Captain James Cook encountered breadfruit on his voyages in the Pacific, and recommended to the notice of the British government. He suggested that it would make a good staple food for the British slaves on the sugar plantations.
Captain William Bligh - the guy from Mutiny on the Bounty - brought breadfruit, with great difficulty, to the West Indies. Keep in mind that breadfruit grows from cuttings; that there was no Panama Canal; breadfruit die in cold weather; Bligh had the nearly impossible task of sailing around Cape Horn with 1000 live breadfruit trees on deck in wooden tubs. The first voyage in 1789 failed. The sailors mutinied and set Bligh adrift in an open boat, pelting him with the unpopular breadfruit.
Bligh's second attempt, in 1792, was successful, but the slaves of the West Indian plantations refused to eat the breadfruit; they were said to prefer plantains.
I saw a breadfruit tree in Hawaii and got all excited. They were huge and easy to pick. The woman who ran our hotel told me to try baking it, so I cut it open and put it in a casserole dish. Unfortunately it turned out totally nasty.