Some 1,300 miles southeast of Tahiti sits a volcanic island with fewer than 50 residents, limited electricity and a boat to and from New Zealand just four times a year. Author Brandon Presser calls it a “trailer park at the end of the world.” 

But, as Presser writes in his new book, “The Far Land: 200 Years of Murder, Mania and Mutiny in the South Pacific” (Public Affairs), out March 8, Pitcairn Island also has a remarkable history: The 48 people who live there are mostly direct descendants of the notorious mutineers who took over the HMS Bounty in 1789.

Its modern residents eat the island’s fruits, vegetables and seafood, but the bulk of their diet is canned goods delivered by freighter every three months. The ramshackle homes lack front doors and are overgrown with trees and plants. There is a school for students up to age 12, with a current enrollment of three. 

And while there are two major families currently living on the island — the descendants of mutinous leader Fletcher Christian and the progeny of a seafarer named Warren — the two ignore each other in a low-level feud that’s been going on for years, even though their family lineage is intertwined.

So distant is Pitcairn from civilization that Presser had to get a $1,000,000 insurance policy just to visit. There is only one small medical clinic to handle healthcare, currently staffed by a retired doctor from Australia — the rare immigrant — who wanted to spend his twilight years somewhere exotic. When one resident’s appendix burst, she died at sea before making it to a hospital. After that, the entire population was ferried off island to have their appendixes preventatively removed.

There is no electricity on the island from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. each night, when the only generator is turned off to save diesel.  WiFi and cellular service only recently became available, but the residents have always communicated with each other and the outside world via VHF radio. Visitors have to stay in the homes of local families because there are no resorts, hotels, restaurants or bars. The only “pub” open during Presser’s visit was the living room of a local couple willing to sell the author a drink. 

But a few years ago, the islanders became newly interested in drumming up tourist dollars and hired a marketing consultant who recruited Presser, a travel writer.

Tourism isn’t an entirely foreign concept to the islanders, as some are surprisingly well traveled. Because of his famed ancestor, Steve Christian — the local who, along with his wife and “fifth or sixth cousin,” Olive, hosted Presser — has long been of interest to historians, who consider the Pitcairn residents a kind of “museum people,” Presser writes.  They’ve been hosted in London by the Royal Geographical Society and even had high tea at Buckingham Palace.

Under the command of Captain Bligh — known to bully his men and frequently take the lash to them — the Bounty left England in January 1788, bound for Tahiti to pick up a boatload of breadfruit. A delayed start meant the 90-foot ship couldn’t navigate Cape Horn’s winter, so Bligh steered around Africa, extending the trip by 10,000 miles. The 46-man crew suffered, battling rough seas while surviving on maggot-covered biscuits and salted meat. 

Arriving in Tahiti in October, the boat was greeted by welcoming natives and succulent fruits. But when the deprived sailors found the women shared their bodies generously, the Bounty was doomed.

The Englishmen quickly went “native,” getting tattoos and dancing naked. Only Bligh, determined to sail his cargo to Jamaica, wasn’t seduced. In April 1789, he got his crew back to sea, but they quickly missed island life. Christian, sick of being belittled by the captain, snapped, seized the ship’s muskets and took command. 

Bligh and 18 loyalists were forced into a longboats and shoved off into the Pacific, where he masterminded, Presser writes, “one of the most incredible feats of navigation ever recorded, sailing the tiny vessel 4,000 miles to Indonesia.

Christian, meanwhile, resupplied the Bounty with livestock and friendly Tahitians — 30 men and 9 women — and set sail to Tubuai to establish a Pacific paradise. But he quickly learned the difficulty of hacking a life out of the lice- and mosquito-infested jungle guarded by spear-toting warriors, plus how lazy his fellow mutineers were.

Finally, they resettled on Pitcairn. The isolated, uninhabited island’s fresh water and arable land made it seem suitable, but within three years “almost all of the mutineers would be dead,” Presser writes. Some, including Christian, were killed by Polynesians brought over with the crew, others from jealous infighting.

By 1800, the sole survivor from the Bounty was Alexander Smith who, for the next eight years lived as the peaceful patriarch of an extended family of Tahitian women and myriad kids, including those left behind by the deceased mutineers.

When an American seal-fishing ship landed on the island in 1808, the only Englishman found there claimed to be “John Adams” but admitted the wrecked Bounty could be seen in the shallow waters off Pitcairn’s shore.

The boat’s discovery was briefly world news, but Pitcairn wouldn’t return to the headlines again until 1998, when a visiting clergyman accused 19-year-old Shawn Christian — Steve’ and Olive’s son, and an 8th-generation descendant of Fletcher — of sexually abusing his 11-year-old daughter. Shawn didn’t deny the charges, saying instead he and the tween were “in love,” Presser writes. 

Eventually a lawsuit was filed accusing 13 Pitkerner men of child abuse, sexual harassment, molestation and rape, with six ultimately imprisoned.

After the scandal locals weren’t particularly repentant though, calling the testimony given by various young women not damning evidence but just “bedroom histories,” Presser writes. On Pitcairn, the residents apparently believed the age of consent to be 12, at most.

The scandal confirmed for many residents that they didn’t want to be bothered by the outside world. That’s likely why within minutes of his arrival on Pitcairn, Presser was accosted at the town deck by an angry local.

“I don’t want you talking to me, coming up to me, or even looking at me while you’re here,” the man railed. “Got it?”

Presser also found that, even though the islanders are interested in tourism dollars, they don’t seem to care for outsiders. 

Some Pitkerners described to Presser a hospitality philosophy they call “hypocriting,” or acting sociable and welcoming without really meaning it. 

When Presser arrived on the island, he heard Steve yell “There’s the bastard!” at the freighter that had just dropped him off. 

It was weird, Presser writes: “The freighter was Pitcairn’s only link to the rest of the world, and yet Steve clearly resented its presence.” 

The writer stayed on Pitcairn for a month, but because of the residents’ aloofness he often spent his days alone.

One day Presser was walking alone through Pitcairn’s woods and became convinced he was being followed. 

Hearing a rustling in the bushes he freaked out and fled, escaping to the safety of a beach below. But then Presser cut himself on a rock, bleeding badly he had to return to town.

The author writes how the original mutineers suffered “prolonged bouts of … paranoia,” resulting in their killing each other by shooting and stabbing, bayoneting and hammering and the cleaving in two of the occasional head. That day in the jungle, Presser understood how the isolation could make you imagine things.

Still, it turned out he was right about being followed: Out from the underbrush waddled Miz T, the island’s resident giant Galapagos tortoise.