The history of the Pitcairn Islands begins with the colonization of the islands by Polynesians in the 11th century. Polynesian people established a culture that flourished for four centuries and then vanished. They lived on Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, and on Mangareva Island to the northwest, for about 400 years.
In 1790, nine of the mutineers from HMS Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, abducted 18 native Tahitians and settled on Pitcairn Island, afterwards setting fire to the Bounty. Christian's group continued under the auspices of Ned Young and John Adams until contacted by Mayhew Folger in 1808, by which time Adams was the only surviving mutineer.
Polynesian society
The earliest known settlers of the Pitcairn Islands were Polynesians who appear to have settled on Pitcairn and Henderson Islands by at least the 11th Century, and on the more populous Mangareva Island to the northwest, for several centuries. 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. Most trade occurred within the Pitcairn Islands; however, material from Pitcairn Island has been discovered on the Tuamotus and Austral Islands in French Polynesia. The alkaline basalt found at Tautama (on the south-east of Pitcairn Island) was used by early Polynesians to create some of the highest quality adzes in Polynesia; however, the adzes were not traded widely, likely due to the remoteness of the islands. 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. By the mid-1400s, the trade routes between the islands and French Polynesia had broken down. 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.
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. The British rediscovered the island on 3 July 1767 on a voyage led by Captain Philip Carteret, and named it after the fifteen-year-old Robert Pitcairn (a son of the soldier John Pitcairn) who was the crew member who first spotted the island; he was lost at sea three years later. Carteret, who sailed without the newly invented marine chronometer, charted the island at , and although the latitude was reasonably accurate, his recorded longitude was incorrect by about 3° () west of the island. When the Bounty mutineers arrived on Pitcairn, it was uninhabited; however, a large number of archaeological items remained, such as marae, tiki carvings, adzes and adze flakes, rock carvings and petroglyphs.
The Polynesians that disappeared may have later migrated to a bigger island further to the southeast at Easter Island, where it has been noted that the jumping-off points for the early Polynesian colonization of Easter Island originally from Mangareva are more likely to have been from Pitcairn and Henderson, which lie about halfway between Mangareva and Easter. It has been observed that there is great similarity with the Rapa Nui language and Early Mangarevan, similarities between a statue found in Pitcairn and some statues found in Easter Island, the resemblance of tool styles in Easter Island to those in Mangareva and Pitcairn, and correspondences of skulls found in Easter Island to two skulls found in Henderson, all suggesting Pitcairn and Henderson islands to have been early stepping-stones from Mangareva to Easter Island, which in 1999, a voyage with reconstructed Polynesian boats was able to reach Easter Island from Mangareva after merely a seventeen and a half day voyage.
British and Tahitian settlement
After leaving Tahiti on 22 September 1789, Christian sailed Bounty west in search of a safe haven. He then formed the idea of settling on Pitcairn Island, far to the east of Tahiti; the island had been reported in 1767, but its exact location was never verified. After months of searching, Christian rediscovered the island on 15 January 1790, east of its recorded position. This longitudinal error contributed to the mutineers' decision to settle on Pitcairn.
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 (Mauatua/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.
On arrival, the ship was unloaded and stripped of most of its masts and spars, for use on the island. On 23 January, five days after their arrival, as the seamen discussed whether to burn the ship, Quintal set the ship ablaze and destroyed it, either as an agreed-upon precaution against discovery or as an unauthorised act. There was now no means of escape.
The island proved an ideal haven for the mutineers—uninhabited and virtually inaccessible, with plenty of food, water, and fertile land. For a while, the mutineers and Tahitians existed peaceably. Christian settled down with Isabella; a son, Thursday October Christian, was the first child born on the island, and others followed. Christian's authority as leader gradually diminished, and he became prone to long periods of brooding and introspection.
Racial tensions
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". The lower-caste Tahitian man, Hu, was often a victim of the white men's beatings and abuse. Martin treated the islanders including his wife with disdain, causing increasing discord. McCoy figured out how to distill brandy from ti-root and built a still. He, Quintal, and some of the women were continually drunk. In 1791, after working side-by-side with the islanders to perform the daily tasks that sustained the colony, some of the seamen decided to loaf in the shade all day while they coerced the Polynesian men to complete the tasks too hard for the women to perform.
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. McCoy and Quintal often abused and bullied both the Polynesian women and men. Rosalind Young, a descendant of Ned Young, relayed a story handed down to her that Tevarua went fishing one day but failed to catch enough fish to satisfy Quintal. He punished her by biting off her ear. He may have been drunk at the time, because he and William McCoy were drunk most of the time, consuming McCoy's brandy. Tevarua fell—or, some believe, killed herself, by leaping off a cliff in 1799. The two Tahitian noblemen, Minarii and Tetahiti, still enjoyed lives of relative independence and dignity.
John Williams had sex with Hutia, the wife of Tararu, and the Tahitian leader Minarii attacked him over this insult to Minarii's family. Williams' wife Fasto died soon after, possibly by suicide, after learning of her husband's infidelity. Hu and Tararu plotted to kill the white men in retribution. Hu tried unsuccessfully to kill Martin by pushing him off a cliff. After Fasto died, Williams took Hutia away from Tararu to live with him, and Tararu tried and failed to murder Williams. Hutia decided to poison Tararu in retaliation and unwittingly killed both Tararu and Hu.
McCoy decided to put to a vote a proposal that the arable land be divided among the seamen, excluding the Polynesians. Christian strongly objected. He reminded the Englishmen that on Tahiti, where Minarii and Tetahiti had been chiefs, landless men were deemed outcasts. McCoy's proposal carried by a vote of five to four. When Tetahiti learned of the vote, he went to Minarii to discuss the issue with him, only to find him standing near a pile of smoldering ashes. Quintal had burned the chieftain's new home.
Massacre day
On 20 September 1793, the four remaining Polynesian men stole muskets and set out to kill all of the Englishmen. Within hours they beheaded Martin and Mills, shot Williams and Brown dead, and fatally wounded Christian in a carefully executed series of murders. Christian was set upon while working in his fields, first shot and then butchered with an axe; his last words, supposedly, were: "Oh, dear!" Three of the Englishmen's wives took revenge, killing Te Moa and Niuha. Teraura, the wife of Ned Young, beheaded Tetahiti while he slept. Quintal killed Minarii in a violent fight.
Adams leads women and children
Young and Adams assumed leadership and secured a tenuous calm disrupted by the drunken behaviour of McCoy and Quintal. The two men and some of the women spent their days in an alcoholic stupor. Some of the women attempted to leave the island in a makeshift boat but could not launch it successfully.
On 20 April 1798, McCoy attached a rock to his neck with a rope and leapt over a cliff to his death. Quintal became increasingly erratic. He demanded to take Isabella, Fletcher Christian's widow, as his wife, and threatened to kill Christian's children if his demands were not granted. Ned Young and John Adams invited him to Young's home. There they overpowered him, and killed him with an axe.
Young and Adams became interested in Christianity, and Young taught Adams to read using the Bounty's Bible. Young died of an asthma attack in 1800. Adams lived until 1829.
Contact reestablished
After Young succumbed to asthma in 1800, Adams took responsibility for the education and well-being of the nine remaining women and 19 children. Using the ship's Bible from Bounty, he taught literacy and Christianity, and kept peace on the island. 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. News of Topazs discovery did not reach Britain until 1810, when it was overlooked by an Admiralty preoccupied by war with France.
In 1814, two British warships, and HMS Tagus, chanced upon Pitcairn. Among those who greeted them were Thursday October Christian and George Young (Edward Young's son). 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". On shore they found a population of 46 mainly young islanders led by Adams, upon whom the islanders' welfare was wholly dependent, according to the captains' report. After receiving Staines's and Pipon's report, the Admiralty decided to take no action.
Henderson Island was rediscovered on 17 January 1819 by British Captain James Henderson of the British East India Company ship Hercules. Captain Henry King, sailing on Elizabeth, landed on 2 March to find the king's colours already flying. His crew scratched the name of their ship into a tree. Oeno Island was discovered on 26 January 1824 by American captain George Worth aboard the whaler .