Bounty means "goodness" from Latin bonus — but the word that named a ship carrying breadfruit for enslaved workers also named the profession of hunting humans for reward.
Generosity or liberality in giving. A reward or payment, especially one offered for capturing a criminal or killing a predator. Also the quality of being bountiful.
From Old French bonté (goodness, kindness), from Latin bonitatem (accusative of bonitas, goodness), from bonus (good) Key roots: bonus (Latin: "good"), duonus (Old Latin: "good"), *dew- (Proto-Indo-European: "to do, perform, show favor").
The word bounty — meaning generous goodness — gave its name to HMS Bounty, the Royal Navy vessel famous for the 1789 mutiny led by Fletcher Christian against Captain William Bligh. The ship was originally named Bethia and was renamed Bounty because her mission was to transport breadfruit trees from Tahiti to the Caribbean as cheap food for enslaved workers — an act of botanical "bounty." The bounty hunter — a figure iconic in American Western mythology — represents a grimmer sense of the word: a reward offered