All history is a story written from a particular point of view and what we have come to know as the truth is shaped by these perspectives.

By looking at primary sources, the novel River Run and various online resources, we are going to explore the stories behind the vanishing of the Beothuk people.

As might be expected, the Beothuk are a touchy subject in Newfoundland. Early Newfoundlanders are accused by most historians of hunting them to extinction in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In fact, as late as 1789 it was legal to kill Indians in Newfoundland and both the English and French had put bounties on their heads.

However, even today there are those in Newfoundland that would contend that the demise of the Beothuk was caused by their own shyness as they fled their seaside villages to avoid contact with the arriving Europeans.