Designated in 2024 as an Exceptional Person.
Nominator: Lisa Hemeon for the Botwood Heritage Society
Demasduit (c. 1796-1820) is perhaps best known for her capture by English-settler furriers and salmon fishermen, the story of which is one of the most historically authenticated recorded histories of a Beothuk captive. However, Demasduit was also responsible for establishing a dictionary of the Beothuk language. Her efforts produced a collection of several hundred Beothuk words and their English translations. This has formed the basis of almost all existing knowledge of the Beothuk language.
Demasduit was a young woman, believed to be in her early twenties, when she was captured in a cruel series of events on the shores of Beothuk Lake in 1819. The encounter also resulted in the death of Demasduit’s husband Nonosabasut and his brother, the presumed eventual death of Nonosabasut and Demasduit’s baby, and Demasduit’s death ten months later.
In the 1970s, a museum in Grand Falls-Windsor was opened named “The Mary March Provincial Museum.” Demasduit’s captors called her “Mary March.” In 2022, the museum was officially renamed “Demasduit Regional Museum,” a change that was long overdue. Demasduit was named a National Historic Person by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada on November 15, 2000.
LEARN MORE > Commemorations Research Paper – Demasduit, by Sarah Roberts
LINKS
Project Commemorates the 200th Anniversary of the Death of Demasduit
Nonosabasut and Demasduit Returned to Newfoundland and Labrador
Demasduit National Historic Person
Retrospective: Extinction Event | APTN Investigates (Video)
A portrait of Demasduit painted in St. John’s in 1819 by Lady Hamilton, wife of Governor Hamilton. It is often mistaken as a portrait of her niece Shanawdithit. (Library and Archives Canada)
Drawn by Demasduit’s niece Shanawdithit. On the top half of this sketch is the capture of Demasduit (referred to here as Mary March) in 1819.
“Vocabulary of Mary March’s Language” as compiled by Reverend John Leigh. From Memorial University of Newfoundland Digital Archives.
Page from “Vocabulary of Mary March’s Language” as compiled by Reverend John Leigh. From Memorial University of Newfoundland Digital Archives.
