land -- to investigate an allegation of rape of a fifteen-year-old girl. They found themselves speaking to dozens of women and uncovering a trail of child abuse dating back at least three generations. Scarcely a Pitcairn man was untainted by the allegations, it seemed, and barely a girl growing up on the island, home to just forty-seven people, had escaped. Yet most islanders, including the victims' mothers, feigned ignorance or claimed it was South Pacific "culture" -- the Pitcairn "way of life." The ensuing trials would tear the close-knit, interrelated community apart, for every family contained an offender or a victim -- often both. The very future of the island, dependent on its men and their prowess in the longboats, appeared at risk. The islanders were resentful toward British authorities, whom they regarded as colonialists, and the newly arrived newspeople, who asked nettlesome questions and whose daily dispatches were closely scrutinized on the Internet. The court case commanded worldwide attention. And as a succession of men passed through Pitcairn's makeshift courtroom, disturbing questions surfaced. How had the abuse remained hidden so long? Was it inevitable in such a place? Was Pitcairn a real-life Lord of the Flies? One of only six journalists to cover the trials, Marks lived on Pitcairn for six weeks, with the accused men as her neighbors. She depicts, vividly, the attractions and everyday difficulties of living on a remote tropical island. Moreover, outside court, she had daily encounters with the islanders, not all of them civil, and observed firsthand how the tiny, claustrophobic community ticked: the gossip, the feuding, the claustrophobic intimacy -- and the power dynamics that had allowed the abuse to flourish. Marks followed the legal and human saga through to its recent conclusion. She uncovers a society gone badly astray, leaving lives shattered and codes broken: a paradise truly lost.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416597840
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Pitcairn Island -- remote and wild in the South Pacific, a place of towering cliffs and lashing surf -- is home to descendants of Fletcher Christian and the Mutiny on the Bounty crew, who fled there with a group of Tahitian maidens after deposing their captain, William Bligh, and seizing his ship in 1789. Shrouded in myth, the island was idealized by outsiders, who considered it a tropical Shangri-La. But as the world was to discover two centuries after the mutiny, it was also a place of sinister secrets. In this riveting account, Kathy Marks tells the disturbing saga and asks profound questions about human behavior. In 2000, police descended on the British territory -- a lump of volcanic rock hundreds of miles from the nearest inhabited land -- to investigate an allegation of rape of a fifteen-year-old girl. They found themselves speaking to dozens of women and uncovering a trail of child abuse dating back at least three generations. Scarcely a Pitcairn man was untainted by the allegations, it seemed, and barely a girl growing up on the island, home to just forty-seven people, had escaped. Yet most islanders, including the victims' mothers, feigned ignorance or claimed it was South Pacific "culture" -- the Pitcairn "way of life." The ensuing trials would tear the close-knit, interrelated community apart, for every family contained an offender or a victim -- often both. The very future of the island, dependent on its men and their prowess in the longboats, appeared at risk. The islanders were resentful toward British authorities, whom they regarded as colonialists, and the newly arrived newspeople, who asked nettlesome questions and whose daily dispatches were closely scrutinized on the Internet. The court case commanded worldwide attention. And as a succession of men passed through Pitcairn's makeshift courtroom, disturbing questions surfaced. How had the abuse remained hidden so long? Was it inevitable in such a place? Was Pitcairn a real-life Lord of the Flies? One of only six journalists to cover the trials, Marks lived on Pitcairn for six weeks, with the accused men as her neighbors. She depicts, vividly, the attractions and everyday difficulties of living on a remote tropical island. Moreover, outside court, she had daily encounters with the islanders, not all of them civil, and observed firsthand how the tiny, claustrophobic community ticked: the gossip, the feuding, the claustrophobic intimacy -- and the power dynamics that had allowed the abuse to flourish. Marks followed the legal and human saga through to its recent conclusion. She uncovers a society gone badly astray, leaving lives shattered and codes broken: a paradise truly lost.
Child's Paper
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Children's periodicals
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Children's periodicals
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description