Shanawdithit

Shanawdithit (ca. 1801 – June 6, 1829), also noted as Shawnadithit, Shawnawdithit, Nancy April and Nancy Shanawdithit, was the last known living member of the Beothuk people, who inhabited Newfoundland, Canada. Remembered for her contributions to the historical understanding of Beothuk culture, including drawings depicting interactions with European settlers, Shanawdithit died of tuberculosis in St. John's, Newfoundland on June 6, 1829.

Early life with the Beothuk Shanawdithit was born near a large lake on the island of Newfoundland in about 1801. At the time the Beothuk population was dwindling, their traditional way of life becoming increasingly unsustainable in the face of encroachment from both European colonial settlements and other Indigenous peoples, as well as infectious diseases from Europe such as smallpox against which they had little or no immunity. The Beothuks were also slowly being cut off from the sea, one of their food sources.

During this period, most Indigenous nations in the Americas tolerated some level of contact with European settlers. The resulting trade generally afforded them the opportunity to maintain at least a minimal standard of living. In contrast, Beothuks had long avoided this sort of interaction with outsiders. Trappers and furriers regarded the Beothuks as thieves and would sometimes attack them. As a child, Shanawdithit was shot by a white trapper while washing venison in a river. She suffered from the injury for some time, but recovered. William Cull and the three women were taken to St. John's, where Shanawdithit's mother and sister died of tuberculosis.

Later life in the Newfoundland Colony

The settlers in the Newfoundland Colony renamed Shanawdithit "Nancy April" after the month in which she was captured, taking her to Exploits Island where she worked as a servant in the Peyton household and learned some English. The colonial government hoped she would become a bridge to her people, but she refused to leave with any expedition, saying the Beothuks would kill anyone who had been with the Europeans, as a kind of religious sacrifice and redemption for those who had been killed.

In September 1828, Shanawdithit was relocated to St. John's to live in the household of William Eppes Cormack, the founder of the Beothuk Institution. A Scottish emigrant, Newfoundland entrepreneur and philanthropist, he recorded much of what Shanawdithit told him about her people and added notes to her drawings. Shanawdithit stayed in Cormack's care until early 1829 when he left Newfoundland. Cormack returned to Great Britain where he stayed for some time in Liverpool with John McGregor, a Scotsman whom he had known in Canada, sharing many of his materials on the Beothuks.

After her death After Shanawdithit's death Carson performed a postmortem and noted peculiarities with the parietal bone of her skull, eventually sending her skull to the Royal College of Physicians in London for study.

Legacy

Shanawdithit played a vital role in documenting what little is known about the Beothuk people. Researcher Ingeborg Marshall has argued that a valid understanding of Beothuk history and culture is affected directly by how historical records were created and who created them, pointing to the ethnocentric nature of European accounts which positioned native populations as inherently inferior. She notes that without Shanawdithit's accounts of her nation's later life, the Beothuk voice is nearly absent from historical accounts.

Shanawdithit was recognized as a National Historic Person in 2000. The announcement coincided with the installation of a statue depicting Shanawdithit by Gerald Squires, titled The Spirit of the Beothuk, at the Beothuk Interpretation Centre near Boyd's Cove. In 2007 a plaque commemorating her life was unveiled at St. John's Bannerman Park acknowledging her contributions to the historical accounts of encounters between the Beothuk and European settlers, and the apprehension of her aunt, Demasduit, by John Peyton Jr.

Shanawdithit is widely known among Newfoundlanders. In 1851, a local paper, the Newfoundlander, called her "a princess of Terra Nova". In 1999, The Telegram readers voted her the most notable Aboriginal person of the past 1,000 years. She had 57% of the votes.

Her story was the basis for the 2023 College of the North Atlantic Digital Filmmaking program's intersession film project.