Teio

Teio, also known as Te'o, Mary, and Sore Mummy, (died March 14, 1829) was a Tahitian woman who settled on Pitcairn Island with the Bounty mutineers. Alongside Mauatua and Teraura, she is one of the island's six original matriarchs.[1][2]

The Tahitian-born Teio's first connection to the Bounty crew was as the consort of Thomas McIntosh, who brought her to Tubuai.[3][4] McIntosh was a loyalist and did not join the mutineers, remaining in Tahiti.[3] However, Teio sailed with the mutineers to Pitcairn in 1789, although it is unknown whether she went willingly or was brought by force.[3] She brought her daughter with a previous Tahitian partner, a 10-month-old known as Sully, Sarah, or Susannah by the mutineers, to the island, becoming the only woman in the party to arrive with a child.[3][4][5][6]

On Pitcairn, Teio partnered with William McCoy, with whom she had two children: Daniel, born in 1792, and Kate or Catherine, born in 1799.[3][7] McCoy died by suicide in 1798, shortly before their daughter's birth.[3][4] Teio remained on the island, and a little over a decade later she began a relationship with John Adams, whose consort Vahineatua had died.[3][4][7][8] Teio and Adams, who were formally married by the visiting Frederick William Beechey in 1825, had one son, George Adams, in 1804.[3][4][9]

Teio grew blind later in life, and she died in 1829, less than two weeks after her husband.[3][10][11] Hers is one of very few marked graves on the island from this period.[12]

Teio's descendants contributed significantly to the population of Pitcairn: Sarah had eight children with Charles Christian, including Charles Christian II and Fletcher Christian II; Daniel had nine children with Sarah Quintal, including Matthew McCoy; Catherine had nine children with Arthur Quintal I, including Arthur Quintal II; and George had three children with Polly Young.[4]