Wager Mutiny

Uncommon card · No. 152316

The Wager Mutiny took place in 1741, after the British warship HMS Wager was shipwrecked on a desolate island off the south coast of present-day Chile. Wager was part of a naval squadron bound to attack Spanish interests in the Pacific. She lost contact with the squadron while rounding Cape Horn, ran aground during a storm, and wrecked on what would become known as Wager Island. The main body of the crew mutinied against their captain, David Cheap, abandoned him and a group of loyal crew members on the island, and set off in a modified schooner (named Speedwell) via the Strait of Magellan to Portuguese-administered Rio de Janeiro. Most of the mutineers either died or were abandoned on shore during the journey, but the survivors eventually returned to England. Cheap's group could not weather the cape in the voyage north and therefore returned to Wager Island three months after they had left, having given up hope of escape. A few days later, however, a group of indigenous Chonos visited the...

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