Pitcairn Islands

The Pitcairn Islands (/ˈpɪtkɛərn/ PIT-kairn; Pitkern: Pitkern Ailen), officially Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, are a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean. The four islands—Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno—are scattered across several hundred kilometres (miles) of ocean and have a combined land area of about 47 square kilometres (18 square miles). Henderson Island accounts for 86% of the land area, but only Pitcairn Island is inhabited. The inhabited islands nearest to the Pitcairn Islands are Mangareva (of French Polynesia), 688 km (428 miles) to the west, as well as Easter Island, 1,929 km (1199 miles) to the east.

The Pitcairn Islanders are descended primarily from nine British HMS Bounty mutineers and twelve Tahitian women. In 2023, the territory had a permanent population of 35, making it the smallest territory in the world by number of permanent residents. Owing to the island's extreme isolation and small population, incidents of widespread sexual abuse went undetected until 1999, culminating in a high-profile sexual assault trial in 2004.

Various forms of evidence show the earliest settlers of the Pitcairn Islands were Polynesians who occupied Pitcairn and Henderson for several centuries until the islands were abandoned: Henderson most likely before the 16th century and Pitcairn in the 17th or early 18th century. The islands were uninhabited when they were discovered by Europeans.

Portuguese sailor Pedro Fernandes de Queirós came upon Ducie and Henderson Islands while sailing for the Spanish Crown, arriving on 26 January 1606. He named them La Encarnación ("The Incarnation") and San Juan Bautista ("Saint John the Baptist"), respectively. However, some sources express doubt about exactly which of the islands were visited and named by Queirós, suggesting that La Encarnación may actually have been Henderson Island, and San Juan Bautista may have been Pitcairn Island.

Pitcairn Island was sighted on 3 July 1767 by the crew of the British sloop HMS Swallow, commanded by Captain Philip Carteret. The island was named after midshipman Robert Pitcairn, a 15-year-old crew member who was the first to sight the island. Robert Pitcairn was a son of British Marine Major John Pitcairn, who was later killed at the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill in the American War of Independence.

Carteret, who sailed without the newly invented marine chronometer, charted the island at 25°02′S 133°21′W / 25.033°S 133.350°W / -25.033; -133.350, and although the latitude was reasonably accurate, his recorded longitude was incorrect by about 3°, putting his coordinates 330 km (210 mi) to the west of the actual island. This made Pitcairn difficult to find, as highlighted by the failure of captain James Cook to locate the island in July 1773.

In 1790, nine of the mutineers from the British naval vessel HMS Bounty, along with the native Tahitian men and women who were with them (six men, 11 women, and a baby girl), settled on Pitcairn Island and set fire to the Bounty. The inhabitants of the island were well aware of the Bounty's location, which is still visible underwater in Bounty Bay, but the wreckage gained significant attention in 1957 when documented by National Geographic explorer Luis Marden. Although the settlers survived by farming and fishing, the initial period of settlement was marked by serious tensions among them. Alcoholism, murder, disease and other ills took the lives of most mutineers and Tahitian men. John Adams and Ned Young turned to the scriptures, using the ship's Bible as their guide for a new and peaceful society. Young eventually died of an asthmatic infection.

Ducie Island was rediscovered in 1791 by Royal Navy captain Edward Edwards aboard HMS Pandora, while searching for the Bounty mutineers. He named it after Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Baron Ducie, also a captain in the Royal Navy.