2018 Cook Islands 1 oz Silver Bounty Coin

Novelization of History’s Greatest Mutiny

The Cook Islands 1 oz Silver Bounty coin honors the legendary novel, Mutiny on the Bounty. The 1932 novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall is based on the infamous mutiny against commanding officer of the Bounty, Lieutenant William Bligh, in 1789. The novel relates the story through the voice of a fictional first-person narrator named Roger Byam, who was based on real-life crew member Peter Heywood.

Of course, the coin also serves as a remembrance of the historical event that inspired the novel. Historically speaking, the mutiny onboard the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty took place in the South Pacific during the spring of 1789. Instigated by Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, disgruntled crew members usurped control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him, along with 18 loyalists, adrift in the ship's open launch, the largest auxiliary boat on the Bounty. While the mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or Pitcairn Island, Bligh successfully voyaged more than 3,500 nautical miles in the launch to safety and sought legal justice against the mutineers.