States of Oceania - Pitcairn Islands

Pitcairn Islands (British Overseas Territory) (Polynesia) (Oceania)
AD 1767 - Present Day
Incorporating Heads of State (1790s-2025), & British Colony (1887-On)

Considered in some quarters to be a watery continent in its own right, Oceania starts where South-East Asia ends, to the south-east of Indonesia and East Timor. Its territory is somewhat debatable but generally consists of the waters of the Pacific Ocean dotted with some two thousand islands, some of which are independent states and others either parts of countries or colonies.

Polynesia, of which Pitcairn is a part, is the vast easternmost stretch of a thousand islands in Oceania. The South Pacific's Southern Polynesia region consists of the following in a west-to-east progression: Tuvalu, Wallis & Futuna, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, the Pitcairn Islands, and Easter Island (the last of those being 1,921 kilometres to the east of the closest other Polynesian group - the Pitcairn Islands).

Pitcairn Island is inhabited but remote, sitting at the western end of the Pitcairn island chain. These form a group of four volcanic islands which are scattered across several hundred miles of ocean as the south-easternmost part of the Tuamotu archipelago. To the west are the Gambier Islands, also in the Tuamotus and part of French Polynesia. To the north and south are vast stretches of the South Pacific Ocean.

Pitcairn was originally inhabited by Polynesians, although little is known about them and they eventually abandoned the island. It remained uninhabited even after the first European discovery of it in 1767 ended the Neolithic Oceania period. Then, on a return voyage from Tahiti in 1789, Fletcher Christian led a successful mutiny of crew members of HMS Bounty against Captain William Bligh.

The captain and seventeen of his loyal officers were set adrift in a boat, while the mutineers attempted to settle on Tubuai. They found they were not welcome on that island and, two months later, they sailed away to find Pitcairn Island in 1790.

Pitcairn Island was independent and generally unknown for the first period of its settlement by the mutineers. In 1838, though, a British naval captain drafted a constitution for them, and from then on the islanders considered themselves British colonists. The United Kingdom, while maintaining an informal and friendly relationship with the island, generally declined through much of the nineteenth century to establish it as a British settlement.

Twice, in 1832 and in 1856-1857, the islanders felt that their island was becoming overcrowded, and they requested British transportation elsewhere. In both cases they were dissatisfied with their new location, and they returned.

Pitcairn Island formally became a British settlement in 1887. It came under the jurisdiction of the governors of Fiji between 1898-1970, with those governors also serving as high commissioners for the western Pacific until 1952. The Fiji governor became responsible for Pitcairn in the period between 1952-1970, when the responsibilities of high commissioner were separated from those of the governor.

When 'Colonial Fiji' became independent in 1970 the British high commissioner to New Zealand in Wellington became governor of Pitcairn Island. A commissioner for Pitcairn who today is based in Auckland handles practical matters for the island. It continues to be governed by the constitution and code of previously-established laws.

An annually-elected magistrate heads the government and must be native-born. Suffrage is universal for anyone aged eighteen or above. A council of two assists the magistrate, with that magistrate being responsible for selecting one of the council members. Schooling is compulsory. Strangers are forbidden by law from settling on Pitcairn Island unless the islanders consider their presence to be beneficial.

The islanders are Seventh-Day Adventists, having been converted from the Church of England in 1887. Modern Pitcairn Island is no longer the isolated community it once was, though. Regular stops by cruise ships and other vessels have made it a popular destination for tourists and tradesmen alike. Only about fifty people live on the island, which is the last 'British Overseas Territory' in the Pacific.

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