Archaeological evidence indicates that Polynesians may have lived on Pitcairn Island between the 12th century and the 15th century.

The island was rediscovered in 1767 by British naval officer, Philip Carteret, and named for the sailor who first sighted it.

In April 1789, after many months of arduous sailing through the Pacific Ocean, Fletcher Christian, Mate of the Bounty led a rebellion to control the vessel. Captain William Bligh and his few faithful seamen were left adrift off Tonga Islands. The mutinous crew sailed to Tahiti where twenty-six natives (nineteen women, six men and one baby) were taken on board. The members of the crew began to quarrel, so nine of them, afraid of being discovered and jailed, sailed away leaving the others in Tahiti. Once again Christian was the leader.

They wandered for over two months across the South Pacific, looking for an uninhabited island far from every known route. They journeyed against treacherous seas via the Cook Islands, Tonga and the Eastern Fiji Islands without finding a safe place to settle down. Never losing hope, Christian remembered an old report by Philip Carteret which mentioned the Island of Pitcairn. They turned again and routed toward their ‘Promised Land’ and reached it on January 15th 1790.

The island was uninhabited in 1790, when it was occupied by and divided amoung the nine mutineers of HMAV Bounty accompanied by a group of Polynesian men and women . The community was not discovered until 1808, when American whalers visited the island; at that time only one of the British sailors was still alive.