history
‘It’s sacred to us’: register of Bounty mutineer’s descendants returns to South Pacific
Pitcairn Register details lives of ‘extraordinarily resilient’ Tahitian women enslaved during notorious mutiny
TL;DR
- The Pitcairn Register records the births, marriages, and deaths of the descendants of the 1789 Bounty mutineers and the Tahitian women they enslaved.
- The register, a handwritten manuscript started by John Buffett and continued by George Hunn Nobbs, is now on loan from the National Maritime Museum in London to the Norfolk Island Museum Trust.
- More than 25% of Norfolk Island's residents are descendants of the mutineers, and they crowdfunded to bring the register 'home' for Bounty Day celebrations.
- The register highlights the crucial role and resilience of the Tahitian women, whose skills were essential for the community's survival and whose stories were previously underrepresented.
- The historical narrative of the Bounty mutiny is being re-examined to include the experiences of the enslaved Polynesian men and women, moving beyond a purely male, Anglocentric perspective.