The definitive study of the Beothuk
The Beothuk's story is tragic. The aboriginal inhabitants of Newfoundland, they were hunters, gatherers, and fishers who moved seasonally between the coast and the interior. With the influx of European settlements and fisheries in the 1700s the Beothuk found their territory increasingly reduced and conflict between the two groups escalated. The Beothuk population steadily declined and by the early 1800s the Beothuk had ceased to exist as a viable cultural group. Shanawdithit, the last Beothuk, died in 1829.