Beothuk << bee OH thuhk >> were a First Nations people who lived on the island of Newfoundland off the eastern shore of Canada. First Nations is a designation used in Canada for Indigenous (native) groups. The Beothuk were probably the first North Americans encountered by the early European settlers. The Europeans called the Beothuk “red Indians” because they painted their bodies, clothing, tools, and weapons with a red pigment.
The Beothuk lived in bands of closely related families. The group probably consisted of 6 to 10 bands. Each band had fewer than 100 people. Despite the small total population, traces of the Beothuk’s existence have been found on the coast of every major bay in Newfoundland.
The Beothuk lived in cone-shaped houses made of bark. Unlike many other indigenous groups, they did not raise crops. They fished and hunted on the coast from late winter through early fall. When the first snow fell, they moved inland to hunt caribou. They made bark containers and used stone to make arrowheads. Scholars do not know what language the Beothuk spoke, but it probably belonged to the Algonquian language family.
During the 1700’s, French settlers accused the Beothuk of petty thievery and began to kill them. The Mi’kmaq, a First Nations people who came to Newfoundland from Nova Scotia, joined the French attacks against the Beothuk. The surviving Beothuk fled inland, but they could not live the year around without food from the coastal area. They became extinct in 1829.
