John Adams (mutineer)

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Image:John Adams (mutineer).jpg John Adams (4/5 November 1766 - 5 March 1829) was the last survivor of the Bounty mutineers who settled on Pitcairn Island in January 1790, the year after the mutiny. His real name was Alexander Smith; John Adams was an alias used by him after the British found the island. His children continued to use the surname "Adams".

The mutineers of HMS Bounty and their Tahitian companions settled on the island and set fire to the Bounty. The wreck is still visible underwater in Bounty Bay. Although the settlers were able to survive by farming and fishing, the initial period of settlement was marked by serious tensions among the settlers. Alcoholism, murder, disease and other ills had taken the lives of most of mutineers and Tahitian men. John Adams, Ned Young, and Matthew Quintal were the last three mutineers surviving in 1799 when Adams and Young got the thuggish Quintal drunk and killed him with a hatchet.[1] Adams and Young turned to the scriptures using the ship's bible as their guide for a new and peaceful society. As a result, Adams and Young converted to Christianity and taught the children to read and write using the bible. Young eventually died of an asthmatic infection, but Adams continued his work of educating the women and children. The Pitcairners also converted to Christianity (The Pitcairners would later convert from that form of Christianity to Adventism after a successful Adventist mission in the 1890s)

When the British found Pitcairn again, they were impressed with the emerging society and the example of leadership given by Mr. Adams; furthermore, they had no intention of persecuting an old man for a crime committed a quarter of a century earlier. Because of this, they decided not to arrest him for mutiny. In 1825, Adams married Mary and she bore his only son, George.

Template:UK-mil-bio-stubde:John Adams (Bounty) eo:John ADAMS (ribelanto) fr:John Adams (mutin du Bounty) nl:John Adams (muiter) ja:ジョン・アダムズ (バウンティ号) no:John Adams (mytterist) sv:John Adams (myterist)