The Wager Mutiny took place in 1741, after the British warship HMS Wager was wrecked 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.
The group abandoned on Wager Island were rejoined a few days later by a small group from Speedwell who were sent back in the longboat to collect some sails that were left behind. Two midshipmen, Alexander Campbell and John Byron, contrived to be part of this group after they were misled into believing that Cheap would be accompanying them in Speedwell. When the longboat failed to return, Speedwell returned to Wager Island to look for it, but by that time everybody on the island had left in an attempt to sail north and re-join the squadron.
Cheap's group could not weather a 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 island and, after some negotiation, agreed to guide the group north to the Spanish-inhabited Chiloé Archipelago in return for the longboat and some guns. Most of the group died on the journey from starvation and exposure, but Cheap and several others survived and returned to England in 1745, two years after the surviving mutineers. The adventures of the crew of Wager were a public sensation and inspired many narratives written by survivors and others to the present day.