John R. Jewitt

John R. Jewitt

John Rodgers Jewitt (born on 21 May 1783 in Boston, England; died 7 January 1821 in Hartford, Connecticut) was an armourer who entered the historical record with his memoirs about the 28 months he spent as a captive of Maquinna of the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) people on the Pacific Northwest Coast of what is now Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes Jewitt as a shrewd observer and the Narrative as a "classic of captivity literature". The memoir, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, is a major source of information about the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.