History of the Pitcairn Islands It was rediscovered by the British on 3 July 1767 on a voyage led by Captain Philip Carteret, and named after Robert Pitcairn, the crew member who first spotted the island. Pitcairn was one of the sons of John Pitcairn. On January 15, 1790, the mutineers of "Bounty" and their Tahitian companions arrived on the island. The group consisted of Fletcher Christian and eight other mutineers from the Bounty. These were Ned Young, John Adams, Matthew Quintal, William McCoy, William Brown, Isaac Martin, John Mills and John Williams. Also with them were six Polynesian men (Manarii/Menalee, Niau/Nehou, and Teirnua/Te Moa
Mutiny on the Bounty the six Tahitian men were all dead, killed either by the widows of the murdered mutineers or by each other. Two of the four surviving mutineers, Young and Adams, assumed leadership and secured a tenuous calm, which was disrupted by the drunkenness of McCoy and Quintal's after the former distilled an alcoholic beverage from a local plant. Some of the women attempted to leave the island in a makeshift boat but could not launch it successfully. Life continued uneasily until McCoy's suicide in 1798. A year later, after Quintal threatened fresh murder and mayhem, Adams and Young killed him and