The presence of stone tools, burial sites, petroglyphs, and other artifacts indicates that Pitcairn Island had been inhabited, probably by Polynesians, before its discovery by European explorers. The British ship HMS Swallow found the island in 1767, and its captain, Philip Carteret, named it Pitcairn for the sailor who first sighted it. Its population is descended from the mutineers of the British ship HMS Bounty and their Tahitian Polynesian consorts. In 1789, on a voyage from Tahiti to the West Indies with a cargo of breadfruit saplings, the crew, led by the first mate, Fletcher Christian (Christian, Fletcher), mutinied and set their captain, William Bligh (Bligh, William), and a number of loyal sailors adrift and set course for the Austral (now Tubuaï) Islands. The mutineers and their Tahitian companions eventually reached uninhabited Pitcairn (1790), went ashore, and then burned the ship. The island community survived in obscurity until it was discovered by American whalers in 1808. Ships began visiting occasionally from Britain bearing books and other supplies. The population grew, and the island's limited natural resources increasingly became a source of concern. Leaders of the community proposed mass emigration to Tahiti or to Australia, but after the islanders had been resettled on Tahiti (1831), many grew dissatisfied and returned to Pitcairn. Thereafter the island became a port of call for whalers and passenger ships steaming between the United States and Australia. In 1856, because of overpopulation, some of the islanders were removed to Norfolk Island east of Australia, and to this day the mutineers' descendants remain divided between the two places. English and Pitkern (Pitcairnese) are the official languages; Tahitian and an 18th-century English dialect are also spoken.

Adamstown, the chief settlement, is on the north coast near Bounty Bay, one of the few places where the island-made longboats can land. The islanders subsist on fish, garden produce, and crops (including sweet potatoes, sugarcane, taro, oranges, bananas, and coffee). There is also some beekeeping and honey production. The sale of postage stamps, coins, and local products such as honey to passing ships and via online shopping sites brings cash income. Deposits of manganese, iron, copper, gold, silver, and zinc have been discovered offshore. Absentee landownership and a declining population as islanders emigrate to New Zealand are the island's main problems. Most of the islanders have been Seventh-day Adventists since 1887.

In 1898 the settlement was placed under the jurisdiction of the British high commissioner for the western Pacific. In 1952 administrative responsibility was transferred to the governor of the British crown colony of Fiji. When Fiji became independent in 1970, the British high commissioner in New Zealand was appointed governor of Pitcairn, administering it with the aid of a locally elected island council. Land area Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno islands, 13.7 square miles (35.5 square km). Pop. (2005 est.) 46.