Pitcairn's Island  Source  Whalesite

Pitcairn's Island section from the
December 1853 Quarterly Review..

      The fortunes of the little Anglo-Tahitian population of Pitcairn's Island form but a trifling episode in Polynesian annals; yet the subject is in itself so interesting, and so much of sympathy has been excited by the accounts which we have from time to time received of the progress of these insulated children of nature, purified by religious teaching, that we must linger in passing. The history of the family, for the first thirty or forty years after the occupation of their secluded rock by the nine mutineers of the Bounty, is too well known to need recapitulation. It rests, however (as has been observed) on the statements of John Adams alone. Good old man as this reclaimed patriarch was, it has been reasonably doubted whether his recollection of events after the lapse of years, and affected, moreover, by the instinct of self-excuse, and the fear which he long entertained of being punished for the mutiny, is a sufficient guarantee for the accuracy of his recital. Sir J. Barrow has pointed out that Adams gave different accounts of the character and fate of Fletcher Christian, the ringleader, to Sir T. Staines and Captain Beechey. On this doubt was built the surmise that Christian was not killed on the island at all; and a romantic story got into circulation of his having been seen in Fore-street, Plymouth, by his former comrade, Captain Peter Heywood. But the little circumstance recorded in the early annals of the island, of the women having been seen with five skulls of white men in their hands, at a time when four were certainly yet alive-Young, M'Coy, Adams, and Quintal-seems on this point a strong corroboration of Adams's story.

      Adams died in 1829. His destined successor had arrived in the island in 1828, had pleased the old man, and been adopted by him, and introduced to his flock as their future teacher. He had also become one of themselves, by marrying a grand-daughter of Fletcher Christian. This was Mr. George Nobbs, whose early career certainly gave little indication of the part he was to act in life. He was a midshipman in the British navy-held a commission under Lord Dundonald, in the Chilian servicewas present at the cutting out of the Esmeralda, and other feats of the War of Independence-was made prisoner by the ferocious Benavides, after an action, in which forty-eight of his party, out of sixty-four, were killed and wounded. All the survivors, except himself and three more, were shot in cold blood. We know not whether it was under the influence of any strong religious impulse, often aroused by pre-

servations like this, or simply from that longing for a peaceful retreat in some lovely recess of the Pacific, which so often besets the youthful adventurer in that region-but after quitting the Chilian service, and having been four times round the world, he formed the design of settling among the people of Pitcairn's Island, whom from that time he has served in the capacity of 'pastor, surgeon, and schoolmaster,' to his own and their great happiness and advantage. The only other European residents at the time of his arrival were Evans and Buffitt, chance settlers, and both men of a harmless disposition.

      In 1831 the Pitcairners were removed to Tahiti, by the British Government, in the barque Lucy Anne;' the cause being an apprehended dearth of water; but the apprehension proved imaginary, and the emigration a total failure. In a few weeks an epidemic raged among them, and many died. They neither liked the food nor the soil of Tahiti, still less the coarse fashions of its people, and the profligacy of individuals; above all, they pined for their solitary home with that intensity of longing which belongs to people of few ideas and natural impulses. They returned, after some months of absence, with their numbers reduced to little more than sixty. From that time they have lived undisturbed in their former seat, and their number has risen, by natural increase only, to nearly one hundred and seventy. Their removal, however, had for a time distracted their simple train of thoughts and habits, and deranged their patriarchal government. They were further perplexed soon after their return by the arrival of an 'illustrious stranger,' who exercised for some time an evil influence on their destinies. This personage, Mr. Joshua Hill, represented himself as an envoy of the British Government; and, to recommend himself further, drew up a long and ludicrous list of the sights he had seen, and the distinguished persons to whom he had written or spoken in the course of his life: —

      'After all, he concludes, what does the above amount to? Vanity of vanities. I will merely add, that I have had a year in the Church of Christ, and that I am a life member of the Bible Society.'

      Before the magnificent pretensions of this Polynesian Count de St. Germain, those of Lieutenant Nobbs, of the Chilian service, sank into insignificance. The Pitcairn's Islanders were effectually dazzled by the magnificence of their visitor, and began to discard their former humble friends, as a village maiden in a play cuts her rustic lover for some outrageous pretender to town fashions. He divided their little society into two factions, one siding with him, the other with the constitution as it was.' Ultimately he compelled Mr. Nobbs to leave the island, subjugated the

other two Europeans, it should seem, by a liberal application of the cat-o'-nine-tails, established a constitution of elders, subelders, and cadets,' and reigned for some years triumphant among them.

      It was during this anti-papacy of Joshua Hill that rumours representing Mr. Nobbs as an unprincipled adventurer became current in England, and made their way into works of authority. We merely notice them to say that his subsequent life has amply refuted them. His refuge for some time was, we believe, in the Gambier Islands, where he employed himself as a teacher. Happily, and to complete the dramatic justice of the story, Hill at length exposed himself, even to his own simple-minded subjects, so undeniably that his sovereignty could no longer be tolerated. He fortunately gave out, among his other vaunts,— 'that he was a very near relation of the Duke of Bedford, and that the Duchess seldom rode out in her carriage without him! But whilst the people listened to his magnificent account of himself and his noble friends, who should arrive on their shores, in H. M. S. Actæon, in 1837, but Captain Lord Edward Russell!'

      The star of Hill declined from the moment of this awkward visit. Shortly afterwards Captain Bruce carried him off in H. M. S. Imogene, and landed him safe at Valparaiso in 1838, where, we have heard, he induced the British merchants to get up a subscription to send him to England; but we know nothing of the farther fate of this amusing and half-deranged pretender.

      From the date of the deposition of Hill to Admiral Moresby's visit in 1852, there is little to note in the peaceful history of the Pitcairners, which is carefully preserved in a 'register' kept by the teacher. They have lived on under the government of their annual magistrates, chiefly occupied in composing the petty disputes* which must needs arise among a community who sedulously preserve the rights of property, and to whom Socialism is only known in its rational development, as imposing the duty of mutual assistance and forbearance, not as extinguishing the relations of the family or the notion of private wealth. On the contrary, when a ship is signalled-affording the only prospect of disposing of the surplus produce of the island by barter-it is the business of the magistrate to decide which of the householders are to go on board her with supplies of their own, and how the proceeds are to be divided. We feel

naturally suspicious of the uniform descriptions of peace and good-will which voyager after voyager brings from this secluded shore, but it is difficult to resist the evidence: —

'From the date of the first intelligence respecting them (observes Mr. Murray), there has been no variation in the character given of them. As they were in purity and peace, those two great essentials of human happiness, when Sir Thomas Staines visited the island in 1814, so they are now, in 1853, the same contented, kind, and Godfearing race. Inquiry having been made of Mr. Nobbs, a few years since, as to instances of sudden and extraordinary conversion which might have fallen under his notice, he replied that his experience did not furnish any such cases from Pitcairn. But he added, "had inquiry been made for examples of happy deaths, I could have replied with unmitigated satisfaction; for I have seen many depart this life, not only happy, but triumphant."'

      Meanwhile, their strict religious discipline has neither diminished their habitual industry (to which indeed the narrow extent of their island, and its light volcanic soil, necessarily condemn them) nor the dexterity with which they address themselves to more adventurous displays of energy-clambering the rocky precipices which encircle them, and braving the dangers of the deepsea fishery, the only one which the steepness of their coast allows. The women, tall and graceful in figure, vie with the men in strength and agility. Lieut. Wood, of the Pandore, in 1849, found a girl of eighteen accustomed to carry 100 lbs. of yams over the most precipitous tracks of the island; and another carried the gallant lieutenant himself, on her shoulders, up the steep ascent from the landing-place, with the greatest facility. In the water (according to Captain Belcher) both men and women are almost as much at home as on the land, and can remain nearly a whole day in the sea. They frequently swam round their little island. When the sea beat heavily on the island, they have plunged into the breakers and swum to sea beyond them. This they sometimes did, pushing a barrel of water before them, when it could be got off in no other way.'

      In 1850 three English wanderers, of whom one was Mr. Walter Brodie, and a Frenchman, the Baron de Thierry, were left behind on Pitcairn's Island, by accident or wilfulness on the part of their Sydney skipper. They did not come there, like visitors on purpose, prepared to admire, and seem to have thought their detention, at first, a matter of much annoyance; but they were soon altogether captivated by the charm which nature and social happiness have thrown round that solitary spot. Mr. Brodie, who has given us the most interesting account of the island and its people which we have yet seen, was first attracted by the conduct

of a half-naked islander, who came on board to sell his vegetables. A child having fallen overboard, the Pitcairn costermonger jumped in and rescued it, and then refused all reward; behaviour which, in a man who had come on board to make money,' caused an Australian crew to open the eyes of astonishment. On landing, and 'whilst feasting on cocoa-nuts,' Mr. Brodie soon fell to appropriate small talk with the demure damsels of the island.

'I spoke to them about their beauty, when one of them observed she did not think I was an Englishman. I asked, with some curiosity, what could have led her to such a conclusion, and was informed by the fair damsel in question that I flattered too much to be British born.'

      Charmed with the good-humoured hospitality which they received, the visitors lingered on through many pleasant weeks of durance and fortune enabled them to remunerate their entertainers in no common way. Mr. Carleton, one of the Englishmen, was musical, and he soon noted the deficiencies of Mr. Nobbs's flock in psalmody. He got up singing-classes of young women and young men; and was rewarded by discovering that some of his pupils possessed an admirable ear, and most of them fine voices. He left their choir in high order: and when a stray vessel took him and his comrades away at last, great was the mourning of their loving hosts.

'The poor girls clung round us as we stood upon the beach; but more especially did they cling round my friend Carleton, who had taken so much trouble in teaching them to sing; many of them with their handkerchiefs thrown round their heads, and all in floods of tears.... Carleton tried to get up a chorus, but it broke down, and only made matters worse.'

      Nothing can exceed in strength the mutual attachment of these people, and their common attachment to home. Mr. Brodie was witness to the general consternation, when one of their number, a young Quintal, was carried away privately by an American ship, though he was probably an accomplice, often saying how much he wanted to see California, 'provided he could be blown off the island in some vessel, so as to spare him the pains of taking leave of his friends and family.' In 1848 Mr. Nobbs despatched his son, Reuben, a youth whom an accident had partially lamed and rendered less fit for active work, to earn a livelihood among his own old friends in Chili. The teacher made over to him all the money he possessed-eight dollars. All the families joined in fitting him out to the best of their power, furnishing him with a supply of clothes, and making up altogether a purse of more than 40 dollars, several contributing every cent. they had.' By the last accounts, the youth was doing well at Valparaiso; but

it was thought that the passionate longing of his island mother, and his own home-sickness, would prevail, and that he would soon return.

      In August, 1852, Rear-Admiral Moresby, Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty's forces in the Southern Pacific, arrived at the island, and his visit will form a very important epoch in its little history. He sent Mr. Nobbs to England (with the consent, though sorely reluctant, of his flock) to explain more fully the state and requirements of the islanders, and to obtain ordination. Some of our readers may, like ourselves, have had opportunity to judge of the demeanour and information of this remarkable visitor by personal acquaintance during his stay in England. Both his objects have been satisfactorily accomplished, in great measure by the aid of the Society to which Mr. Murray, the compiler of the interesting volume before us, officiates as Secretary, and he has returned safe to the sphere of his duties. In parting with him we will only express a hope that the interest which he has been the means of exciting may not evaporate in a vague disposition, on the part of the British public, to pet and caress his islanders, as good children who have deserved kisses and presents-than which nothing could be devised more destructive of their self-reliance, and of their other virtues along with it.

      The Admiral, however, has taken in hand a project for their ultimate benefit, which requires more deliberation, and introduces us to some remarkable topics of thought, not only as regards this but other Christianized communities of the South Seas. It is his opinion, we are informed, that the population of 170 souls is nearly or quite as much as the island can maintain, and that, considering their remarkable rate of increase, it is necessary that the whole, or a part of them, should speedily be removed elsewhere. Mr. Nobbs, we believe, controverts this opinion. He thinks there is room for multiplication for some time longer; and we find that other observers estimate that the island-four miles and a half in circumference, or rather more than the size of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens together-might well support 400 persons-such is the prolific return to tropical cultivation. But be this as it may, there are other considerations besides that of mere numbers, which lead us to the belief that some such measure of expatriation should not be long delayed.

      The present Pitcairners are all (with the exception of the three Englishmen, and their children by island wives) descended from five couples of English and Tahitians, and bear five surnames only: Adams, Christian, MacCoy, Quintal, and Young. But, great as the multiplication has been, and particularly of late years, it appears to proceed wholly from

numerous births and early marriages, not from the longevity of the adults. Christian and his companions landed with their Tahitian wives in 1789; and already, in 1852, there were only two survivors of the first generation, the children of the mutineers. Indeed, Mr. Nobbs has himself informed us that there is scarcely an islander above the age of fifty. Now, if these facts be accurate, and if they do amount to evidence of any general law, it becomes a curious problem to trace the cause of this premature decay among a people apparently so favourably circumstanced for longevity. It cannot be hereditary predisposition; their Tahitian mothers belonged to a race in which long life, in the absence of violent deaths or epidemics, was the rule and not the exception. Fletcher Christian's widow lived till 1841; she was thought to have remembered Captain Cook: and the last of these original female emigrants died as late as 1850. Mr. Nobbs seemed inclined to seek the reason in insufficient or too little varied nourishment; but even his authority and experience cannot reconcile us to the explanation. Were it so, they would be feeble as well as short-lived, but the evidence shows that there is no degeneracy among them —

who, nevertheless, outlive them in the ordinary course of life by many years. Others may possibly consider it the result of constant intermarriages-but here again the deleterious result would be perceptible in the physical inferiority of the race, and not be confined in its effects to the abridgment of life. Nor do we believe in the general sufficiency of this cause-unless in combination with others imperfectly known to us. There are many village communes in the Alps, and in Norway, in which cousins have gone on marrying cousins ever since their first foundation, from the very necessity of the case, and yet Europe cannot show more robust or long-lived folks.

      Some other cause would seem to operate: is it to be found (that we may briefly indicate considerations which require far more ample development) in the fact—painful at first thought, yet by no means inconsistent with what we know of the natural government of the world-that a state of monotonous peace and contentment, preserved by careful vigilance, or by mere absence of temptation, is not the normal state of man, nor one in which his energies have that healthy play which secures their durability? The civilised men of modern times, high and low, with all their burden of cares and passions, wasting strifes and grinding competition,' have no cause to believe in a general shorten-

ing of their span of life. Neither is the savage liable to this complaint. If he escapes casualties and epidemics, he is rather apt to live long. The wild tension of his energies in passion-— the sharp spur given to his faculties by the constantly-exercised instinct of self-preservation-these seem to keep up the vigour of his stamina, and to counterbalance the results of his habitual sloth and frequent excesses. But where the constitution lacks one or the other stimulus, there seems a tendency to early decay. It is not absolutely intellectual exercise that is wanting this is given by education-nor bodily exercise, of which our islanders have fully enough. It is the exercise of other mixed powers implanted in us: the passions of hope and fear, the desire of achievement and the triumph of success. The mere animal enjoyment of life is for a while a substitute for these; but this cannot outlast growth: and in the mere mechanical prolongation which follows, the faculties seem to collapse in gentle decline.

      This would be a wild conclusion to draw from so insulated and peculiar a case as that of the Pitcairn's Islanders; but it is strangely corroborated by what has happened in more extensive fields of experience. The same phenomenon occurs in the history of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay, where the system of discipline and management were so perfect that the Indian never knew, during his whole progress from the cradle to the grave, what it was to take thought for the morrow.' The flock thus carefully tended wasted by constant internal decay; their lives were shortened by natural decline, without apparent disease. Precisely the same observation has been made by the Wesleyan missionaries in the Friendly Islands.

'I was surprised,' says the Rev. Walter Lawry, 'to find how quickly they spring up, and pass away. Several of those whom I knew by name twenty-eight years ago, when they were mere children, now rank among the "madua," or old people, yet cannot be more than 37 or 38 years old. We can clearly ascertain that the females are women at about thirteen, and grow old women before thirty. Their food is very simple, and mostly vegetable; but in size they far outstrip Europeans, so also, as they think, in personal attractions and beauty. But, alas! they quickly pass away, and are gone.' — Second Missionary Visit, p. 26.

      The good Jesuits distressed themselves but little about this ill return to their exertions. Whom the Gods love die young, they thought, but with better than Pagan warrant. They regarded, says Father Charlevoix, every simple Indian who perished as an additional intercessor above for them and their labour of charity. And we have heard similar language held

by religious men among ourselves, when speaking of the alleged depopulation of Polynesia. But we need not waste words to show that this is neither sound philosophy nor true religion. Unless we can guard our converts against premature physical decay as well as moral corruption, our efforts are still wretchedly defective.

      It is with this view especially that we think the project of an extensive emigration from Pitcairn's Island as one to be regarded with favour. Such a step cannot be accomplished without awakening a new class of energies, and we would willingly make such an experiment, even at the risk of evil. A singular chance, not to use a stronger word, seems just now to have placed at the disposal of the British Government a spot peculiarly suited for the purpose: a speck almost answering to Pitcairn's Island itself on the map, though in reality of considerably larger dimensions, lying under the same latitude and climate, in Western, instead of Eastern, Polynesia: possessing the same peculiarity of an absence of harbours and anchorage, so that ships can only lie off at certain seasons, thus insuring an almost perfect protection against intrusion: uninhabited, or likely to become so, and yet fully prepared for human habitation. This is no other than Norfolk Island-a name suggestive of all that is hideous in human depravity, and fearful in the stern Nemesis which avenges it. But the recent alterations in our penal code have rendered its establishments unnecessary-they are rapidly in process of breaking up and a few months will see the island of crime, unless it is used for some new purposes, abandoned to Nature, as it was before the foot of European first landed on its shores, and as if its history of the last thirty years had been only a nightmare dream. It would be a strange dispensation which should make this polluted soil the abode of those who are described as the purest and simplest of the children of men. Yet all is prepared for it-we have seen reports on the subject from the government of Van Diemen's Land, which prove ample room for a far larger number than the expected visitors, and even show how the last remaining convicts, if the orders arrive in time, may leave the land in crop, ready for the incoming tenants. There are obstacles which may yet prevent the transfer from taking place the natural reluctance with which Mr. Nobbs appears to regard it, and his people's love of their home, are not the least; but we cannot disguise our hope that these may be overcome, and this little essay in colonization effected with the success which it deserves.

"Art. III .... [review of seven books]"
      The Quarterly Review.
Vol. 84, No. 187. (December 1853)
pp.98-106.

Pitcairn's Island  Source  Whalesite