To Women of the Bounty PageTeehuteatuaunua
Consort of Isaac Martin
She was known by several names:
- TE EHU TEA TUA UNUA - discolored troubled one (pale, pain/rotten, yellow taro)
- JENNY - English: reference unknown, likely named by Adams
On the Bounty's visit to Tahiti, she coupled monogamously with Adams, and was much of the reason for his decision to back the mutiny. It was Adams who tattooed her on her left arm, 'AS 1789'. But it was as consort to Martin that she arrived on Pitcairn, after apparently 'changing partners' on board the ship. During their sojourn on Tubuai, Adams was 'detained in pursuit of a Tubuaian girl', thus he was probably already on the make! In any case, the switch is likely to have been voluntary. Jenny appears to have been a very headstrong and emotional woman, and Adams might well have gotten tired of dealing with her.
Whether because she was childless, homesick, or just generally unhappy with life away from her people, Jenny was the leader of the attempt by the women to abandon the island.
Many of her recollections were recorded, and they form the basis for much of the detailed history, especially of the battles and conspiracies that bedeviled the colony in the early days.
She finally left Pitcairn to return to Tahiti in 1817 on the ship 'Sultan'. She was interviewed in 1818, and her understanding of the European mind was still not good. She fully understood the violence and the autocracy of the colony, and considered this to be the normal way of life as it should be. Her point of view is interesting and informative, because it reflects a very different vantage point that most other narratives.
She is said to have met up with the Pitcairners who resettled (albeit temporarily) on Tahiti in 1831, and was described as a heart-broken and disillusioned woman. Tahiti had undergone many changes by then. The missionaries had taken over, imposing harsh rules on the traditional way of life. Traders and fortune hunters had ravaged the countryside and exploited the population. Disease was rampant and people were dying in droves. She is said to have died soon after.