PITCAIRN ISLANDS - AN ENCAPSULATED HISTORY
by Horace A. Basham - horace@pin.co.nz
Part Three: The Moves to Tahiti & Norfolk (1830-1856)
The Pitcairners did not feel at home on Tahiti. The Tahitians moral standards were not their standards, sexually, then they were more European than Polynesian in their ways and dress. They longed to return to their own habits in their own island, all the more so when infectious diseases, to which they had little immunity, began to kill them. The first to die was Fletcher Christian's son Thursday October Christian, the first child born on Pitcairn. His death was followed by the youngest member of the community Lusy Anne Quintal; and during the next two months there were ten more deaths and only one birth. This heavy toll of deaths more than the general unhappiness, moved everyone on Tahiti to pity for their plight. A number of attempts to return them to Pitcairn failed for one reason or another, untill Captain William Driver of the Salem whaler 'Charles Doggett' arrived at Papeete and offered to take them back to Pitcairn for a total of $500. This sum was raised by donations from Tahitian and the selling by the islanders of their blankets and other necessaries, so anxious were they to get back to their island. Captain Driver sailed from Papeete on 14 August 1831 with the remaining 65 islanders to arrive on 3 September.
inevitably the little community had lost some of its innocence. It was leaderless too, for Nobbs had not been accepted as Adams successor, and they could not agree on a local head. there was a period of anarchy and drunkenness but the vacuum was soon to be filled. In October 1832 a puritanical busyboddy, by the name of Joshua Hill arrived on the island claiming to have been sent by the British Government. He was welcomed and, supplanted Nobbs as pastor and teacher, at once appointed himself as President of the Commonwealth of Pitcairn.
Hill abolished distilling of liquor but he also introduced arbitory imprisonment and other severe punishments for the smallest misdeeds. He secured the expulsion of Nobbs and other "lousy foreiners" who form an intimidated opposition, but their departure caused a reaction and his power gradually declined until, 1838, his claim to represent the British Government was exposed and he was forcibly removed from the island. Nobbs returned from 'exile' and by a general vote was reinstated as pastor and teacher. One has only to read Hill's literary effusions to surmise that he was probably mentally unstable throughout his six years on Pitcairn.
Following on from Hills dictatorship and increasing visits of American whalers lead the islanders to recgnise the need for protection, and they prevailed upon Captain Elliott of the HMS Fly to draw up a brief constitution and a code of laws selected from those already in force. A Magistrate (native born) was to be elected annually "by the free votes of every native born on the island, male or female, who shall have attained the age of eighteen years, or of persons who shall have resided five years on the island". He was to be assisted by two councillors, one elected and one appointed by himself. Not only was it the first time female sufferage was wrtten into a British constitution but it also incorporated compulsory schooling for the first time in any British legislation.
Whatever the precise legal significance of Capt. Elliott's action the Pitcairn Islanders date there formal incorporation into the British Empire from 30 November 1838.
The years 1838-1848 were peaceful ones. Except in 1845 the worst storm in the islanders memory did immeasurable damage to the islands vegetation and boats, the landslides into the coastal waters frighten most of the fish away. Periodic epidemics of influenza, accidents recorded in place names such as "Where-Tom-Off"; and birth, marriages and deaths alone disturbed the placid life.
The population topped over the hundred mark; Nobbs was firmly in control; and Buffett taught the young men navigation, carpetry, how to fashion curios of the type still sold today from local woods. Adapting themselves to the needs of the visiting seafarers the islanders became skilled market gardeners, producing potatoes, yams, coconuts, oranges, limes and chickens, for which they accepted in return clothing, tools and money. And largely becuase they sold their produce for fixed prices, they acquired a reputation for strict honesty.
By 1850 the islanders numbered 156 and were increasing rapidly. The question of moving the entire population to another island was being mooted. This time the islanders were insisting on an uninhabited island. In 1856 the majority of islanders decided to move with British government help to Norfolk Island, which had become vacant a little earlier when the penal settlement had been withdrawn. It was larger than Pitcairn, and after sixty years of convict labour it had large areas of cultivation, roads, houses and was well stocked with domestic animals. So in 1856 when the HMS Morayshire arrived all 194 islanders boarded her.
Part One: The First Ten Years (1790-1800)
Part Two: The End of Isolation (1800-1830)
Part Three: The Moves to Tahiti & Norfolk (1830-1856)
Part Four: Return to Pitcairn & Religious Conversion (1856-1864)
Part Five: Toward Modern Pitcairn (1864-1940)
I have reproduced in the main the first part of the "A Guide to Pitcairn" Published by the Government of the Pitcairn Islands. The booklet may be purchased from:
The Office of the Governor of Pitcairn,
Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands.
C/o British Consulate General,
Private Bag 92014,
Auckland, New Zealand.
Phone ++64 9 366 0186,
Fax ++64 9 303 1836.
Price is NZ$8.30 includes surface mail.