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Native American Indian Information
THE BEOTHUK TRIBE
The Beginnings
The Beothucks were probably the Skraelings
("heathens") described by Viking explorers, and therefore the first
American Indians ever to encounter Europeans. It's possible these Skraelings
were Mi'kmaq or Innu instead; however, the Newfoundland Viking ruins were
unearthed in territory known to belong to the Beothuck people. Also, the Norse
description of natives obsessed with the color red matches the Beothucks, who
decorated themselves so extensively with red ochre that the British called them
Red Indians (a term that has found an unfortunate second life as a racist
epithet). Anything Beothuck oral history may have said about this encounter has
been lost to time. The Beothucks showed little interest in communicating with
the second wave of European colonists either, aside from appropriating metal
traps and tools the intruders left behind. It's unclear whether they thought the
items were left as payment for use of the land (Beothucks often 'traded'
indirectly by dropping goods off one night and returning the next to see what
had been left in exchange) or whether they were simply stealing them, but the
European furriers became increasingly violent about it. The combination of
French and British attacks, European diseases, and starvation as they were
driven inland spelled the extinction of the Beothuck people. In 1829 the last
surviving Beothuck, Shanawdithit, died in English captivity....
Please learn more about the Beothuk history at: http://www.native-languages.org/beothuk.htm
The People
Many American Indian cultures are wrongly declared
"extinct" when in fact they have only been relocated or forced into a
different lifestyle. The Beothuks, though, really are extinct. The only natives
of the eastern seaboard to ally with neither the French nor the English (or, for
that matter, the Iroquois or Wabanakis), the Beothuk tribe paid a heavy price
for their isolation. That the French paid the Mi'kmaq to annihilate the Beothuks
is denied by both, but the French and Mi'kmaq certainly drove them inland from
the Newfoundland coast they relied on for food, and starvation is blamed for
many Beothuk deaths. The English shot them on sight, and the Mohawks raided
Beothuk villages for slaves. By 1800 the Beothuks only made the history books as
the occasional captive servant of an Englishman, and in 1829 the last known
Beothuk, Shanawdithit, died of tuberculosis. A few Beothuk descendants surfaced
among the Mi'kmaq and Mohawk after that (those tribes often adopted captured
enemies), and other Beothuks may have fled to the Innus for protection. By 1900,
though, the assimilation of any refugees into those neighboring tribes was
complete. There are no known descendants of the Beothuk Indians today.....
Please learn more about the Beothuk people at: http://www.native-languages.org/beothuk.htm
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