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John Adams - ABMutineer, age 20Adams was either from Wapping-on-Thames or Stanford Hill, St. John Hackney, Middlesex in England. His father, a lighterman and servant to Daniel Bell Cole, a merchant, drowned in the River Thames. He and 3 siblings were left orphaned, and he and 2 siblings were brought up in the poorhouse. One sibling married soon after the father's death. It was in the poorhouse that Adams gained what little literacy he had before being tutored by Young on Pitcairn. It is also where he learned the rudiments of the liturgy of the Church of England. One brother was a waterman at Union Stairs, a 'steady character, and wore the fire coat of London Assurance'. He was 5 feet 5 inches tall, with brown complexion, brown hair, strong made, very much pitted with smallpox, and very much tattooed on body, arms, legs, and feet. He had a scar on his right foot where it was cut with a wood axe. He signed on board the Bounty using the assumed name of ALEXANDER SMITH. He reverted to the use of his real name (Adams) after the mutiny. Adams belonged to that class of individuals, who, under ordinary circumstances, would likely attract public attention only when picked up by the police. Known as 'reckless Jack', he was not the toughest, meekest, most nor least intelligent of the crew. Certainly not afraid to 'go for the cutlass', he learned survival in the streets of London. One of the active mutineer party, he was part of the group who arrested Bligh. He was not in the leadership, but there was no question as to where his sympathies lay. On Pitcairn, he formed a close friendship with Young, and lived as neighbors, sharing possessions and women between themselves, especially after the death of Obuarei. Adams and Young had also the most evenhanded attitude toward the Tahitian men. He was scarcely literate, and as he noted Young's increasing illness, he took reading lessons each day from his companion, knowing that he would soon by responsible for the growing community. It was at Young's death that this non-religious sailor found himself, for the first time, having to officiate at the burial services, and from that point on took his responsibilities very seriously. Adams found himself alone among a community in which only he had an experience of the outside world He and Taio, formerly the consort of McCoy, formed a long-term monagamous relationship, that was to be officially blessed when they were married by Capt. Beechey many years later. Early visitors reported him as kindly, wise, thoroughly regenerated, and a deeply religious and moral patriarch. This is likely not far from the truth. He was indeed a completely regenerated rascal - whether this was due to a deep moral direction or from simple expediency in controlling an island teeming with the young will be forever unknown. We have only his own words to judge what he did, and we have the survival of a strong, religious, vital colony that he left in his wake. He couldn't have done everything wrong!
Bloody history of empire's last outpost
The trial of seven men accused of sexual offences
threatens to tear apart one of the world's most isolated communities - but
does the strange history of Pitcairn Island shed light on its current
plight?
Fletcher Christian and his band of willing accomplices mutinied on the Bounty in 1789 and established a settlement on Pitcairn Island a year later. Christian became the ultimate romantic hero in novels, poems and later swashbuckling films with Marlon Brando, Mel Gibson and Clark Gable all playing his character. The society he established after the mutiny was perceived to be an idyllic island community, free from the injustices of navy life. Christian's nemesis, Captain William Bligh, whom he cast adrift on the Pacific Ocean, was painted as the harsh captain, prone to violent outbursts and brutal floggings. But reality is rarely so convenient. Bloodbath In recent years attempts have been made to resurrect Bligh's reputation at the expense of Christian. So Christian becomes mad, drug addicted or a repressed homosexual, as Bligh is made into a benign, kindly captain with the good of his sailors at heart. Whatever the truth of these caricatures, what can be said for certain is the years immediately following the mutiny were bloody and murderous. Christian, along with eight other mutineers, six Polynesian men, 12 women and one baby, made their home on remote, rocky, inhospitable Pitcairn Island to escape courts martial and almost certain execution. But within three years Christian had been murdered by the Polynesian men, angered at their treatment as virtual slaves by the Europeans. In the ensuing bloodbath all of the Polynesian men were slaughtered and three other mutineers also lost their lives. These early years were characterised by chaos. "They didn't really set up any kind of society," says Herbert Ford, director of the Pitcairn Island Study Centre, based in California. "They were all chiefs - they had guns and they had women. The Polynesian men they brought with them were treated very much as slaves and this master-servant society soon led to trouble - bloodshed became a way of life." Until 1800, that was, when the adult male population of the island had dwindled to just one - John Adams. Evacuations Adams was a largely uneducated and reputedly violent man who lead the community from 1800 to his death in 1829. Despite taking part in at least one of the island's many murders, he forged an intensely religious and well-organised society. "Adams set up a kind of theocracy," says Professor Rod Edmond, expert on South Pacific history at Kent University. "He was a patriarch living with this rather strange hybrid mixture of Polynesian and European people which persists right through to the present day." The islanders remain fervently religious - many are now Seventh Day Adventists. But the outside world could not be kept out forever. Adams had feared overpopulation and requested British help to re-settle elsewhere. Two years after his death the entire population of 66 people was moved to Tahiti. But most islanders returned six months later. Pitcairn was annexed into the British empire in 1838 and was again evacuated in the 1850s due to overpopulation. But several of the families descended from the original mutineers once again returned to the isolated outpost, where many of their descendents still remain. 'Self-reliance' Resisting interference from the outside world has been their way of life for two centuries. The island was chosen as a settlement precisely because it was incorrectly marked on British naval surveys, making it difficult to find. But in 2004 seven men - half the male population - face trial under the British legal system in a makeshift courtroom over 10,000 miles from the UK. The islanders are building a jail in preparation and legal teams have travelled to Pitcairn from New Zealand. Despite the initial bloodshed, "Those earlier Pitcairners left a legacy of self-reliance, of friendliness to all who come their way, of simplicity and good humour in the face of adversity," says Herbert Ford. Many believe the islanders will need all this and much more if their unique community is to survive the latest incursion from the outside world. A rock and a hard place
Their community divided by a sex abuse trial, life for the 47 people on one
of the world's most isolated islands has become very difficult. But was it
ever straightforward?
Somewhere in the South Pacific, roughly half way between Peru and New Zealand, lies Pitcairn Island, one of the few places in the world so far flung the word "remote" just doesn't do it justice. In an age of mass tourism the island has no airport and rarely gets visitors - the only face to face contact the 47 residents have with the outside world provided by an occasional passing ship. Now, some 214 years after it was famously settled by the sailors behind the mutiny on the Bounty, the British territory is making an unhappy return to international attention. Later this month seven men, roughly half of its adult male population, will stand trial on sex abuse charges. The case has caused deep divisions in the tiny community, making life very difficult indeed. And it was never that easy to begin with. Fat of the land "People think of a tranquil South Pacific island, with sandy beaches and people just lying around," says Herbert Ford, head of the Pitcairn Islands Study Center, based in California.
The problem is it's just not like that. For a start there aren't really any beaches to speak of, just rocks and cliffs. A trip from the landing point up the muddy Hill of Difficulty (all the roads are unpaved) towards Adamstown (the one and only settlement) will provide further evidence that Pitcairners are not just kicking back and living off the fat of the land. If they're not out fishing, there's every chance that they will be farming, hunting or fixing their homes and machines. This is not an island where you can just call in a plumber to attend a leaky tap. Self reliance is everything. "You don't just run down to the shop to get some food, or get something fixed," says Mr Ford. "It could be six months before something you need arrives from New Zealand." It's not just spare parts that have to come the thousands of miles by sea from Auckland or Wellington. Everything that can't be sourced on the island has to come in by ship - whether that's flour to make bread, or wool to knit a jumper. Think of planning your family shop some eight months ahead and doing several months' worth all at once. While evenings may offer the chance to watch that favourite video again (so long as the electricity is on), it's also a time for weaving a basket or carving a curio to sell to passing ships. Other vital income to pay for fuel, communications equipment and so on comes from the lucrative sale of collectible Pitcairn Island stamps and some of the purest honey in the world. 'Rural slum' Clearly then, this is not an island for lovers of creature comforts to visit, let alone somewhere to settle. But therein lies its appeal to many of those who call it home. After several short trips to Pitcairn, Kari Young married an islander and spent the next 15 years there, before moving on to New Zealand so her children could attend school. She still considers the island home and spent six months there earlier this year.
"It's a beautiful place, the scenery is wonderful and the water is so clear,"
says Kari, 59, who left Norway in search of greater isolation.
"I have always tried to tell my family how it is to live on Pitcairn, but they have absolutely no idea. It's impossible to describe it." Visiting the island for the BBC, correspondent Simon Winchester was similarly entranced by the "amiable rural slum of muddy lanes and small shacks, hot and humid and surrounded by an all too visibly empty sea that stretches, limitless, on every side". Population problems In the 1930s, Pitcairn had a population of more than 200, mostly descended from the original islanders - the band from HMS Bounty led by Fletcher Christian, and their Tahitian companions. With its current population just half the number considered necessary to sustain the community, the island has a serious problem. "They would love to have 30 to 40 Pitcairners who are currently living abroad to come back," says Herbert Ford. "But unless there's an economic reason to do so they're not going to." Turning to outsiders to boost numbers does not provide easy solutions, although a young British couple whose stay on the island is now approaching a year look likely to be voted permission to stay. By and large Pitcairners are not enthralled by many of those who turn up. "There have been people in the past who wanted to live a hippy lifestyle without responsibilities. They all left," says Kari Young. The journalist Dea Birkett, who rankled many islanders with her book Serpent in Paradise - an account of her year there - says only those accustomed to remote living and who have useful skills need apply. "I came from one of the biggest cities in the world, London, and I went to the smallest, most remote village in the world and I was surprised to find it difficult." She adds: "You can't go anywhere. You can't go away for a weekend, it's a 10-day boat journey to New Zealand if there's a ship, which there isn't. The furthest you can go is for a 15 minute walk." Divided camps Population problems pale into insignificance compared to those now casting their shadow over the community. The trial, due to start on 23 September, prompted the governor - the British High Commissioner to New Zealand - to demand islanders turn their weapons in, lest things get out of hand. The case has already divided the island into camps; the accused, the accusers, those who think British law should prevail and those who don't. Whatever the trial's outcome, it's difficult to see how the island's future will be anything but difficult. "If everything had been normal on Pitcairn we may have moved back," says Kari. "But I can't see a time ever coming."
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