Pitcairn Island was first settled by Polynesians many centuries ago, and then famously re‑settled in 1790 by mutineers from HMS Bounty and their Tahitian companions, whose descendants still form the core of the tiny modern population. The community survives because of strong kinship ties, isolation, and continued (if fragile) political and logistical support from the United Kingdom.wikipedia+2
Archaeological and linguistic evidence shows Polynesians occupied Pitcairn and nearby Henderson Island from about the 11th century, linked in a voyaging and trade network with Mangareva to the northwest.wikipedia+1
They quarried basalt and obsidian on Pitcairn and exchanged these for coral and shell goods, but the population disappeared by the 16th–18th century, probably due to environmental stress, deforestation, and social disruption on the wider Mangareva–Henderson–Pitcairn triangle.wikipedia
In 1789 Fletcher Christian led the mutiny on HMS Bounty against Captain William Bligh while the ship was carrying breadfruit from Tahiti to the Caribbean.government
After months searching for a hideout, Christian located Pitcairn on 15 January 1790, exploiting the charting error in its recorded position; this made it an ideal refuge because it was uninhabited, fertile, and very hard to find.government+1
The founding group consisted of 9 British mutineers, 6 Polynesian men, 11 Polynesian women, and a baby girl from Tahiti.immigration
Land and women were allocated unequally: the Polynesian men were treated as slaves and forced to share wives, leading to extreme tension, alcohol-fueled conflict, and killings in the 1790s that left, in the end, only one adult male mutineer, John Adams, plus the women and children.immigration+1
Under John Adams, the community gradually stabilized around a strict, Bible-based moral code, rudimentary schooling, and a communal way of life in what is now Adamstown.wikipedia+1
British ships that arrived in 1808 and 1814 found a small, pious English–Polynesian community and eventually decided not to arrest Adams, effectively allowing the islanders to remain and beginning a long association with Britain.government+1
By the mid‑19th century, Pitcairn’s population outgrew the island’s limited land, timber, and water, prompting appeals to Britain for resettlement.wikipedia+1
In 1856 the entire community of about 163 people was moved to Norfolk Island; however, some families found it unsatisfactory and about 43 people later returned to Pitcairn, re‑establishing a permanent population.kingston.norfolkisland+1
Today the island is still inhabited mainly by descendants of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian partners, with family names such as Christian, Adams, Young, Quintal, Warren, and Nobbs.guampedia+1
They remain because of deep attachment to ancestral land, a shared hybrid British–Polynesian identity, and the practical framework of a British Overseas Territory: local self‑government, periodic supply ships, and external financial and administrative support, despite a population now measured in only a few dozen residents.wikipedia+1