The Beothuk
Newfoundland's Extinct Natives
Dec 16, 2006 Florence Cardinal
When the Vikings landed on the shores of Newfoundland, they discovered that people already lived there. These were the Natives who inhabited the island - possibly some Inuits from the north, but mostly the Native tribe that called themselves Beothuk. Beothuk means "people" in the Beothuk language.
The Vikings called these people Skraelings, meaning Barbarians in the Old Norse tongue. Another name for the Beothuk is Red Indian because of their habit of covering themselves and their belongings in red ochre (a native clay tinted with iron oxide.) This may have been where the term "redskin", often used for all Native Americans, originated.
The Beothuk spoke a unique language different from other Native languages, although there may have been a distant relationship to the Algonquin tongue. The Beothuk were hunters and gatherers. They were an itinerant race, following the migrating animals across the country. Their main source of meat was the caribou, although they also fished and caught seals.
They lived in birch bark wigwams and traveled by canoe and snowshoe. When the Vikings arrived, the two peoples traded, but they were not friends and often fought.
The Vikings arrived during an unusually warm period in history. When the warm period ended, they found the cold not to their liking. This may well have been why they pulled up stakes and abandoned their settlement for the Beothuk to pilfer.
The Beothuk had no further contact with the European race for about 500 years. In 1497, John Cabot arrived to explore the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. That was the start of the European invasion. Adventurers came from Britain, France, Spain and Portugal to catch the bounty of fish offered by the Grand Banks.
As well as the fish, they also captured many Beothuk and took them back to Europe as slaves. When the French established settlements along the coast, the Beothuk retaliated by stealing from them. Another Native tribe, the Micmac, became allies of the French. Because of the harassment from the Beothuk, the French hired the Micmac for protection. Rumors say that the French paid a bounty to the Micmac for Beothuk scalps, but there is no proof of this.
However, because of the infiltration of the Europeans, the Beothuk were forced to move inland, away from their usual food supply. The British also settled along the coast, and began warring over the land that, in truth, belonged to the Beothuk.
Because of the hardships they endured trying to live away from their natural habitation, and because the Europeans murdered them on sight, the Beothuk numbers gradually decreased. Of the original 5000 and probably more living in Newfoundland when the Vikings arrived, only an estimated 2000 remained in the 16th century. By the early 19th century, no Beothuks remained. Some may have fled to the north to live with the Inuit. Others may have joined with the Abernaki and Montagnais to the south. But many more died of starvation or were murdered.
White families living on the mainland adopted two young women who had been taken prisoner during earlier battles. Demasduit was renamed Mary Marsh. She died in 1820 of tuberculosis. Shanawdidhit, known as Nancy April, succumbed to the same disease in 1829. It's from these two young ladies that we have learned what little we know of Beothuk language and culture.
Portrait of Demasduwit (Mary March)
|
What do you think about this article?
More in History
Latest Articles