The Last Beothuk

by Gary Collins

  Now I alone remain. You, who are many, do not know alone. Alone is a path where there are no footprints. Alone is a cold black window with no light shining through. Alone is cold ashes. Alone is emptiness.

  Give back the bones of my people.

  You are the Unwanted Ones.

  Afterword

  This book is a work of historical fiction. Most of the characters represented are real people. Others I have created. Shanawdithit, believed by many to be the last of the Beothuk, was a real person, as was Demasduit and her husband, Nonosbawsut. Santu was also a real person. As real as her father, Kop. I believe Kop was the last pure Beothuk. This of course requires an explanation.

  Frank Gouldsmith Speck was an American and one of the most respected anthropologists and ethnographers of his time. Speck specialized in the Algonquin and Iroquois peoples of the eastern woodlands of North America, as well as in the indigenous peoples of eastern boreal Canada. He was especially interested in the vanished race of Indians of Newfoundland—the Beothuk. Speck was doubtful that an entire breed of people could be erased without one trace. Amazingly, he found—while conversing with a family of Mi’kmaq he assumed were American—evidence to back up his supposition in July of 1910 in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

  The native family consisted of an aged woman, her son, his wife, and child. The old woman could not speak English. Her son spoke both Mi’kmaq and English. He translated for Speck and his mother. When Speck asked where she had been born, the woman said she was born in Newfoundland.

  “Are you Mi’kmaq?” asked Speck.

  “No. Not true Mi’kmaq. My mother was Mi’kmaq. My father was Kop, called after the red root. My name is Santu.”

  Speck was astounded. He asked more questions. Santu told him she was born on the shores of the big “Red Pond” in Newfoundland. Through her account of events, Speck determined Santu to be about seventy-five years old. She had been born five or six years after Shanawdithit’s death. This had to mean her father, Kop, was not only alive in 1829 but had lived many years after that.

  Her father was born on the shores of the Red Pond, too, Santu informed Speck. He had been painted red at birth. He ate mostly raw meat. The Mi’kmaq had kidnapped Kop when he was young. According to her, her father’s entire race had been “killed off” by the Europeans. Santu told Speck she had crossed over the water to Nova Scotia when she was nine or ten. She eventually married a Mohawk Indian who trapped into the Great Lakes. To escape being drafted in the civil war of 1861–65, she fled with her husband to the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, where he died.

  Santu returned to Nova Scotia and married a Mi’kmaq chief whose name was Toney. She bore him five children. He treated her badly, and she eventually left him, taking her youngest son with her. When Speck interviewed Santu, she was weaving baskets by the side of a dusty road. She and her son were living hard and barely surviving.

  It was Joe Toney who translated his mother’s words for Speck. Santu returned to Nova Scotia, where she died. Joe Toney lived to be 101 years old, and he, too, died in Nova Scotia. Joe Toney said his mother always told him that her father, Kop, was the last Beothuk.

  Most researchers, then and now, dismissed Speck’s report out of hand. He had no written documents to confirm his claim. He did not have the required three-point proof of journalism. After all, two of his points had come from talking to illiterate Indians. They were probably lying. Speck could see no reason whatsoever for Santu to lie. I share his view.

  Like the story of Santu, the atrocities described in the foregoing pages are based on fact. It was not my intention to portray the Beothuk as “innocent Indians.” They were not. It is true the Beothuk sometimes severed the heads of their slain enemies. They skewered them upon poles and even danced around them with glee. From hiding, they shot arrows and killed fishermen. They cut vessels from their moorings, setting them adrift. They pilfered all useful items left unattended. They were like ghosts. They applied their guerrilla warfare, but it had a limited effect. Their land and everything upon it was being taken from them, and they retaliated the only way they knew how.

  But I could not find one recorded account of the Beothuk harming women or children. The same cannot be said of the European settlers.

  In June 1823, two trappers were sitting beside their campfire cooking a meal. From the woods stepped a Beothuk father and his small daughter. Both natives wore animal skins which were tattered and torn. The girl’s feet were bare and bleeding. Both their faces were drawn and their bones defined. They were obviously dying of starvation. The little girl held her cupped hands in front of her emaciated body, the widely accepted symbol for begging for food. The two trappers opened fire and killed both father and daughter.

  Back in the community, their boasts of hunting down and killing two of the “thievin’ Injuns” were met with disdain. The authorities were notified. The two trappers were summoned to court to answer for their actions. The judged deemed the trappers acted in self-defence against the “savages,” and they were acquitted.

  Tales of Beothuk women baring their breasts to show their sex and therefore avoid harm are well-documented. In some cases they were killed anyway. There are even stories told of trappers who notched the wooden stocks of their guns to indicate Beothuk kills. Mamateeks were burned, and one was reported to have bodies inside. It was not known how they died. Fingers and hands of the Beothuk were displayed as hunting trophies. There is no doubt stories were exaggerated, on both sides. They always are.

  The story was told by trappers, who had journeyed out of the vast western wilderness of what was not yet Canada, of a deplorable act dealt to a tribe of indigenous people living there. A native trapper of one of the tribes far to the northwest, who had been trapping and trading with the English, had been given a gift by a sutler.

  It had been sent from their Great Father and chief across the sea. The trapper was told that the gift was so powerful, only the chief of his tribe could open it. It was wrapped in richly coloured calico—much prized by the natives—inside a pine marten hide. He was further informed that, directly upon the gift being opened, by the chief, it must be passed to everyone in the village—men, women, and children. And to further please the Great Chief, the scent of the sacred herb within must be inhaled by all. It was like a smudging and would be a spirit bond between them.

  True to his word, the trapper carried the gift deep into the interior and presented it to his chief, unopened. When the chief pulled it from the marten pelt, he found an ornate wooden box painted a deep vermilion. The box itself was a treasure to the chief. He opened it, and inside was a smaller box, and another inside that. They were all of brilliant colours and intricate in design. The last box contained what looked like a small herb or a piece of chakra found on the birch trees. Informed by the trapper that it was the wish of the English chief that he inhale the scent of the gift, the chief inhaled deeply. It smelled sweet and inviting. Then, as instructed, he passed the box around the village for all to breathe into their lungs the scent of the gift.

  Two nights after that, a three-month-old baby became violently ill. She was dead before dawn. The chief died next. By now there was no one in the village well enough to build his funeral pyre. And after the chief, the trapper who had brought the deadly spore died. The remaining villagers, those who were able, fled in fear. They carried the contagion with them.

  While writing this book, I wondered if my ancestors would have been one of the Beothuk’s adversaries, given my British and Welsh lineage. I wonder how any of us would have treated the “savages” given the mindset of that century. If any of us born of European descent, and living a mere 150 years or so thence, did not conform to the corporal rule of the land to which we were indoctrinated . . . a hand severed for the theft of one loaf of mouldy bread; an ear lopped off for insubordination; castration for premarital sex; public flogging for not doffing a hat to passing
royalty; hanging for horse theft. Yet we would have been acquitted for killing “savages.”

  In our modern world of inclusion and acceptance of minorities, it is not easy to imagine that we could have been some of Kop’s Unwanted Ones.

  I would be remiss and negligent after writing this book if I did not include my voice and implore, along with those who are submitting to the powers that be, to have the skulls of Demasduit and her husband, Nonosbawsut, repatriated to Newfoundland, where they belong. The bones of those two Beothuk Indians are currently in a museum in Scotland.

  I get some solace knowing that there is a chance—albeit a slim one—that my family tree may be blended with indigenous blood.

  Acknowledgements

  A special thank you to my publisher, Flanker Press, specifically Garry, Margo, and Jerry Cranford, for entrusting me with the sensitive subject matter of this work.

  Thanks also to the following: Lori Temple, The Rooms, Provincial Archives Division; the Beothuk Interpretation Centre, Boyd’s Cove, Newfoundland; Jeff Howard; and Robin Collins.

  A special thanks to my wife, Rose.

  Select Glossary

  abideshhook: lynx

  adjiech: two

  adothe: canoe

  aschautch: meat

  baradirsick: thunder

  be’nam: woman

  bobusowet: codfish

  bosdic: woodsmoke

  dabseek: four

  deliiue: egg

  ebautho: water

  edru: otter

  eenodsha: hear

  ejew: sea

  ewinon: father

  gau: rain

  gu’wa: fat person

  imamus: woman

  kaniskwe’te: pointed hat

  keathut: head

  kop: red beaver root

  kosweet: caribou

  kuis: sun

  kuisduit: a flower which grows by a lake

  kuise: moon

  mamateek: dwelling or birchbark shelter

  mamchet: beaver

  mammassmit: dog

  mandzey: black

  memet: hand

  meotick: summer lodge

  moosin: shoe

  mu’ksan: boot, moccasin

  munes: spirits

  ninejeek: five

  odemiut: ochre

  obosheen: one who warms

  odoit: eat

  pushaman: man

  quli’bua’zi: sealskin coat

  se’ko: prayer

  shendeek: three

  si’kane’su: whale

  tapooteek: boat

  tehobosheen: star

  tu: small blanket for a child

  winum: dead

  woasut: Beothuk woman or wife

  wobee: white

  woodum: pond or lake

  yaseek: one

  Bibliography

  Anger, Dorothy. Noywa’Mkisk (Where the sand Blows): Vignettes of Bay St. George Micmacs. Port au Port East: Bay St. George Regional Indian Band Council, 1988.

  Assiniwi, Bernard. The Beothuk Saga. Translated by Wayne Grady. McClelland and Stewart, 1996.

  Beckel, Annamarie. All Gone Widdun. St. John’s: Breakwater Books, 1999.

  Collins, Gary: Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman. Paradise: Flanker Press, 2011.

  Cormack, W. E. A Journey Across the Island of Newfoundland. London, New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., 1822.

  Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, Volume I. Joseph R. Smallwood Newfoundland Book Publishers, 1967.

  Howley, James P. The Beothucks or Red Indians. Cambridge Press. 1915.

  Marshall, Ingeborg C, L., ed. Reports and letters by George Pulling relating to the Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland. St. Johns: Breakwater Books, 1989.

  Murray, Alexander and James Howley. Geological Survey of Newfoundland. London: Edward Standford, 1881.

  Palsson, Hermann and Magnus Magnusson. The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America. Penguin Books, 1965.

  Peyton, Amy Louise. River Lords: Father and Son. Paradise: Flanker Press, 2005.

  Rowe, Frederick W. Extinction: The Beothuks of Newfoundland. McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. 1986.

  Speck, Frank Goldsmith. Beothuk and Micmac: Indian Notes and Monographs. 1922.

  Whitby, Barbara: A Canadian Tragedy: The Last of The Beothuk. Altitude Publishing Canada Ltd., 2005.

  Whitehead, Ruth Holmes. The Old Man Told Us: Excerpts from Mi’Kmaw History: 1500-1950. Halifax: Nimbus, 1991.

  Santu

  Mary March (Demasduit), who was captured in 1819 and died of tuberculosis ten months later. This portrait is a miniature painted by the wife of Sir Charles Hamilton, the original of which is in the National Archives, Ottawa. Courtesy of Newfoundland Archives.

  Shanawdithit (Nancy), who was taken by William Cull in 1823 and died in St. John’s in 1829. She has long been believed to be the last of the Beothuk, though Kop, father of Santu, outlived her. Courtesy of Tooton’s Limited.

  Santu and her son Joe Toney

  Joe Toney

  About the Author

  Gary Collins was born in Hare Bay, Bonavista North. He spent forty years in the logging and sawmilling business with his father, Theophilus, and son Clint. Gary was once Newfoundland’s youngest fisheries guardian. He managed log drives down spring rivers for years, spent seven seasons driving tractor-trailers over ice roads and the Beaufort Sea of Canada’s Western Arctic, and has been involved in the crab, lobster, and cod commercial fisheries. In 2016, he joined the Canadian Rangers.

  Gary’s writing career began when he was asked to write eulogies for deceased friends and family. Now a critically acclaimed author, he has written twelve books, including the children’s illustrated book What Colour is the Ocean?, which he co-wrote with his granddaughter, Maggie Rose Parsons. That book won an Atlantic Book Award: The Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration. His book Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman has been adapted for film.

  Gary Collins is Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite storyteller, and today he is known all over the province as “the Story Man.” His favourite pastimes are reading, writing, and playing guitar at his log cabin. He lives in Hare Bay, Newfoundland, with his wife, the former Rose Gill. They have three children and three grandchildren.

  ALSO BY GARY COLLINS

  Mattie Mitchell: Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman

  ISBN: 9781926881010

  “There is a feeling that comes to one who goes unafraid into the wilderness. For the very few who experience it comes a sense of belonging; of being a fragile part of the mysterious whole; of profound peace; of wanting never to leave,” says Gary Collins in describing the inspiration that overtook him when he penned the final pages in this, the biography of Mattie Mitchell, a hunter, trapper, and guide of Mi’kmaq descent whose daring feats became known worldwide.

  In researching the life and times of Mattie Mitchell, critically acclaimed author Gary Collins (author of the award-winning What Colour is the Ocean?) gleaned much insight on his subject from the diary and other personal papers of Marie Sparkes, granddaughter to the remarkable Mi’kmaq woodsman. Now, for the first time, Mattie Mitchell’s legendary deeds are revealed in full, comprehensive detail.

  Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine

  ISBN: 9781897317389

  Embedded in a rock in an obscure, pristine brook in the wilds of Newfoundland is a legendary quartz vein. The source of the legend is Soulis (Suley) Joe, and the precious metal trapped in the vein is silver. Along the Trans-Canada Highway in Newfoundland, just west of the turnoff to Benton, is a brook called Soulis Brook, which flows out of Soulis P
ond, the second major pond named after Soulis Joe, an intrepid explorer whose name is recorded for all time on old Newfoundland maps.

  In the summer of 2008, writer Gary Collins teamed up with Allan Keats, a great-grandson of Soulis Joe, and they set out to unearth the secret of Soulis Joe’s lost silver mine. After many weeks and months spent combing the island of Newfoundland, Gary Collins figured it out. Come along for the trip and discover the location of Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine.

  Desperation: The Queen of Swansea

  ISBN: 9781771175517

  Shipwreck. Starvation. Cannibalism.

  For the first time, celebrated author Gary Collins brings to life the tale of the brigantine Queen of Swansea. Bound for Newfoundland in December 1867, the vessel made her first port of call in St. John’s, only to meet her doom on the rocks of Gull Island, Cape John.

  The following spring, Captain Mark Rowsell of Leading Tickles chanced upon the fallen ship’s crew on his return voyage from the seal hunt. His discovery of the wreckage, and the fate of the men and women on board, marks a chilling and unforgettable event that has echoed worldwide in the history of seagoing vessels. Here, Gary Collins recreates the final voyage of the Queen of Swansea in a story with a gruesome turn of events that makes it unique in the annals of Atlantic shipwrecks.

  A Day on the Ridge: The Life of a Woodsman