tagged w/ Pitcairn Islands
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Tell us why this is interesting(CBS)Pitcairn Island was discovered in 1767 by the British and settled in 1790 by the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions.
Pitcairn was the first Pacific island to become a British colony (in 1838) and today remains the last vestige of that empire in the South Pacific.
By the mid-1850s the Pitcairn community was outgrowing the island and its leaders appealed to the British government for assistance.
They were offered Norfolk Island and on 3 May 1856, the entire community of 193 people set sail for Norfolk on board the Morayshire, arriving on June 8th after a miserable five-week trip.
But after eighteen months on Norfolk, seventeen of the Pitcairners returned to their home island; five years later another twenty-seven did the same.
Outmigration, primarily to New Zealand, has thinned the population from a peak of 233 in 1937 to less than 50 today. Tell us why this is interesting(CBS)Pitcairn Island was discovered in 1767 by the... more
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