Formally a dependency of the British territory St. Helena, which is located a little over 1000 miles north of the islands, Tristan da Cunha was founded by Portuguese explorers in the 18th century.  After the first permanent settler (Jonathan Lambert of Salem, Massachusetts 1810) died in 1812, British garrisons were sent to the island to look over Napoleon while he was imprisoned on the island of St. Helena.  Although St. Helena was 1000 miles north of Tristan da Cunha, the British feared the French would plan an escape from Tristan da Cunha.  To counter this, the garrison inhabited the small island archipelago leading to a gradual build up of a civilian population.  The group of islands kept growing as a small colony until the building of the Suez in 1869.  Because of the canal, naval and commercial ships no longer needed to use Tristan da Cunha as a spotting point on their journeys towards the Americas. 

Soon after the canal was built the garrison started leaving the island.  Eventually the entire garrison left except for one.  He then started the colony with fisherman and women who were passing through on journeys.  The island’s population leveled off around 250 inhabitants.  They made revenue exporting fishing catches, stamps, and hosting naval expeditions from allied countries.  The island was still very much a pit stop for many maritime journeys across the Atlantic until 1961 when the volcanic activity became too dangerous for the colony to stay.  Hurling rocks and magma forced the colonists to be evacuated.  They spent a year in England, but even with all the amenities of modern life, the people became homesick and quickly returned to the volcanic archipelago.

The sole town, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is today a tourist attraction for those gonzo travelers trying to get away from the conventional vacation.  On the Island the women do all the clerical work: run the shops, pub, school, while the men do the labor and tend to the sheep and fishing.  All the textiles are woven by hand and the food is all harvested and grazed on the land.  There is one school for the children which runs grade 6-12, and the local government is run by the town’s people, all of whom have two jobs.  Although isolated, the technology of the internet has made it to the island.  The younger inhabitants do know of what is going on in the world and can leave whenever they want.  The tight community and safeness of the island is what attracts most of them to stay.  The island has free healthcare, but with only one doctor some patients must be boated to South Africa for surgical care. 

The island does make a good amount of money on the giant crawfish harvest.  The crustacean is coveted in the United States and Japan.  The harvest only lasts a few months so other than that, the island sells postage stamps and memorabilia to the tourism agencies in the southern hemisphere.  The economy was self sustaining until a fire in 2007.  The inhabitants have battled through it though, and if you have the time to take a boat into the mid-Atlantic, it would be an interesting adventure to part-take in.  For more information on the unique “modern colony” find a 1958 book by D.M. Booy titled Rock of Exile: A Narrative of Tristan da Cunha.