Ducie Island (; ) is an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Islands group, which also includes Pitcairn, Henderson and Oeno islands. Ducie lies east of Pitcairn Island, and east of Henderson Island, and has a total area of , which includes the lagoon. It is long, measured northeast to southwest, and about wide. The island is composed of four islets: Acadia, Pandora, Westward and Edwards.
Despite its sparse vegetation, the atoll is known as the breeding ground of a number of bird species. More than 90% of the world population of Murphy's petrel nests on Ducie, while pairs of red-tailed tropicbirds and fairy terns make around 1% of the world population for each species.
Ducie was first discovered in 1606 by Pedro Fernandes de Queiros, who named it Luna Puesta, and rediscovered by Edward Edwards, captain of , who was sent in 1790 to capture the mutineers of . He named the island Ducie in honour of Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Baron Ducie. In 1867, a claim on the island was made under the United States's Guano Islands Act, but the claim was never bonded. The United Kingdom annexed the island on 19 December 1902 as part of the Pitcairn Islands. Due to its inaccessibility and the distance from Pitcairn, Ducie is rarely visited, receiving one or two visits a year from cruise ships.
History The island was discovered by a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese sailor Pedro Fernandes de Queirós on 26 January 1606, during an expedition that began in Callao, Peru.Brand, Donald D. The Pacific Basin: A History of its Geographical Explorations The American Geographical Society (New York, 1967) p.136. Supported by Pope Clement VIII and Philip III of Spain, Queirós was given the command of the San Pedro, San Pablo and Zabra. The fleet was nicknamed Los Tres Reyes Magos ("The Three Wise Men"). The objective of the expedition was to take soldiers, friars and provisions to establish a colony in the Santa Cruz Islands.Paine, Lincoln; p.122
Ducie Island was the first of eighteen discoveries on the trip. Queirós named the island Luna Puesta (roughly, "moon that has set"). On the same day, he also sighted two more islands, one that he named San Juan Bautista ("St John the Baptist"), and the other La Encarnación ("the Incarnation"). It is unclear which one was Henderson island and which one was Pitcairn. The confusion was later compounded when a chart produced by Admiral José de Espinosa marked Ducie as La Encarnación, rather than as Luna Puesta.
The island was rediscovered and named Ducie Island on 16 March 1791 by Captain Edward Edwards, of , who had been despatched from Britain in 1790 to arrest the Bounty mutineers.Edwards, Edward; p.60 Edwards named it in honour of Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Baron Ducie, under whom he had served earlier in his career.Heffernan, Thomas; p.80 HMS Pandora turned northwards from Ducie and, because of this change of course, Edwards did not sight the other islands of the group. If HMS Pandora had maintained its course, it would eventually have reached Pitcairn Island and found the Bounty mutineers.Edwards, Edward; p.5
The crew of the whaleship Essex, which a whale had attacked and sunk in November 1820, mistakenly believed that they had reached Ducie after a month at sea in two whaleboats. In fact they had reached Henderson Island.Whipple, A.B.C p. 150 Captain Thomas Raine of Surrey, who was searching for the survivors of Essex, in 1820 made the first recorded landing on Ducie. Frederick William Beechey, who arrived in during November 1825, wrote the first comprehensive description of the island. Beechey's expedition did not land in the atoll, but members of the crew sailed around it in small boats.Beechey; p.60 Based on Beechey's survey, the first Admiralty chart of the island was published in 1826. For nearly a hundred years it was the only available map of the island.Rehder, Harald A.; Randall, John E.; p.6 It was during Beechey's survey of the island that a lone whaleboat containing four human skeletons was located. Though he could not prove it, Beechey suspected they belonged to Essex's missing crew, thus making the bodies those of Boatsteerer Obed Hendricks (20), Seaman Joseph West and Steward William Bond. All of whom were last seen alive by Captain Pollard and his whaleboat before being separated in a squall on January 29. The identity of the fourth body is unascertainable, but is theorized to be that of Seaman Isaiah Sheppard as he was the last person to die before Hendricks' boat was separated from Pollard.
In March 1867, John Daggett filed a claim on Ducie Island (referring to it as 'Ducer Island') with the U.S. State Department under the Guano Islands Act. Daggett was instructed to provide further information, including to affidavits of the quality and quantity of guano present on the island; however, according to a 1933 State Department report, Daggett never provided the additional information and the claim was never accepted by the United States.
On 5 June 1881, the mail ship Acadia ran aground on the island while returning from San Francisco, Peru, after having unloaded its cargo. On the way to Queenstown or Falmouth for new orders, Master Stephen George calculated a route passing to the east of Ducie. George left the first mate in command at 6 am. Half an hour later, the first mate saw a white line, which he disregarded on the assumption that it was phosphorescence in the water. Later, realising that it was land, he manoeuvred to avoid running aground, but failed. The look-out excused himself by saying that he thought that the white land was a cloud. The crew made several unsuccessful attempts to re-float the ship, after which the master sailed one of the ship's boats to Pitcairn Island. He was assisted there by the local inhabitants and returned aboard the Edward O’Brien, an American boat, to rescue the rest of the crew. The incident was later investigated in a court in Liverpool, where the ultimate cause of the wreck was left undetermined, though possible causes included a calculation error by the master or an unknown current that carried the ship to the island. The court declared the master not guilty of any wrongdoing.Board of Trade p.1 A stone marker with a memorial inscription is located at the landing point on Acadia Islet. It was unveiled to commemorate the recovery of the anchor in 1990. The wreck lies offshore from the memorial stone in about 10 metres of water.McKinnon, Rowan; p.249
In 1969, the atoll was proposed as an "Island for Science", and was later recommended as a Ramsar Site.Ramsar; p. 3 Major expeditions that came to the island to record its biota include the Whitney South Seas Expedition in 1922, the National Geographic Society-Oceanic Institute Expedition to Southeast Oceania of 1970–71 and the Smithsonian expedition of 1975.The Royal Society of New Zealand, p.161 More recent expeditions include the MV Rambler Expedition by the Smithsonian in 1987,Paulay, G (1989) Atoll Research Bulletin NO. 326 one by Raleigh International in the same year, the Sir Peter Scott Commemorative Expedition to the Pitcairn Islands of 1991–1992 (aka The Pitcairn Islands Scientific Expedition),Benton T. G. and Spencer T., eds. (1995). The Pitcairn Islands: Biogeography, Ecology and Prehistory. 422 + xxxi pp. London: Academic Press In 2012, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala produced Sharks of Lost Island including Ducie and all the Pitcairn Islands. Because of its inaccessibility, Ducie is rarely approached, but cruise ships make one or two landings per year.Ramsar Information Sheet: UK62001; p.4 Ducie was the object of a temporary CB radio QSL station in 2018 generating over 100,000 contacts. In addition, unrecorded visits are known to be made by freighters and tankers that dump residues in the nearby waters.
Sovereignty Although Captain Edward Edwards discovered the atoll in 1791, Ducie was not considered a British possession.Orent, Beatrice; Reinsch, Pauline; p.444 In 1867 Ducie was claimed by the United States under the Guano Islands Act, which established that an uninhabited territory with guano deposits could be claimed as a US possession, so long as it was unclaimed by any other country.United States Department of Justice; p.555 Despite claims on several other territories, based on various documents such as the Guano Islands Act, neither the United States nor the United Kingdom recognised the sovereignty claimed by each other. Neither of the two considered that the mere discovery of an island was sufficient to claim sovereignty over it,Orent, Beatrice; Reinsch, Pauline; p.443 and often a formal act of possession was considered the proper procedure to claim rights over a territory. Ultimately, the United States did not assert its sovereignty over most of its claimed territories.
Under the 1893 Pacific Order in Council, Pitcairn Island was placed under the jurisdiction of the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, based in Fiji. On 19 December 1902, commissioned by R. T. Simmons, the British Consul in Tahiti, Captain G. F. Jones and a group of Pitcairners visited the nearby islands and annexed them to the United Kingdom.Rehder, Harald A.; Randall, John E.; p.7 In 1903 Ducie was annexed by the same procedureOrent, Beatrice; Reinsch, Pauline; p.445 and placed under the authority of the Western Pacific High Commissioner.Ntumy, Michael A.; p.253 R. T. Simmons stated in a dispatch to the Foreign Office that James Russell McCoy had assured him that the islands had always been considered as dependencies of Pitcairn, and that he and other Pitcairners had frequently visited them in the past. This claim is contested by Donald McLoughlin on grounds of the distance between Pitcairn Island and Ducie Island and the lack of a suitable boat to navigate the distance between the two, casting doubt on whether they had ever visited Ducie.
On 4 August 1937, Captain J. W. Rivers-Carnac, commander of HMS Leander, reaffirmed British sovereignty over Ducie by hoisting the Union Flag and placing boards proclaiming the island to be the property of King George VI. Ducie was one of several islands thought valuable for potential seaplane bases, though they did not materialise.Orent, Beatrice; Reinsch, Pauline; p.447 In 1953, the Pacific Order in Council ceased to have effect and the British Governor of Fiji was appointed Governor of the Pitcairn Islands, which became a separate British colony.Ntumy, Michael A.; p.254 A new constitution for the Pitcairn Islands was enacted on 10 February 2010, establishing that Ducie and the rest of the islands are ruled by a governor designated by the British monarch. The governor has a duty to enforce the provisions of the constitution.The Pitcairn Constitution Order 2010; p.28
Geography
Ducie lies east of Pitcairn Island and is claimed by some to be the southernmost atoll in the world at 24°41' S latitude. However, Elizabeth Reef in the Tasman Sea is at 29°57 S latitude, so the assertion on behalf of Ducie Island is doubtful. Ducie Island's land area is and its maximum elevation, occurring on the Westward islet, is .
Ducie is located west of the edge of the Easter Plate. It was formed approximately 8 million years ago,Spencer; p.5 after Oeno Island was formed by a hotspot that later caused a magma leak generated in the Oeno lineation. The leak spread over fracture zone FZ2, which was formed by the third movement of the Pacific Plate.Spencer; p.1 The atoll is part of the Oeno-Henderson-Ducie-Crough seamount, speculated to be part of the southern Tuamotus.
The atoll consists of four islets: Acadia—which is by far the largest—Pandora, Westward and Edwards.Vacher; Quinn p.410 All three of the smaller islets can be accessed on foot from Acadia at low tide. The islets were named by Harald Rehder and John Randall, who visited the atoll during an expedition by the Smithsonian Institution in 1975.Rehder, Harald A.; Randall, John E.; p.9