The Only Man on The Island Living Among Women! The hellish Story of the Heavenly Pitcairn Island

“Most people imagine life on a tropical island as something magical – clean sandy beaches, palm trees, warm ocean, beautiful women, and no worries whatsoever – something along the lines of the famous Bounty ad. However, the realities of Island life can be much more prosaic than one’s most pessimistic ideas.

The story of Pitcairn Island is the best proof of that. For over two centuries, the island had been witness to all the harsh realities of the difficult life on a 4.5 square kilometers piece of land lost in the Pacific Ocean. Pitcairn Island is the state with the smallest population in the world, with only 49 people living there. Pitcairn has a surprisingly fascinating story. It was founded by Bounty mutineers who fled from English justice. After which, the island was ruled by alcoholics and experienced a terrible genocide. Eventually, only one man was left alive. Later, this microstate was governed by a succession of crooks and lunatics, and in 2004 it became famous as the country with the highest percentage of pedophiles and ex-cons in the world.

Just some 50 residents, but so many events. Polynesians used to live there, but they died out without the help of Europeans. Polynesians, most likely Tahitians, settled on Pitcairn back in the 11th century. They founded a settlement there, brought over domestic animals, and lived an overall good life. Pitcairn Island had reserves of quality stone and obsidian, so the first inhabitants of the island lived by trading with the people of Mangareva Island located 500 kilometers away. They might have sworn allegiance to the king of Mangareva.

The happy life of the Polynesians lasted 400 years, but then the reserves of obsidian ran out, and a civil war broke out on Mangareva. Without trade, Pitcairn Islanders languished and eventually died out altogether. When the first Europeans arrived, there were no Polynesians living on the island. The story of Pitcairn Island started with the Mutiny on the Bounty. The Island’s story is one of rebellious sailors and their descendants.

In 1787, Britain sent the Bounty out into the Pacific Ocean with the mission to find the breadfruit tree. The British had recently lost the American colonies, so they were panicking. They still had important colonies in the Caribbean, but a riot could break out there at any moment, all because of hunger. The local soil wasn’t suitable for crops that the Europeans were familiar with, so the British decided to plant a breadfruit tree in the West Indies. It was for this purpose that they sent the Bounty to the Pacific Islands, but the mission failed.

Captain Bligh brought the ship to the shores of Tahiti, where life was too good to be true. The sailors were welcomed with open arms, and the local women turned out to be very loving. Thus, the crew of the ship lived there for over six months, and they were very reluctant to return to the sea. The Mutiny followed shortly thereafter. On April 28, 1789, the sailors set Bligh and his supporters adrift on a fragile boat in the middle of the ocean while they returned to Tahiti.

A while later, it began to dawn on some of the sailors that retribution would inevitably follow their rebellion. They boarded the Bounty and sailed away, having decided to try and settle on the uninhabited Pitcairn Island. They were led by Fletcher Christian, actually the same man who initiated the Mutiny against Bligh. The rest of the sailors remained on Tahiti, and they paid for it. The British eventually got them; some of them were hanged, while others were sentenced to hard labor. But Christian’s crew managed to escape. However, their life on Pitcairn Island wasn’t nearly as heavenly as on Tahiti.

The worst event in the history of Pitcairn was the invention of moonshine. Pitcairn Island was inhabited in 1790 by nine European sailors, including Christian, six lower-caste Tahitians who were virtually slaves, and 12 Tahitian women. What’s interesting is that each of the Europeans got a woman, but the six slaves got only three. As you can see, the seeds of discord were planted long before the colony was founded. Like the Polynesians in the 11th century, the new settlers appreciated Pitcairn Island. There were a lot of fertile lands, fresh water, and a heavenly climate. The main problem turned out to be alcohol.

One of the sailors, McCoy, learned how to make moonshine from the sweet roots of the Thai plant growing there. It was a truly diabolical invention that led to genocide. The crew of The Bounty drank violently. Christian stepped back from leadership and got very depressed. McCoy, the owner of the Moonshine still, took over governing the island. He turned out to be the worst kind of autocrat – a drunken tyrant and a mediocre leader. Once he sent one of the women fishing, a beautiful woman named Tevarua, and when she didn’t catch enough fish, he bit off her ear in a drunken rage. The woman committed suicide by jumping off a cliff, and McCoy went to his slaves for a new woman, as if nothing had happened.

The attempt to take one of the three wives from the six already angry men turned into a massacre. The Tahitian men decided to exterminate the Europeans. They came up with a smart plan: they stole the muskets and other weapons from McCoy and his crew and tracked the sailors down one by one. In just a few hours, they managed to kill most of the Europeans, mainly by decapitating them. The only four men left were Adams, Young, Quintal, and ironically McCoy, who started the whole mess. The terrible massacre on Pitcairn Island eventually resulted in the fact that only one man survived. So, the year was 1793.

Tevarua had committed suicide because McCoy bit off her ear, and the rebels killed five of the nine Bounty sailors. But that was only the beginning. That same night, the Tahitian women killed all the Tahitian men in their sleep. The remaining European men were a bit out of it after these events. Young and Adams started praying fervently and studying the Bible for days on end. Quintal drank himself into oblivion and turned into a maniac who tried to kill the Pitcairn children, and there were many of them already.

The remaining men decided that they couldn’t allow infanticide to happen, so they beat Quintal to death. After that, McCoy went to a rock by the sea and hanged himself. Young also died soon, either from shock or because of an asthma attack. Adams was the only man left on the island. He reluctantly took on the role of the patriarch of Pitcairn, although initially, he wasn’t a very strong-willed man and was relatively young.

The history of Pitcairn had more rogue dictators than other empires. Given the story of how it was inhabited, it isn’t surprising that all kinds of crooks ruled Pitcairn most of the time. First, there was Christian, who became a drunk, fell into depression, and ignored his duties. Then McCoy, who ruled the island like a true bootlegger then the cartel of four men.

One of them hanged himself, while another was beaten to death. Amidst this, Adams emerged as a controversial figure. Rumors circulated that Adams had a hand in the unnatural death of a young man named John. After absorbing new responsibilities and immersing himself in the Bible, Adams transformed into a theocratic leader. He envisioned himself as a modern-day Adam, surrounded by Eves, choosing Karen Island as his Eden.

The decades that followed were spent striving to build an ideal Christian society. Adams led by reading scriptures to his followers, conducting rituals his way, and enforcing strict moral guidelines. He dismantled a Moonshine still and fathered numerous children, half of the island’s population being his direct descendants.

In 1808, British ships arrived at Pitcairn Island, discovering a religious community led by a gray-haired and charismatic guru. The British admired this picture and saw the island as a symbol of virtue and Victorian morality. After Adams’s passing, Pitcairn’s residents faced the influence of various crooks.

One day, a war veteran named George Knobs arrived and swiftly assumed leadership. He was soon succeeded by Joshua Hill, who deceitfully claimed royal appointment. Hill built a palace and demanded respect as if he were the king of Britain. Eventually exposed, Hill was expelled. John Tay, a Seventh-Day Adventist, arrived next, baptizing the island’s population into his faith. Tay briefly led the community and enforced the elimination of pigs as dictated by his beliefs.

Despite these changes, Pitcairn Islanders maintained their faith in Adventism. Despite its reputation as a bastion of Victorian morality, the island faced serious issues, including a disproportionately high number of pedophiles due to its small population. In 2004, seven residents were convicted of sexual crimes involving minors, including the mayor, Steve Christian. A prison was built for them.

Pitcairn Island is now the last British colony in the Pacific. Formally part of the Commonwealth, it operates independently in practice. The island introduced a democratic electoral system in 1838, granting voting rights to all adult residents, including women, a milestone in British territories.

Despite its storied history, Pitcairn’s population has dwindled to 49, as many young people have left for New Zealand and Australia. The island relies heavily on tourism, with visitors staying with locals due to the absence of hotels. However, discussing the dark chapters, such as the pedophile cases and the 1793 massacre, is considered taboo among the residents.