PITCAIRN ISLAND

isolated, volcanic formation in the south-central Pacific Ocean, 1,350 miles (2,170 km) southeast of Tahiti. It is the only inhabited island of the British colony of Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno Islands, which is commonly referred to as the Pitcairn Islands, or Pitcairn. The main island, with an area of about 2 square miles (5 square km), is a rugged half crater rising to 1,100 feet (about 300 m), girded by precipitous coastal cliffs. The climate is subtropical with an adequate rainfall, and the soil is fertile. Discovered in 1767 by a British naval officer, Philip Carteret, Pitcairn is named for the sailor who first sighted it. Its population is descended from the mutineers of the British ship HMS Bounty and their Tahitian Polynesian consorts. On a voyage from Tahiti to the West Indies with a cargo of breadfruit saplings, the crew, led by the first mate, Fletcher Christian, mutinied and set their captain, William Bligh, and a number of loyal sailors adrift and set course for the Austral Islands. The mutineers and their Tahitian companions eventually reached uninhabited Pitcairn (1790), went ashore, and then burned the ship. The island community survived in obscurity until discovered by American whalers in 1808. Resettled on Tahiti (1831), many islanders grew dissatisfied and returned to Pitcairn. Thereafter, the island became a port of call for whalers and passenger ships steaming between the United States and Australia. In 1856, because of overpopulation, some of the islanders were removed to Norfolk Island, and to this day the mutineers' descendants remain divided between the two places. Adamstown, the chief settlement, is on the north coast near Bounty Bay, one of the few places where the island-made longboats can land. The islanders subsist on fishing, garden produce, and crops (including sweet potatoes, sugarcane, taro, oranges, bananas, and coffee). The sale of postage stamps and carved curios to passing ships brings cash income. Absentee land ownership and a declining population due to emigration to New Zealand are the island's main problems. The islanders have been Seventh-day Adventists since 1887. In 1898 the settlement was placed under the jurisdiction of the British High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. In 1952 administrative responsibility was transferred to the governor of the British crown colony of Fiji. When Fiji became independent in 1970, the British High Commissioner in New Zealand was appointed governor of Pitcairn, carrying out his duties through a locally elected island council. Pop. (1992 est.) 52.