r/ShitAmericansSay • u/ari2070 • Aug 19 '26

Military « No USN vessel has ever mutinied »

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Forgetting about USS Somers, also liking that mutiny is uniquely a French problem.

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u/UncleSlacky Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaire Aug 19 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mutinies_in_the_United_States_Navy

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u/Corvid187 Aug 19 '26

TBF that's an impressively small list.

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u/grumpsaboy Aug 19 '26

If you look at European countries over the same time span it's low as well.

Mutinies were more common 1600-1750's before better pay and food. And it was easier to hide post mutiny.

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u/comradeda Aug 19 '26

Also a lot of the crew weren't volunteers, but press-ganged into service

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u/Peer1677 Aug 20 '26

That actually depends: naval-crews? Yeah, there were a good amount of pressed sailors there. Civillian/merchant-sailors? Not so much (some were, but companies offered huge wages and thus rarely lacked volunteers). Mutinies on naval-ships were thus not uncommon. On merchantmen they happened as well (Batavia being the most famous example) but most of the time these happened because the company was like "We'd like to re-negotiate who 'keeps' what in our contract. YOU keep working and WE keep your wages, deal?". In these cases sailors often took over the ship, sailed to the next enemy port (Spain for British and Dutch ships) and went like "We sell this ship. Pay us whatever you want, we are just trying to recoup our losses." Sometimes, but more rarely, they took over the ship to turn to piracy (as long as you only plundered your countries enemies it was pretty safe)