On January 15, 1790, the mutineers of Bounty and their Tahitian companions arrived on the island. The group consisted of Fletcher Christian and eight other mutineers from the Bounty. These were Ned Young, John Adams, Matthew Quintal, William McCoy, William Brown, Isaac Martin, John Mills and John Williams. Also with them were six Polynesian men and twelve Tahitian women, as well as a Tahitian baby girl named Sally, daughter of one of the women. The settlers took everything off the Bounty and then burnt the ship to hide all trace of their existence.
Nobody relly knows what happened until an American Whaler in 1808 and a Royal Navy ship in 1814. By thn Adams was the only Bounty mutineer left alive. He retold stories of what had happened, as the other mutineers died mainly of internal violence
During the 1820s, three British adventurers named John Buffett, John Evans and George Nobbs settled on the island and married children of the mutineers
In 1831, the islanders temporarily abandoned Pitcairn to immigrate to Tahit. where Thursday October Christain died of desease. Six months later they decided to return to Pitcairn
By the mid-1850s the Pitcairn community was outgrowing the island and they appealed to Queen Victoria for help. Queen Victoria offered them Norfolk Island, and on 3 May 1856, the entire community of 194 people set sail for Norfolk Island on board the Morayshire. They arrived on 8 June after a miserable 5 week trip. However, after 18 months, 17 returned to Pitcairn and in 1864 another 27 returned. Of the 194 Islanders, arriving on Norfolk, Adams family members numbered 18, Buffett 19, Christian 47, Evans 10, McCoy 16 Nobbs 13, Quintal 48 and Young 23. In December 1858, Moses Young and fifteen others left to return to Pitcairn followed, in December 1863 by five families comprising twenty-seven individuals.
Since a population peak of 233 in 1937, the island is suffering from emigration, primarily to New Zealand, leaving a current population of 56.
Currently, the continued existence of the colony is threatened by allegations of a long history and tradition of sexual abuse of girls as young as 10 and 11. On September 30, 2004, seven men resident on Pitcairn, and a further six now living abroad, went on trial facing 55 charges of sex-related offences. Among the accused was Steve Christian, Pitcairn's Mayor, who faced several charges of rape, indecent assault, and child abuse. On October 25, 2004, six men were convicted including Steve Christian. A seventh, the island's former Magistrate Jay Warren, was acquitted.[