OE EED INDIANS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 131 



" Oue day a small family of Beotliiks was surprised iu their wigwams by a party of 

 fishermen. Ou the appearance of their foes the ludiaus fled iu cousteruation, all except 

 one woman, who, being unable to follow her companions, gave herself up as a prisoner, 

 endeavouring by signs, especially appealing to the indications of approaching mother- 

 hood, to implore mercy from her captors. Her gesticulations and entreaties were in vain. 

 Oue of the wretches, by a well directed blow with his knife, ripped open the body of the 

 unhappy woman, and in a few minutes she expired iu agony at his feet. Not content 

 with murder, the monsters proceeded to mutilate the body iu a barbarous manner, and 

 on their return boasted of what they had done, exhibiting in triumph the hands of their 

 victim, which they had cut off and retained as a trophy." Again, " some fishermen, as they 

 doubled in their boat a point of land, discovered a single, defenceless woman, with an 

 infant on her shoulders. One of them instantly discharged at her a very heavy load of 

 swan shot, which lodged iu her loins. Unable now to sustain her burden, she unwill- 

 ingly put it dowu, and with difficulty crawled into the woods, holding her hand upon 

 the mortal wound she had received, and without ouce taking her eyes off the helpless 

 object she had left behind her In this dreadful situation she beheld her child ravished 

 from her by her murderers, who, seeing two Indians on a height at some distance, beat a 

 hasty retreat to their boat." This was in August, 1*768, the very month in which Mr. 

 Cartwright set out on his joi^ruey to the Red ludian Lake. The man brought the 

 child to him, and telling what he had done, with as much insensibility as he would the 

 killing of a beast of prey and the capture of its young, asked a reward, as if his conduct 

 would be pleasing to the governor. This child was carried to England, and the next 

 winter was exhibited in the western towns of that coiintry for two pence a view. 



Mr. George Cartwright says that "formerly a very beneficial barter was carried on 

 in the neighbourhood of Bonavista by some of the iuhabitauts of that bay ; that the 

 whites used lo carry out goods and leave them at a spot within reach of the Indians, who 

 came aud took them, leaving furs instead. But this was broken up by a white wretch 

 lying in ambush, aud, when a woman was seen helping herself, shooting her dead. Such 

 was the state of feeling at this time that both brothers say they met men who told them 

 that they would sooner kill an Indian than a deer. " For a period," says Rev. Mr. Pilot, 

 " of nearly two hundred years this same kiud of barbarity continued, and it was con- 

 sidered meritorious to shoot a Red Indian. To go to ' look for Indians ' came to be as 

 much a phrase as to ' look for partridges.' They were harassed from post to post, from 

 island to island, their hunting and fishing stations were unscrupulously seized by the 

 invading English. They were shot down without the least provocation, or captured to 

 be exposed as curiosities to the rabble at the fairs of the western towns of Christian 

 England at twopence a-piece." 



This state of things continued till well iuto the present century. Not many years 

 ago there were still living on the north-west coast men who had been iu the habit of 

 boasting of the number ol " hea 1 of ludiaus " they had killed, the record of such being 

 scored on their gunstocks. Tradition, seemingly well founded, has even preserved the 

 name of one woman famed for her skill with the gun, which she employed on a seal in 

 the harbour or a Red Indian lurking ou the shore with aboixt equal compunction. George 

 Cartwright also mentions that when the whites came upon any collection of their provi- 

 sions, canoes and implements, in consequence of the Indians being obliged to make a pre- 



