Designated in 2024 as an Exceptional Person.
Nominator: Heidi Coombs
Shanawdithit (c. 1801-1829) provided invaluable insight into Beothuk culture, including their history, language, and territory. Shanawdithit has traditionally been called the last of the Beothuk, however, Mi’kmaq oral histories have challenged this claim and revealed cross-cultural connections.
In the early spring of 1823, Shanawdithit, her mother Doodebewshet, and Shanawdithit’s sister were captured by a group of settlers and brought to the home of merchant and magistrate John Peyton Jr. on Exploits Burnt Island in the Bay of Exploits. Shanawdithit’s mother and sister soon died, most likely from tuberculosis. Shanawdithit stayed with the Peyton’s, who called her “Nancy April” or “Nance,” for five years, before being sent to St. John’s in the fall of 1828 at the request of William Epps Cormack. Cormack had recently formed “The Beothuck Institute,” with a mandate of finding Beothuk people and documenting their lives and culture. Shanawdithit was an artist, having drawn sketches depicting Beothuk material culture and practices. Her efforts to document her people and their culture contributed significantly to historical and ethnographic understandings of the Beothuk.
Shanawdithit died in St. John’s on June 6, 1829, never making it back to her home. She is commemorated at several locations in the province, including; a plaque on South Side Road in St. John’s in the believed area of her gravesite; a bronze statue of her at the Beothuk Interpretation Centre Provincial Historic Site in Boyd’s Cove, and a Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada plaque on the grounds of Bannerman Park in St. John’s (marking the 2000 federal designation of her as a National Historic Person).
LEARN MORE > Commemorations Research Paper – Shanawdithit, by Sarah Roberts
LINKS
Shanawdithit National Historic Person
This opera brings Shanawdithit of colonial textbooks (Video)
A portrait by W. Gosse of who is believed to be Shanawdithit. (Library and Archives Canada)
A sketch by Shanawdithit of summer and winter mamateeks. From James P. Howley’s The Beothucks, 1915.
A sketch by Shanawdithit of the interior of a storehouse and common foods. From James P. Howley’s The Beothucks, 1915.
A sketch by Shanawdithit of a storehouse, material cultural items, the “black man,” and a dancing woman. From James P. Howley’s The Beothucks, 1915.
A sketch by Shanawdithit of material cultural items. From James P. Howley’s The Beothucks, 1915.
A sketch detailing members of Shanawdithit’s extended family, the location of homes, where some of her family and others were killed, and the route she took to Badger Bay with her family. From James P. Howley’s The Beothucks, 1915.
A sketch of Beothuk Lake drawn by Shanawdithit. The top half depicts the capture of Demasuidit in 1819, and the bottom half depicts Captain (then Lieutenant) David Buchan’s visit to the lake during his 1810-1811 expedition. From Memorial University of Newfoundland Digital Archives.
A sketch detailing the return of Demasuidit’s body to her home in 1820. From James P. Howley’s The Beothucks, 1915.
