Pitcairn Islands History

History
The Pitcairn Islands, officially Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, are a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific Ocean. The four islands—Pitcairn proper, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno—are scattered across several hundred miles of ocean and have a combined land area of about 18 sq mi. Henderson Island accounts for 86% of the land area, but only Pitcairn Island is inhabited.

Pitcairn is the least populous national jurisdiction in the world. The Pitcairn Islanders are a biracial ethnic group descended mostly from nine Bounty mutineers and the handful of Tahitians who accompanied them. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. Today there are approximately 50 permanent inhabitants, originating from four main families. 

Timeline
1767 - Pitcairn Island was sighted by the crew of the British sloop HMS Swallow and the island was named after midshipman Robert Pitcairn, a fifteen-year-old crew member who was the first to sight the island 1790 - Nine of the mutineers from the Bounty, along with the native Tahitian men and women who were with them. There were six men, eleven women, and a baby girl, settled on Pitcairn Islands and set fire to the Bounty 1856 - The entire population of Pitcairn, 193 people set sail for Norfolk however, just eighteen months later, seventeen of the Pitcairn Islanders returned to their home island, and another 27 followed five years later 1886 - The Seventh-day Adventist layman John Tay visited Pitcairn and persuaded most of the islanders to accept his faith. He returned in 1890 on the missionary schooner Pitcairn with an ordained minister to perform baptisms. Since then, the majority of Pitcairn Islanders have been Adventists 1902 - The islands of Henderson, Oeno and Ducie were annexed by Britain 1938 - The three islands, along with Pitcairn, were incorporated into a single administrative unit called the Pitcairn Group of Islands