History of the Pitcairn Islands
These first inhabitants may have maintained a trading relationship with Mangareva, in which they exchanged basalt, volcanic glass (obsidian) and oven stones for goods, including coral and pearl shells.
[1] It is not certain why this society disappeared, but it is probably related to the deforestation of Mangareva and the subsequent decline of its culture; Pitcairn was not capable of sustaining large numbers of people without a relationship with other populous islands.
[1] Important natural resources were exhausted and a period of civil war began on Mangareva, causing the small populations on Henderson and Pitcairn to be cut off and eventually become extinct.
[citation needed] The islands were uninhabited when they were rediscovered by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, working in the employ of Spain, in January 1606.
After months of searching, Christian rediscovered the island on 15 January 1790, 188 nautical miles (348 km; 216 mi) east of its recorded position.
[8] The group consisted of British sailors Fletcher Christian, Ned Young, John Adams, Matthew Quintal, William Brown, Isaac Martin, John Mills and John Williams; William McCoy; six Polynesian men (Manarii/Menalee, Niau/Nehou, and Teirnua/Te Moa from Tahiti; Taroamiva/Tetahiti and Oher/Hu from Tubuai; and Taruro/Talalo/Tullaloo from Raiatea by way of Tahiti) and twelve Tahitian women (Maimiti/Isabella, Teehuteatuaonoa/Jenny, Teraura/Susanah, Teio/Mary, Vahineatua/Bal'hadi/Prudence, Obuarei/Puarai, Tevarua/Sarah, Teatuahitea/Sarah, Faahotu/Fasto, Toofaiti/Hutia/Nancy, Mareva, and Tinafornea) as well as a Tahitian baby girl named Sarah/Sally, daughter of Teio, who would become a respected person in the community.
[10] The island proved an ideal haven for the mutineers—uninhabited and virtually inaccessible, with plenty of food, water, and fertile land.
[12] Gradually, tensions and rivalries arose over the increasing extent to which the Europeans regarded the Tahitians as their property, in particular the women who, according to Alexander, were "passed around from one 'husband' to the other".
[13]: 653 Quintal and McCoy required the unmarried man Te Moa to do all their work, and Martin and Mills similarly abused the other lower-caste islander, Nihau.
Within hours they beheaded Martin and Mills, shot Williams and Brown dead, and fatally wounded Christian in a carefully executed series of murders.
[13]: 656 [14][17][18] Young and Adams assumed leadership and secured a tenuous calm disrupted by the drunken behaviour of McCoy and Quintal.
[8] This was the situation in February 1808, when the American sealer Topaz commanded by Mayhew Folger came unexpectedly upon Pitcairn, landed, and discovered the, by then, thriving community.
[24] The captains, Sir Thomas Staines and Philip Pipon, reported that Christian's son displayed "in his benevolent countenance, all the features of an honest English face".
[7] Over the years, many recovered Bounty artefacts have been sold by islanders as souvenirs; in 1999, the Pitcairn Project was established by a consortium of Australian academic and historical bodies, to survey and document all the material remaining on-site, as part of a detailed study of the settlement's development.
Nobbs, a veteran of the British and Chilean navies, was Adams's chosen successor, but Buffett and Thursday October Christian, the son of Fletcher and the first child born on the island, who had the task of greeting visiting ships, were also important leaders during this time.
But they found it unlike the home they remembered, full of "immorality, saloons, vile dances, gambling, and scarlet women."
The descendants could not adapt to the changes in Tahiti, and a dozen people, including Thursday October Christian, had died of disease.
In 1832, an adventurer named Joshua Hill, claiming to be an agent of Britain, arrived on the island and was elected leader, styling himself President of the Commonwealth of Pitcairn.
Under this law code, Pitcairn became the first British colony in the Pacific and also the second country in the world, after Corsica under Pasquale Paoli in 1755, to give women the right to vote.
[29] In 1858, while the island was uninhabited, survivors of the shipwreck of the clipper Wild Wave spent several months there until rescued by USS Vandalia.
In 1886 the Seventh-day Adventist layman John Tay visited Pitcairn and persuaded most of the islanders to convert from the Church of England to his faith.
[30] Important leaders of Pitcairn during this time were Thursday October Christian II, Simon Young and James Russell McCoy.
HMS Thetis visited Pitcairn Island on 18 April 1881 and "found the people very happy and contented, and in perfect health".
Stores had recently been delivered from friends in England, including two whale-boats and Portland cement, which was used to make the reservoir watertight.
[32][33] Christian admitted having murdered, for jealous reasons, one of the island women, Julia Warren and her child, the bodies of which he subsequently threw into the sea.
[37][38] Having been found guilty Christian was sentenced to death and detained, under effective house arrest, until he was put onboard HMS Royalist and transferred to Suva, Fiji.
By the 1930s and 1940s, diminished shipping and tourism to the island resulted in the residents selling many of the pre-European cultural items and Bounty-related paraphernalia to private individuals for income.
The islands rely heavily on tourism and landing fees as their main source of income as well as shipments from New Zealand.
Among the accused was Steve Christian, Pitcairn's Mayor, who faced several charges of rape, indecent assault, and child abuse.
[48] After the six men lost their final appeal, the British government set up a prison on the island at Bob's Valley.
