About the Beothuk
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The Beothuk were an aboriginal people of the island of Newfoundland. They became extinct when the last recorded Beothuk died in 1829. The only way we know their history is through accounts written by people who met them and through artifacts that archaeologists have found at places that they were known to stay.
Beothuk Relatives
Algonquian Language. (Prepared for Baccalieu: Crossroads for Cultures by Baccalieu Consulting, ©2005.)
Like almost all the Native Americans living on the east coast of North America, from Virginia all the way to Labrador, the Beothuk were an Algonquian people. This means they were related to and spoke a language similar to the languages spoken by other Algonquian people. They were probably most closely related to the Innu people of Labrador.
How Many Beothuk People Were There?
We do not know for sure how many Beothuk lived in Newfoundland. Most experts believe there could not have been more than 1000 of them on the island when Europeans first arrived. The Beothuk people lived in small bands of about 40 or 50 people spread out over all the bays along the Newfoundland coast.
A Difficult Way of Life
Their way of life may have varied from one bay to another, but all Beothuk people survived by hunting and gathering their food. Just finding enough food to survive was a full time job. They spent their falls and winters inland hunting caribou and other game and their springs and summers on the coast hunting and fishing.
Early Contacts
Beothuk Home. (© www.dildoislandtours.com)
When the Norse arrived in Newfoundland about 1000 years ago, they met people they called "skraelings." The Norse used the name "skraelings" for all Native American people that they met. We will most probably never know for sure which group or groups of Native American people they are describing. However, historians believe that that some of "skraelings" they met may have been the ancestors of the Beothuk.
As far as we know, no Europeans visited Newfoundland from the time the Norse left until the late 1400s. Around that time, Europeans began to fish for cod off Newfoundland and different explorers started visiting the island. We know that a number of Native American people were captured on the northeast coast of North America between 1501 and 1509 and taken back to Europe. Some of these people may have been Beothuk, but in most cases it's hard to tell where they came from.
The first reliable description of the Beothuk is from the writings of a French sea captain. It was written in 1539, and describes a voyage to Newfoundland that took place ten years earlier. He talks about how the Beothuk used birch bark to cover their houses and build their canoes and how they could be seen along the coast hunting seals, birds and small whales during the summer.
It was not until 1610, that people from Europe began to live in Newfoundland year round. We know very little about the Beothuk from the time the first fishermen arrived until the time of the first colony.
Some people think that there was trouble between the Beothuk and the fishermen who came here from Europe from the very beginning, but there is very little evidence of this. In many cases, the fisherman and Beothuk probably just avoided each other. We do know that sometimes the Beothuk and Europeans traded with each other. Native American people were still using stone tools when Europeans arrived in the New World. When they saw the metal tools and other things used by Europeans they wanted them. The Native Americans had plenty of furs and the Europeans wanted them because they were worth a lot of money back in Europe.
Fur Trade
Fur Trade.(© Public Domain. Detail from a woodcut by Theodor de Bry. Image provided by Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation.)
The settlers of Cupers Cove wanted to establish a friendly and profitable relationship with the Beothuk people. John Guy and Henry Crout both wrote detailed accounts of their attempts to trade with the Beothuk.
We know from what John Guy and Henry Crout tell us that the Beothuk people they met, that the Beothuk had traded with Europeans before. When they wanted to trade, the Beothuk lit a signal fire. They also waved a white flag to let John's men know that they meant no harm. These were both signs used by Native Americans elsewhere in northeastern North America to show that they wanted to trade.
The Beothuk even stuck poles in the ground and hung furs from them. Henry Crout said that to him this looked like the way people sold good in a fair. He thought the Beothuk hung their furs on poles to advertise that they wanted to sell their furs.
John Guy and Henry Crout tried to start up a formal trade with the Beothuk, but it never developed into a business like the fur trade did in Quebec and other places.
Some trade did take place. In 1793, 181 years after John Guy's meeting with the Beothuk, George Cartwright reported that “formerly a beneficial trade was carried out between our people and the Indians somewhere near the port of Bonavista by our people leaving goods at a certain place and the Indians taking what they wanted and leaving furs in return”. This is what is know as ‘dumb barter'. This means that the people doing the trading did not have to meet face to face.
The Decline of the Beothuk Population
More and more the Beothuk seem to have avoided contact with Europeans. The amount of coastline left for the Beothuk got smaller as European settlement spread along the Newfoundland coast, and the Beothuk population became smaller. There were violent meetings between European settlers and Beothuk. Most of these seem to have taken place in the late 18th and early 19th century. By this time, most of the Beothuk had moved to the western side of Notre Dame Bay and the Exploits River.
The Beothuk had always spent time in the interior hunting caribou and other game during the fall and winter, but during the spring and summer they hunted and fished on the coast. When they couldn't get access to the coast, they were cut off from half their yearly supply of food. This was probably the main reason why the number of Beothuk began to get smaller.
European diseases probably also played a part. Native Americans had never been around these types of diseases so their bodies could not fight them. The simplist illness could kill them. It is thought that about 90% of the Native American population in parts of New England died from European diseases caught from fishermen and explorers before any settlers even arrived there. (This is what happened to Squanto's village while he was in Europe.)
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The Last of the Beothuk
The last known Beothuk was a young woman named Shanawdithit. She died of tuberculosis in St. John's on June 6, 1829. Although she is the last known Beothuk, some of her people may have survived after her death. On September 17, 1834, more than five years after Shanawdithit's death, two newspapers, the Star and the Conception Bay Journal reported that a group of fishermen from Fogo had been attacked a few weeks earlier by a group of Beothuk while they were cutting grass in Western Arm, Notre Dame Bay. Some people believe that the few remaining Beothuk may have crossed the Strait of Belle Isle into Labrador. Whether or not these stories are true, by the late 1830s the Beothuk had ceased to exist as a people.