Shanawdithit - Later Life With The British

Later Life With The British

The British renamed Shanawdithit Nancy April and took her to Exploits Island where she worked as a servant in the household of John Peyton Jr and learned some English. Beginning in September 1828 she lived for some time in the household of William Eppes Cormack, a Scots emigrant, Newfoundland entrepreneur and philanthropist. He founded the Beothuk Institution to study the tribe and drew funds from it to help support Shanawdithit. He recorded much of what she told him about her people and added notes to her drawings. Shanawdithit stayed in Cormack's care until early 1829. The 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.

Cormack left Newfoundland and returned to Great Britain where he stayed for some time in Liverpool with John McGregor, a Scot whom he had known in Canada, sharing many of his materials on the Beothuks. Shanawdithit was cared for by the attorney general, James Simms. She spent the last nine months of her life at his home, having been in frail health for a number of years. William Carson tended her but in 1829 Shanawdithit died in a St John's hospital after her long fight with tuberculosis.