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What was the Cyprus mutiny?

On August 14, 1829 while at anchor in Recherche Bay en route to the penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour, 18 of 33 convicts overthrew their military guard and seized control of the colonial transport the Cyprus brig.

After putting the passengers, crew and guard ashore, they sailed off on a journey across the Pacific to Japan, before the vessel was scuttled and sunk off the coast of China.

A year later when five of the convicts were apprehended in London and put on trial for piracy, only the convict William Swallow gave a full account of their journey.

To this day the final resting place of the Cyprus remains a mystery and more than half of the crew were never heard of again.

Unravelling the mystery

For almost 200 years William Swallow’s account of the mutiny, seizure and piracy of Cyprus brig in Van Diemen’s Land in 1829 has defined our understanding of one of the most egregious acts of piracy in Colonial history. The seizing of a fully-laden prisoner transport ship bound for the penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour by the very prisoners it was meant to imprison.

Since it was written, Swallow’s evocative narrative of the final voyage of the Cyprus “from the time of the mutiny until she was scuttled and sunk” has compelled artists, writers and poets to romanticise its author and propagate his myth. When in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

After eight years of scholarship, a striking counter narrative has emerged. One that undermines Swallow’s status as a pirate-folk hero, includes the voices of his previously-silenced shipmates and offers Asian and Pacific perspectives of Colonial Australia.

Newly uncovered evidence

With the support of a Churchill Fellowship in December 2024, journalist Timothy Stone retraced the Cyprus' journey across New Zealand, Tonga, Japan, China and England and uncovered startling new details about what really took place.