William Bligh visited Van Diemen’s Land three times before becoming Governor of New South Wales. His work at Adventure Bay connected naval navigation, food supply and imperial plant transfer.

With James Cook in 1777

Bligh served as master of HMS Resolution during James Cook’s third Pacific voyage. The ship anchored at Adventure Bay on Bruny Island in January 1777. Bligh’s responsibilities included navigation and chart work, while the crew collected wood, water and food.

This was a European naval visit to an already inhabited Aboriginal landscape. Voyage journals must be read alongside the continuing cultural history of lunawanna-alonnah / Bruny Island.

The Bounty visit of 1788

Bligh returned as commander of HMS Bounty. The expedition’s main purpose was to collect breadfruit plants in Tahiti and transport them to the Caribbean. Adventure Bay provided water, timber and other supplies during the outward voyage.

The later mutiny in the Pacific made Bligh famous, but it should not eclipse the scientific, navigational and imperial aims of the expedition.

Providence and Assistant in 1792

After the Bounty voyage failed, Bligh commanded HMS Providence with HMS Assistant on a second breadfruit expedition. The ships again visited Adventure Bay. Bligh made observations and charts that contributed to European geographic knowledge of the south-east coast.

Botanical collecting was tied to colonial economics. Moving breadfruit across oceans was intended to supply cheap food for enslaved plantation labourers in the Caribbean, a context that belongs in any account of the voyage.

What the records can show

Charts, logs and journals can establish anchorages, dates and observations. They cannot provide a complete account of Aboriginal experience. Place names assigned by visitors also record a particular voyage rather than first discovery.

The European exploration timeline places Bligh among Tasman, Furneaux, Cook, d’Entrecasteaux, Bass, Flinders and Baudin. South Bruny and the D’Entrecasteaux Channel provide the modern geographic setting for the Adventure Bay visits.