Shanawdithit: A Woman at the End of the World

Shanawdithit was a woman who bore witness to the death of her world in the early nineteenth century, creating the only first-hand account we have of the Beothuk people from the Island of Newfoundland.  This lecture seeks to narrate the history of her fascinating and important life, alongside the history of her island, which was England’s first transatlantic colony. It will illuminate the profound connections between the hyper-extraction of the island’s resources, the hyper-exploitation of its settlers, and the violent and totalizing dispossession of Shanawdithit’s people.