History of The Pitcairn Islands - Renewed Contact With The Outside World

Renewed Contact With The Outside World

In 1814 the Royal Navy discovered the existence of the colony. They were favourably impressed by the islanders and felt it would be "an act of great cruelty and inhumanity" to arrest John Adams.

The Pitcairners continued to be contacted more often by ships. During the 1820s, three British adventurers named John Buffett, John Evans and George Nobbs settled on the island and married children of the mutineers. Following Adams's death in 1829, a power vacuum emerged. 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. In 1831, the islanders temporarily abandoned Pitcairn to immigrate to Tahiti. Six months later they returned to Pitcairn aboard the ship of William Driver, the American sea captain who'd coined the term "Old Glory" for the US Flag. He agreed to take aboard these descendants after learning they were unable to become accustomed to their new home, and a dozen people, including Thursday October Christian, had died of disease. The islanders were now even more leaderless, as drunkenness became a problem and Nobbs was unable to gain enough support. 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. He ordered Buffett, Evans and Nobbs to be exiled, banned alcohol and ordered imprisonments for the slightest infractions. He was eventually driven off the island in 1838, and a British ship captain helped the islanders draw up a law code. The islanders set up a system whereby they would elect a chief magistrate every year as the leader of the island. Other important positions on the island were those of schoolmaster, doctor and pastor. Nobbs, however, was the effective leader of the island. Under this law code, Pitcairn became the first British colony in the Pacific and also the second country in the world, after Corsica under Pascal Paoli in 1755, to give women the right to vote.

By the mid 1850s the Pitcairn community was outgrowing the island and they appealed to Queen Victoria for help. Queen Victoria offered them Norfolk Island, and on 3 May 1856, the entire community of 193 people set sail for Norfolk Island on board the Morayshire. They arrived on 8 June after a miserable 5 week trip. However, after 18 months, 17 returned to Pitcairn and in 1864 another 27 returned. In 1858, while the island was uninhabited, survivors of the Wild Wave shipwreck had spent several months there until rescued by USS Vandalia. These visitors had dismantled some houses for wood and nails and had vandalised John Adams's grave. The island was also nearly annexed by France, whose government did not realize that the island had just been inhabited. George Nobbs and John Buffett stayed on Norfolk Island. By this time, the American Warren family had also settled on Pitcairn Island.

During the 1860s, further immigration to the island was banned. In 1886, most of the island left the Church of England and converted to the Seventh-day Adventist Church after receiving literature from that religious group. Missionaries arrived on the island a few years later, and the conversion of an entire community became a great propaganda boost for the religion. Important leaders of Pitcairn during this time were Thursday October Christian II, Simon Young and James Russell McCoy. McCoy, who was sent to England for education as a child, spent much of his later life on missionary journeys. In 1887, Britain officially annexed the island, and it was officially put under the jurisdiction of the governors of Fiji.