A Memoir of Jacques Cartier...The Beothuk

Knowing I had a good bit to do around the house I decided last night to start going through the pile of books I got from the library. I figure if I can keep track of the books that I’m using for my research, noting which ones were useful (probably leaving out which ones really weren’t in any final biography list I put together), will be easy to gather up in case somebody else needs to know which ones to look for to use in their own research. The first book I started going through is called “A Memoir of Jacques Cartier” by James Phinney Baxter, A.M., Litt. D. The reason I got this is that it is supposed to contain Cartier’s “Voyage to the St. Lawrence” a manuscript which contains as I understand it information in his own words on the First Nation people he met and observed in his travels to Canada. I’m not sure what to expect in a 1500s Frenchman’s point of view regarding the indigenous people of Canada, but hopefully I can find something useful to take away from it.

The first section is listed “ voyage of 1534”. They mention something about the “Isle of Birds” (which is now called Funk Island not far from Newfoundland Canada). I read for a while after that with no mention of meeting any people at all, just lots of stuff about animals and things they collected, especially birds. Finally about 13 pages in, I found a mention of people. The manuscript mentions they wear leather (skins of beasts), paint their faces with “tawny colors”, and use the bark of birch trees to make their boats for seal “fishing”. He also makes note that he believes this area is not their home but simply where they hunt before they return to warmer lands for shelter. I’m guessing the interaction was friendly because he mentions no battles or conflict of any kind, just that he and his men moved on with their travels. The footnote mentions Beothiks, a word I am not familiar with, and that the people use red ochre to pick themselves. I looked up the word “Beothiks”, and found they are a tribe of Newfoundland that are believed by most scholars to be extinct, but many Micmacs claim to have ancestral links to. It is said that the last known Beothik woman, Shanawdithit, died in 1829 at the age of 20. I have to admit at being tempted to learn as much as I can about the Beothik not only to honor their memory by learning more about them, but in the possibilities of them for my persona.

The footnotes also states that three of these people were earlier captured by someone named Cabot and taken to England, an Italian “explorer” commissioned by Henry VII in the mid-1400s. This is interesting to know since it predates Cartier’s arrival by nearly 100 years. I checked the public library system and found one mention of a book mentioning this tribe, and it's a fiction novel written by a Cree archaeologist called "The Beothuk saga : a novel" by Bernard Assiniwi ; translated by Wayne Grady. I also found mention in the library listing of the Vikings in relation to the Beothik as well which ties back to my first thought while ago on Viking Metis.

There are two mentions at the library on campus of the Beothuk... Pioneers in Canada by Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston and and article called "A historiography of an ahistoricity: on the beothuk indians". Both I am attempting to access for further study and will share later in another post.