PURSUANT to
special summons, a meeting of this Institution was held at St
John’s on the 12th day of January 1828; the Honourable A.W.
Desbarres, Vice-Patron, in the chair. The Honourable Chairman
stated, that the primary motive which led to the formation of the
Institution, was the desire of opening a communication with, and
promoting the civilization of, the Red Indians of Newfoundland; and
of procuring, if possible, an authentic history of that unhappy
race of people, in order that their language, customs and pursuits,
might be contrasted with those of other tribes of Indians and
nations;—that, in following up the chief object of the
institution, it was anticipated that much information would be
obtained respecting the natural productions of the island; the
interior of which is less known than any other of the British
possessions abroad. Their excellent President, keeping all these
objects in view, had permitted nothing worthy of research to escape
his scrutiny, and consequently a very wide field of information was
now introduced to their notice, all apparently highly interesting
and useful to society, if properly cultivated. He was aware of
their very natural anxiety to hear from the president an outline of
his recent expedition, and he would occupy their attention farther,
only by observing, that the purposes of the present meeting would
be best accomplished by taking into consideration the different
subjects recommended to them in the president’s report, and passing
such resolutions as might be considered necessary to govern the
future proceedings of the Institution.

The President, W.E. Cormack, Esq. then laid the following
Statement before the meeting.

Having so recently returned, I will now only lay before you a
brief outline of my expedition in search of the Boeothicks or Red
Indians, confining my remarks exclusively to its primary object. A
detailed report of the journey will be prepared, and submitted to
the Institution, whenever I shall have leisure to arrange the other
interesting materials which have been collected.

My party consisted of three Indians, whom I procured from among
the other different tribes, viz. an intelligent and able man of the
Abenakie tribe, from Canada; an elderly Mountaineer from Labrador;
and an adventurous young Micmack, a native of this island, together
with myself. It was difficult to obtain men fit for the purpose,
and the trouble attending on this prevented my entering on the
expedition a month earlier in the season. It was my intention to
have commenced our search at White Bay, which is nearer the
northern extremity of the island than where we did, and to have
travelled southward; but the weather not permitting to carry my
party thither by water, after several days delay, I unwillingly
changed my line of route.

On the 31st of October 1828 [Sic: 30th of October 1827] last, we
entered the country at the mouth of the River Exploits, on the
north side, at what is called the Northern Arm. We took a
north-westerly direction to lead us to Hall’s Bay, which place we
reached through an almost uninterrupted forest, over a hilly
country, in eight days. This tract comprehends the country interior
from New Bay, Badger Bay, Seal Bay, &c.; these being minor
bays, included in Green or Notre Dame Bay, at the north-east part
of the island, and well known to have been always heretofore the
summer residence of the Red Indians.

On the fourth day after our departure, at the east end of Badger
Bay-Great Lake, at a portage known by the name of the Indian
Path, we found traces made by the Red Indians, evidently in the
spring or summer of the preceding year. Their party had had two
canoes; and here was a canoe-rest, on which the daubs of
red-ochre, and the roots of trees used to fasten or tie it together
appeared fresh. A canoe-rest is simply a few beams, supported
horizontally, about five feet from the ground, by perpendicular
posts. A party with two canoes, when descending from the interior
to the sea-coast, through such a part of the country as this, where
there are troublesome portages, leave one canoe resting, bottom up,
on this kind of frame, to protect it from injury by the weather,
until their return. Among other things which lay strewed about
here, were a spear-shaft, eight feet in length, recently made and
ochred; parts of old canoes, fragments of their skin-dresses,
&c. For some distance around, the trunks of many of the birch,
and of that species of spruce pine called here the Var (Pinus
balsamifera), had been rinded; these people using the inner
part of the bark of that kind of tree for food. Some of the cuts in
the trees with the axe were evidently made the preceding year.
Besides these, we were elated by other encouraging signs. The
traces left by the Red Indians are so peculiar, that we were
confident those we saw here were made by them.

This spot has been a favourite place of settlement with these
people. It is situated at the commencement of a portage,
which forms a communication by a path between the sea-coast at
Badger Bay, about eight miles to the north-east, and a chain of
lakes extending westerly and southerly from hence, and discharging
themselves by a rivulet into the River Exploits, about thirty miles
from its mouth. A path also leads from this place to the lakes,
near New Bay, to the eastward. Here are the remains of one of their
villages, where the vestiges of eight or ten winter
mamateeks or wigwams, each intended to contain from six to
eighteen or twenty people, are distinctly seen close together.
Besides these, there are the remains of a number of summer wigwams.
Every winter wigwam has close by it a small square-mouthed or
oblong pit, dug into the earth, about four feet deep, to preserve
their stores, &c. in. Some of these pits were lined with
birch-rind. We discovered also in this village the remains of a
vapour-bath. The method used by the Boeothicks to raise the steam,
was by pouring water on large stones, made very hot for the
purpose, in the open air, by burning a quantity of wood around
them; after this process, the ashes were removed, and a
hemispherical frame-work, closely covered with skins, to exclude
the external air, was fixed over the stones. The patient then crept
in under the skins, taking with him a birch-rind-bucket of water,
and a small bark-dish to dip it out, which, by pouring on the
stones, enabled him to raise the steam at pleasure.*

At Hall’s Bay we got no useful information from the three (and
the only) English families settled there. Indeed we could hardly
have expected any; for these, and such people, have been the
unchecked and ruthless destroyers of the tribe, the remnant of
which we were in search of. After sleeping one night in a
house, we again struck into the country to the westward.

In five days we were on the high lands south of White Bay, and
in sight of the high lands east of the Bay of Islands, on the west
coast of Newfoundland. The country south and west of us was low and
flat, consisting of marshes, extending in a southerly direction
more than thirty miles. In this direction lies the famous Red
Indians’ Lake. It was now near the middle of November, and the
winter had commenced pretty severely in the interior. The country
was everywhere covered with snow, and, for some days past, we had
walked over the small ponds on the ice. The summits of the hills on
which we stood had snow on them, in some places many feet deep. The
deer were migrating from the rugged and dreary mountains in the
north to the low mossy barrens and more woody parts in the south;
and we inferred, that if any of the Red Indians had been at White
Bay during the past summer, they might be at that time stationed
about the borders of the low tract of country before us, at the
deer-passes, or were employed somewhere else in the
interior, killing deer for winter provision. At these passes, which
are particular places in the migration lines of path, such as the
extreme ends of, and straights in, many of the large
lakes,—the foot of valleys between high or rugged
mountains,—fords in the large rivers, and the like,—the
Indians kill great numbers of deer with very little trouble, during
their migrations. We looked out for two days from the summits of
the hills adjacent, trying to discover the smoke from the camps of
the Red Indians; but in vain. These hills command a very extensive
view of the country in every direction.

* Since my return, I learn from the
captive Red Indian woman Shawnawdithit, that the vapour-bath
is chiefly used by old people, and for rheumatic
affections.

Shanawdithit is the survivor of
three Red Indian females, who were taken by, or rather who gave
themselves up, exhausted with hunger, to some English furriers,
about five years ago, in Notre Dame Bay. She is the only one of
that tribe in the hands of the English, and the only one that has
ever lived so long among them. It appears extraordinary, and it is
to be regretted, that this woman has not been taken care of, nor
noticed before, in a manner which the peculiar and interesting
circumstances connected with her tribe and herself would have led
us to expect.

We now determined to proceed towards the Red Indians’ Lake,
sanguine that, at that known rendezvous, we would find the objects
of our search.

Travelling over such a country, except when winter has fairly
set in, is truly laborious.

In about ten days we got a glimpse of this beautifully majestic
and splendid sheet of water. The ravages of fire, which we saw in
the woods for the last two days, indicated that man had been near.
We looked down on the lake, from the hills at the northern
extremity, with feelings of anxiety and admiration:—No canoe
could be discovered moving on its placid surface in the distance.
We were the first Europeans who had seen it in an unfrozen state,
for the three former parties who had visited it before, were here
in the winter, when its waters were frozen and covered over with
snow. They had reached it from below, by way of the River Exploits,
on the ice. We approached the lake with hope and caution; but found
to our mortification that the Red Indians had deserted it for some
years past. My party had been so excited, so sanguine, and so
determined to obtain an interview of some kind with these people,
that, on discovering, from appearances every where around us, that
the Red Indians—the terror of the Europeans as well as the
other Indian inhabitants of Newfoundland—no longer existed,
the spirits of one and all of us were very deeply affected. The old
mountaineer was particularly overcome. There were every where
indications that this had long been the central and undisturbed
rendezvous of the tribe, where they had enjoyed peace and security.
But these primitive people had abandoned it, after having been
tormented by parties of Europeans during the last eighteen [Sic:
thirteen] years. Fatal rencounters had on these occasions
unfortunately taken place.

We spent several melancholy days wandering on the borders of the
east end of the lake, surveying the various remains of what we now
contemplated to have been an unoffending and cruelly extirpated
people. At several places, by the margin of the lake, are small
clusters of winter and summer wigwams in ruins. One difference,
among others, between the Boeothick wigwams and those of the other
Indians is, that in most of the former there are small hollows,
like nests, dug in the earth around the fire-place, one for each
person to sit in. These hollows are generally so close together,
and also so close to the fire-place, and to the sides of the
wigwam, that I think it probable these people have been accustomed
to sleep in a sitting position. There was one wooden building
constructed for drying and smoking venison in, still perfect; also
a small log-house, in a dilapidated condition, which we took to
have been once a store-house. The wreck of a large handsome
birch-rind canoe, about twenty-two feet in length, comparatively
new, and certainly very little used, lay thrown up among the bushes
at the beach. We supposed that the violence of a storm had rent it
in the way it was found, and that the people who were in it had
perished; for the iron nails, of which there was no want, all
remained in it. Had there been any survivors, nails being much
prized by these people, they never having held intercourse with
Europeans, such an article would most likely have been taken out
for use again. All the birch trees in the vicinity of the lake had
been rinded, and many of them and of the spruce fir or var
(Pinus balsamifera, Canadian balsam tree) had the bark taken
off, to use the inner part of it for food, as noticed before.

Their wooden repositories for the dead are what are in the most
perfect state of preservation. These are of different
constructions, it would appear, according to the character or rank
of the persons entombed. In one of them, which resembled a hut, ten
feet by eight or nine, and four or five feet high in the centre,
floored with squared poles, the roof covered with rinds of trees,
and in every way well secured against the weather inside and the
intrusion of wild beasts, there were two grown persons laid out at
full length on the floor, the bodies wrapped round with deer-skins.
One of these bodies appeared to have been placed here not longer
ago than five or six years. We thought there were children laid in
here also. On first opening this building, by removing the posts
which formed the ends, our curiosity was raised to the highest
pitch; but what added to our surprise, was the discovery of a white
deal coffin, containing a skeleton neatly shrouded in white muslin.
After a long pause of conjecture how such a thing existed here, the
idea of Mary March occurred to one of the party, and the
whole mystery was at once explained.*

* It should be remarked here, that Mary
March, so called from the name of the month in which she was taken,
was the Red Indian female who was captured and carried away by
force from this place by an armed party of English people, nine or
ten in number, who came up here in the month of March 1809.[Sic:
1819] The local government authorities at that time did not foresee
the result of offering a reward to bring a Red Indian to
them. Her husband was cruelly shot, after nobly making several
attempts, single-handed, to rescue her from the captors, in
defiance of their fire-arms and fixed bayonets. His tribe built
this cemetery for him, on the foundation of his own wigwam, and his
body is one of those now in it. The following winter, Captain
Buchan was sent to the River Exploits, by order of the local
government of Newfoundland, to take back this woman to the lake
where she was captured, and, if possible, at the same time, to open
a friendly intercourse with her tribe. But she died on board
Captain B.’s vessel, at the mouth of the river. Captain B.,
however, took up her body to the lake; and not meeting with any of
her people, left it where they were afterwards likely to meet with
it. It appears the Indians were this winter encamped on the banks
of the River Exploits, and observed Captain B.’s party passing up
the river on the ice. They retired from their encampments in
consequence; and, some weeks afterwards, went by a circuitous route
to the lake, to ascertain what the party had been doing there. They
found Mary March’s body, and removed it from where Captain
B. had left it to where it now lies, by the side of her
husband.

With the exception of Captain Buchan’s
first expedition, by order of the local government of Newfoundland,
in the winter of 1810, [Sic: 1815] to endeavour to open a friendly
intercourse with the Red Indians, the two parties just mentioned
are the only two we know of that had ever before been up to the Red
Indian Lake. Captain B. at that time succeeded in forcing an
interview with the principal encampment of these people. All of the
tribe that remained at that period were then at the Great Lake,
divided into parties, and in their winter encampments, at different
places in the woods on the margin of the lake. Hostages were
exchanged; but Captain B. had not been absent from the Indians two
hours, in his return to a depot left by him at a short distance
down the river, to take up additional presents for them, when the
want of confidence of these people in the whites evinced itself. A
suspicion spread among them that he had gone down to bring up a
reinforcement of men to take them all prisoners to the sea-coast;
and they resolved immediately to break up their encampment and
retire farther into the country, and alarm and join the rest of
their tribe, who were all at the western parts of the lake. To
prevent their proceedings being known, they killed and then cut off
the heads of the two English hostages; and, on the same afternoon
on which Captain B. had left them, they were in full retreat across
the lake, with baggage, children, &c. The whole of them
afterwards spent the remainder of the winter together, at a place
twenty to thirty miles to the south-west, on the south-east side of
the lake. On Captain B.’s return to the lake next day or the day
after, the cause of the scene there was inexplicable; and it
remained a mystery until now, when we can gather some facts
relating to these people from the Red Indian woman
Shawnawdithit.

In this cemetery were deposited a variety of articles, in some
instances the property, in others the representations of the
property and utensils, and of the achievements, of the deceased.
There were two small wooden images of a man and woman, no doubt
meant to represent husband and wife; a small doll, which we
supposed to represent a child (for Mary March had to leave
her only child here, which died two days after she was taken):
several small models of their canoes; two small models of boats; an
iron axe; a bow and quiver of arrows were placed by the side of
Mary March’s husband; and two fire-stones (radiated iron
pyrites, from which they produce fire, by striking them together)
lay at his head; there were also various kinds of culinary
utensils, neatly made, of birch-rind, and ornamented; and many
other things, of some of which we did not know the use or
meaning.

Another mode of sepulture which we saw here was, where the body
of the deceased had been wrapped in birch rind, and with his
property, placed on a sort of scaffold about four feet and a-half
from the ground. The scaffold was formed of four posts, about seven
feet high, fixed perpendicularly in the ground, to sustain a kind
of crib, five feet and a-half in length by four in breadth, with a
floor made of small squared beams, laid close together
horizontally, and on which the body and property rested.

A third mode was, when the body, bent together, and wrapped in
birch-rind, was enclosed in a kind of box on the ground. The box
was made of small squared posts, laid on each other horizontally,
and notched at the corners, to make them meet close; it was about
four feet by three, and two and a-half feet deep, and well lined
with birch-rind, to exclude the weather from the inside. The body
lay on its right side.

A fourth, and the most common mode of burying among these
people, has been, to wrap the body in birch-rind, and cover it over
with a heap of stones, on the surface of the earth, in some retired
spot; sometimes the body, thus wrapped up, is put a foot or two
under the surface, and the spot covered with stones; in one place,
where the ground was sandy and soft, they appeared to have been
buried deeper, and no stones placed over the graves.

These people appear to have always shewn great respect for their
dead; and the most remarkable remains of them commonly observed by
Europeans, at the sea-coast, are their burying-places. These are at
particular chosen spots; and it is well known that they have been
in the habit of bringing their dead from a distance to them. With
their women, they bury only their clothes.

On the north side of the lake, opposite the River Exploits, are
the extremities of two deer fences, about half a mile apart, where
they lead to the water. It is understood that they diverge many
miles in north-westerly directions. The Red Indians make these
fences to lead and scare the deer to the lake, during the
periodical migration of these animals; the Indians being stationed
looking out, when the deer get into the water to swim across, the
lake being narrow at this end, they attack and kill the animals
with spears out of their canoes. In this way they secure their
winter provisions before the severity of that season sets in.

There were other old remains of different kinds peculiar to
these people met with about the lake.

One night we encamped on the foundation of an old Red Indian
wigwam, on the extremity of a point of land which juts out into the
lake, and exposed to the view of the whole country around. A large
fire at night is the life and soul of such a party as ours, and
when it blazed up at times, I could not help observing, that two of
my Indians evinced uneasiness and want of confidence in things
around, as if they thought themselves usurpers on the Red Indian
territory. From time immemorial none of the Indians of the other
tribes had ever encamped near this lake fearlessly, and, as we had
now done, in the very centre of such a country; the lake and
territory adjacent having been always considered to belong
exclusively to the Red Indians, and to have been occupied by them.
It had been our invariable practice hitherto to encamp near hills,
and be on their summits by the dawn of day, to try to discover the
morning smoke ascending from the Red Indians’ camps; and, to
prevent the discovery of ourselves, we extinguished our own fire
always some length of time before day-light.

Our only and frail hope now left of seeing the Red Indians lay
on the banks of the River Exploits, on our return to the
sea-coast.

The Red Indians’ Lake discharges itself about three or four
miles from its north-east end, and its waters from the River
Exploits. From the lake to the sea-coast is considered about
seventy miles; and down this noble river the steady perseverance
and intrepidity of my Indians carried me on rafts in four days, to
accomplish which otherwise, would have required, probably, two
weeks. We landed at various places on both banks of the river on
our way down, but found no traces of the Red Indians so recent as
those seen at the portage at Badger Bay-Great Lake, towards the
beginning of our excursion. During our descent, we had to construct
new rafts at the different waterfalls. Sometimes we were carried
down the rapids at the rate of ten miles an hour or more, with
considerable risk of destruction to the whole party, for we were
always together on one raft.

What arrests the attention most while gliding down the stream,
is the extent of the Indian fences to entrap the deer. They extend
from the lake downwards, continuous, on the banks of the river at
least thirty miles. There are openings left here and there in them,
for the animals to go through and swim across the river, and at
these places the Indians are stationed, and kill them in the water
with spears, out of their canoes, as at the lake. Here, then,
connecting these fences with those on the north-west side of the
lake, is at least forty miles of country, easterly and westerly,
prepared to intercept all the deer that pass that way in their
periodical migrations. It was melancholy to contemplate the
gigantic, yet feeble efforts of a whole primitive nation, in their
anxiety to provide subsistence, forsaken and going to decay.

There must have been hundreds of the Red Indians, and that not
many years ago, to have kept up these fences and ponds. As their
numbers were lessened so was their ability to keep them up for the
purposes intended; and now the deer pass the whole line
unmolested.

We infer, that the few of these people who yet survive, have
taken refuge in some sequestered spot, still in the northern part
of the island, and where they can procure deer to subsist on.

On the 29th November we were again returned to the mouth of the
River Exploits, in thirty days after our departure from thence,
after having made a complete circuit of about 200 miles in the Red
Indian territory.

I have now stated generally the result of my excursion,
avoiding, for the present, entering into any detail. The materials
collected on this, as well as on my excursion across the interior a
few years ago, and on other occasions, put me in possession of a
general knowledge of the natural condition and productions of
Newfoundland; and, as a member of an institution formed to protect
the aboriginal inhabitants of the country in which we live, and to
prosecute inquiry into the moral character of man in his primitive
state, I can, at this early stage of our institution, assert,
trusting to nothing vague, that we already possess more information
concerning these people than has been obtained during the two
centuries and a-half in which Newfoundland has been in the
possession of Europeans. But it is to be lamented that now, when we
have taken up the cause of a barbarously treated people, so few
should remain to reap the benefit of our plans for their
civilization. The institution and its supporters will agree with
me, that, after the unfortunate circumstances attending past
encounters between the Europeans and the Red Indians, it is best
now to employ Indians belonging to the other tribes to be the
medium of beginning the intercourse we have in view; and indeed I
have already chosen three of the most intelligent men from among
the others met with in Newfoundland to follow up my search.

In conclusion, I congratulate the institution on the acquisition
of several ingenious articles, the manufacture of the
Boeothicks, some of which we had the good fortune to
discover on our recent excursion;—models of their canoes,
bows and arrows, spears of different kinds, &c. and also a
complete dress worn by that people. Their mode of kindling fire is
not only original, but as far as we at present know, is peculiar to
the tribe. These articles, together with a short vocabulary of
their language consisting of 200 to 300 words, which I have been
enabled to collect, prove the Boeothicks to be a distinct tribe
from any hitherto discovered in North America. One remarkable
characteristic of their language, and in which it resembles those
of Europe more than any other Indian languages do, with which we
have had an opportunity of comparing it,—is its abounding in
diphthongs. In my detailed report, I would propose to have plates
of these articles, and also of the like articles used by other
tribes of Indians, that a comparative idea may be formed of them;
and, when the Indian female Shawnawdithit arrives in St
John’s, I would recommend that a correct likeness of her be taken,
and be preserved in the records of the institution. One of the
specimens of mineralogy which we found in our excursion, was a
block of what is called Labrador Felspar, nearly four
one-half feet in length, by about three feet in breadth and
thickness. This is the largest piece of that beautiful rock yet
discovered any where. Our subsistence in the interior was entirely
animal food, deer and beavers, which we shot.

    “Resolved,—That the
measures recommended in the president’s report be agreed to; and
that the three men, Indians of the Canadian and Mountaineer tribes,
be placed upon the establishment of this institution, to be
employed under the immediate direction and control of the
president; and that they be allowed for their services such a sum
of money as the president may consider a fair and reasonable
compensation: That it be the endeavour of this institution to
collect every useful information respecting the natural productions
and resources of this island, and, from time to time, to publish
the same in its reports: That the instruction of
Shawnawdithit would be much accelerated by bringing her to
St John’s, &c.: That the proceedings of the institution, since
its establishment, be laid before his Majesty’s Secretary of State
for the Colonial Department, by the president, on his arrival in
England.

(Signed) “A.W. des BARRES,
Chairman and Vice-Patron.”