Sebastian Jablonski

'Betwixt and Between' – Pitcairn Islanders as People in Colonizers’ Liminal Space 

For a brief period in the nineteenth century, the coincidental discovery of the Anglo-Tahitian settlement on Pitcairn Island in 1814 prompted much excitement in the British public sphere. For many years after its first British discovery in 1767 European navigators had been unable to re-visit the wrongly charted island. Now, the story of its settlement by the mutineers from HMS Bounty along with kidnapped Tahitians became a romantic tale that would be rewritten by many authors and journalists over the course of years. All of these narratives drew to some extent on the information supplied by the crews of the Royal Navy ships that were involved in this encounter.

My paper will analyze A Narrative of the Briton's Voyage, to Pitcairn's Island, an account of the 1814 encounter written by Lieutenant John Shillibeer of HMS Briton. In this text Pitcairn Islanders – descendants of Bounty mutineers and kidnapped Tahitian women – claim British identity and describe themselves as subjects of the Crown. Shillibeer’s response to this claim, while not negating its validity outright, is cautious to say the least: due to their mixed ancestry, the remoteness of the place they inhabit and the lack of British jurisdiction over the island, he can imagine Pitcairners only ever as people “betwixt and between the positions” (Turner). Drawing on Arnold Van Gennep’s notion of liminality, I will analyze Shillibeer’s narrative as indicative of the curious position accorded to of Pitcairners in British colonial designs for the region.