Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Pitcairn Island

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

On April 28, 1789, the crew of the HMS Bounty engaged in a mutiny against their despotic captain, William Bligh. After being sent out on a rowboat, the rest of the crew sailed to an uninhabited island, sank the ship, and set up home. The descendants of those mutineers are still living on that island today. Their home has become one of the most unique and remote communities in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 28, 1789, the crew of the HMS bounty engaged in a mutiny against their despotic captain William Bly. After sending the captain out on a rowboat, the rest of the crew sailed to an uninhabited island, sank the ship, and set up home. The descendants of those mutineers are still living on that island today. Their home has become one of the most unique and remote communities on earth. Learn more about Pitcairn Island, its history, and how it continues to exist at the edge of the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow?

That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension. Nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts.

Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. Of all the places in the world, Pitcairn Island might have the oddest history. As I mentioned in the introduction, it all started with a mutiny. The HMS bounty was a ship of the Royal Navy. It had 14 guns and was classified as a cutter, which was the smallest category of warship in the Royal Navy's fleet. The bounty's mission was pretty peaceful and a simple one. They were to collect breadfruit trees in Tahiti and bring them to their colonies in the Caribbean. Breadfruit is very similar to jackfruit.

It grows well in the tropics, and it can be a staple food for the people who grow it. The captain of the ship was William Bly. He was a seasoned seafarer who had sailed with Captain Cook on his third voyage as his navigator. On October 15, 1787, the bounty set sail from England with 17 officers and civilians and 29 crew members. They sailed around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America and arrived in Tahiti on October 26, 1788. The ship stayed there for five months, and for the most part, the crew of the ship didn't have much to do while they were collecting breadfruit trees. After a year on the bounty, the men enjoyed the company of many women on Tahiti and really

enjoyed themselves on this tropical island. They collected a thousand breadfruit trees, and filled up the main cargo hold of the ship. Captain Bly was anxious to get going, and needless to say, the crew wasn't. On April 5, 1789, they set sail from Tahiti for the Caribbean. By all accounts, the crew wasn't ready to mutiny at this point, although they were sad to leave. Bly was very tough on his crew. He accused one of his officers Fletcher Christian of stealing and punished the entire ship. Christian considered escaping on a raft, but other crew members convinced him to stay.

The crew was so upset that they told Christian, that if he made a move to take control the ship, they would support him. On April 28th, he made his move and took over the ship with the support of some of the crew. He sent off Bligh on about 20 crew members in a smaller ship who then set out for a nearby island. The remaining sailors set off for Tahiti. 16 of the crew voted to stay in Tahiti. A group of Tahitians came on board the ship, and they left in the night while they were still on board. The total number of people who were on the ship at this point were nine mutineers and 18 Tahitians, six men, 11 women, and a baby girl. They knew that once the word of the mutiny got out, they would be hunted down by the British

Navy. So they set out for an island called Pitcairn Island, which had been cited back in 1767. They searched for it for months before eventually finding it on January 15, 1790. It wasn't where it was located on the charts, which was one of the reasons they selected it as a place to stop. It would be hard for anyone to find. They came ashore, stripped what they could from the ship, and then set it on fire eight days later. It's unknown if it was burned to prevent detection, or if it was a rogue operation done by one of the mutant years. The wreck of the ship can still be seen beneath the water today. Either way, they were now stuck on an island that no one else in the world knew the location of.

For the first few years, it wasn't great for the islanders. Several of the men died from disease or murder. They lived by fishing and farming. It was five years before they even saw another ship, and that one didn't stop. In 1801, a second and third ship appeared, but again, neither of them stopped. It wasn't until 1808, 18 years after they arrived, that another ship stopped on the island. An American sealing ship called the Topaz stopped and stayed on the island for 10 hours. The Topaz reported finding the island with the mutineers and provided better coordinates to the British Admiralty.

Without knowledge of the Topaz report, Two British Navy ships, the HMS Britain and the HMS Tagus, arrived in 1814. They came ashore and documented life on the island. By that time, only one of the mutineers was still alive, a man by the name of John Adams, who was pardoned for his role in the mutiny. Now that they were known to the rest of the world, more ships started to visit, although not a lot as it was still one of the most remote settlements in the world. The island of English-speaking people of British-Taheatian descent became a formal part of the British Empire

in 1838. They were also one of the very first territories in the world which gave women the right to vote. The next big chapter in the history of the island occurred in 1856. All 193 people who lived on the island left. They just packed up and left for Norfolk Island, which is located northeast of Australia. Norfolk Island had been a British penal colony, but it was given to the residents of Pitcairn because their population was starting to outstrip the size of the island, which was only two square miles. Norfolk was bigger and much easier to supply. However, just a year and a half later, 18 of the islanders returned to Pitcairn, and five years later, another 27 returned.

That means there are not one, but two places on earth where the population has descendants from the mutineers of the HMS bounty. With people returning to Pitcairn, the population on the island soon began to rise again. Fewer whaling ships visited in the late 19th century as the industry died out, with the last ship visiting in 1888. Ship visits became few and far between, often years apart. In 1886, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church arrived on the island and managed to convert most of the population, and it remains the largest denomination on the island today. In 1937, the island reached a peak population of 233 people. Since then, the population has been steadily declining. Island life was

unappealing for many people, and they left to live in New Zealand or Australia. Today, there are only 47 people who live on Pitcairn Island, and many of those are not actually on the island at any given time. There are only a total of 746 people of Pitcairn ancestry spread between Pitcairn, Norfolk, Australia, and New Zealand. Along with several nearby uninhabited islands, it forms the British overseas territory of Pitcairn, Henderson, Dulce, and Oneo Islands. The island has the smallest population of any territory on Earth. Pitcern is visited by a single supply ship, the MV Silver Supporter. It takes 14 days to reach Pitcern from New Zealand and over a month round trip.

There are also a small number of smaller expedition class cruise ships that stop each year as well. These ships may or may not bring passengers onto the island depending on the size of the ship and the condition of the sea. There is no real dock or pier on the island. The only way to get supplies or people from a ship is via longboats which are run by the islanders. The island also has very few children. Only two children were born on the island in the last quarter century. There is a primary school, but older kids are sent to New Zealand for their education. The economy on the island isn't very developed.

Outside of a bit of tourism, most people are engaged in subsistence agriculture. Honey is one of the few items which is exported from the island, and it is supposedly of high quality, and is the favorite of the queen. There is no hospital on the island. In the event of a medical emergency, it would require a 335 mile or 540 kilometer trip in an open boat to the island of Mangariva in French Polynesia. From there, you would then have to take a 975 mile or 1,500 kilometer flight to Tahiti. Believe it or not, despite being near the Tropic of Capricorn, most of the island is run on diesel generators and not solar or wind power. One of the big concerns is that the population of the island might disappear. The average age is getting older, and it's estimated there will only be three people of working age on the island by the year 2045.

They're trying to get people to migrate to the island, but so far, zero people have done it. The requirements they make you jump through to migrate seem pretty high for an island in the middle of nowhere that's facing extinction. The island has its own top-level domain of dot PN. There's a cafe and bar in the island in addition to a general store, and there's a newspaper that's published monthly online. Internet is available, but by all accounts, it is incredibly slow and expensive. I have to end this episode on a rather depressing note, but I can't really ignore it because it's the largest single news story to come off the island in the last century. Beginning in 1999, there was a massive sexual abuse scandal that rocked the island.

Police uncovered repeated abuse of girls under the age of 14 for several years. The abuse was found to be incredibly widespread. In 2004, six men on the island. and another six men currently living in New Zealand were convicted on multiple accounts of rape, sexual assault, and indecency. It was almost a third of the male population on the island. The island was so remote and the community so close-knit that the behavior was accepted or ignored on the island for decades. The case caused a huge problem for the island because the six men actually comprised a large percentage of the workforce, and most of the men who handled the longboats

that transferred cargo and passengers to ships. People were concerned that the entire island island might actually come to an end. A special prison was built on the island for the men who were found guilty. They would reside there, but then be released when they needed to move cargo or passengers when a boat arrived. This was done so the whole community wasn't punished by the imprisonment of the men. As for the future of Pitcairn, no one really knows. It's a very difficult place to live in a place that's very difficult to reach. Most people who were born there have left, and the remaining population is aging quickly. Unless they can bring in a fresh population, and you really really don't need that many. Pitcairn as a viable community might not be long for this world.

The associate producers of Everything Everywhere Daily are Peter Bennett and Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please join the list of patrons over at patreon.com. And also remember, if you leave a review or send me a question, you too can have it read on the show.