IMAGES

John Jewitt	John Jewitt's Song
Narrative Preface	Narrative Page One

There are a series of excellent images on Dave's page about The Boston.

ETEXTS

The University of British Columbia is the place to start researching John R. Jewitt. They have digitised both Jewitt's 1807 Journal Kept at Nootka Sound and the later Narrative

You can also read The Captive of Nootka, or, The adventures of John R. Jewett by Samuel Griswold Goodrich from the same collection.

The full text of John Rodgers Jewitt's Narrative is available from the American Memory collection provided by the Library of Congress. You can read the text and see original scanned pages from the 1815 edition.

Two sections of the Journal [1] and [2] are also digitised as part of the University of Washington's Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest.

Backpacker.com have integrated Jewitt's experience into an article about hiking the British Columbia Coastline.

Professor George Lang of the University of Alberta references John Jewitt in his hypertext on The Nootka Lingo.

Brian D. Bray is working on a short story about Jewitt's experience.

There is an entry for Jewitt in The Canadian Encyclopedia

See Jewitt's experiences used as evidence for the inland etymology of camas in a 2001 paper by Alan H. Hartley (pdf)

Quebec History at Marianopolis College reproduces Captivity Among Amerindians from the BAE, 1907, with reference to Jewitt in paragraph 2.

Jewitt's writings are put in historical context by the literary history of the American West at Texas Christian University.

Maquinna and Jewitt families reunite: "The sixth generation John R. Jewitt has been here before the first time he visited was back in 1987 and then again in 1998 when Yathloua was handed the Chieftainship by his late father Ambrose Maquinna. This being his third visit to Yuquot John has brought along company, his older sister Jennifer and her husband Randy and daughter Larissa, also along are John�s younger sister Jessie and his life long friend Gregory Miller."

Hist 469 at the University of Victoria uses both A List of Trading Vessels In the Maritime Fur Trade, 1785- 1794 and A List of Trading Vessels In the Maritime Fur Trade, 1795-1804 By JUDGE F. W. HOWAY, F.R.S.C. to expand Jewitt's experiences with some economic context.

BOOKS

Check out my list of editions of Jewitt's narrative and journal. I'm still working on adding more modern printings.

Amazon.com currently features

The Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt : Captive of Maquinna Paperback (June 1996) Douglas & McIntyre Ltd; ISBN: 155054408X

The Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt : Captive of Maquinna by John Rodgers Jewitt, Hilary Stewart (Illustrator) Hardcover (September 1987) University of Washington Press; ISBN: 0295965479

Amazon is also the place to order a copy of the Journal upon which Jewitt's Narrative was based. See A Journal Kept at Nootka Sound by John Rodgers Jewitt, Hardcover (March 1988) Ye Galleon Pr; ISBN: 0877704473

I'm not quoting prices because I imagine they'll change.

To find used copies, and maybe even early printings of the journal or narrative, search by author at bookfinder.com

Jewitt's story has also inspired Children's Books, such as Margaret Anderson's Cwan the Armourer and John Jewitt's Adventure by Shannon Garst, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1955, which you'll find on bookfinder.com.

For an interesting look at inter-cultural contact in the north-west, see First Invaders by Alan Twigg, which presents a series of biographies of the first Europeans in the region.

SONGS

John Jewitt's "Poor Armourer Boy" is available at the Library of Congress

You can hear the tune and start to sing along at the Canadian Government's Digital Collections website, playing the folksong game. Follow the "continue" link for the words and the tune. There's a useful biographical piece there too.

THE POOR ARMOURER BOY, A SONG.

Imitated from the "POOR CABIN BOY," of Dibdin, and adapted to the care of John R. Jewitt, a native of Boston, in Great-Britain, the only survivor of the crew of the ship Boston, of Boston in New-England, who with the captain and officers were cruelly massacred by the savages on the North-West coast of America.

Tune--"The Poor Cabin Boy."

NO thrush that e'er pip'd its sweet note from the thorn
Was more lively than I, or more free,
'Till lur'd by false colours, in life's blooming morn
I tempted my fortune at sea.
My father be wept as his blessing he gave,
When I left him "my time to employ"
In climates remote on the rude ocean wave,
Being but a poor Armourer Boy.

Whilst amidst each new scene these "maxims of old"
Upheld me when grief did oppress;
That a fair reputation is better than gold,
And courage will conquer distress:
"So contented I brav'd the rude storm, dry or wet,
Buoy'd up with hopes" light painted toy,
In thinking that Fortune would certainly yet
Deign to smile on the Armourer Boy.

With our ship, on return, with riches full fraught,
We hop'd soon for Boston to steer,
My heart it with exstacy leap'd at the thought,
"My eyes dropp'd through pleasure a tear."
"But, alas! adverse fate so hard" and untrue
"Did all these gay prospects destroy,"
For burn'd was our ship and murder'd our crew,
And wounded the Armourer Boy.

For a long time in pain and sickness I pin'd,
With no one to feel for my woe,
No mother, my wounds, as she sooth'd me, to bind,
No sister her aid to bestow!
By savages fierce for years held a slave,
Did affliction my poor heart annoy,
Till Hope dropp'd her anchor at last on the grave
As the birth of the Armourer Boy.

From slav'ry escap'd, I, joyful, once more
Hail'd a civiliz'd land, but alone
And a stranger was I on a far-distant shore
From that which my childhood had known.
"If such be life's fate, with emotion I cried,"
Of sorrow so great the alloy;
"Heaven grant the sole blessing that ne'er is denied,"
To the friendless Poor Armourer Boy!

LOOMIS & RICHARDS PRINT. Middletown.

Entered according to Act of Congress, the 8th day of March 1815
By JOHN R. JEWITT, of the State of Connecticut.

The Lament of John Jewitt is a 1997 song about Jewitt's experience by Kent Douglas Fiddy.

TELEVISION

Michael Mahonen played John Jewitt in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's CANADA: A PEOPLE'S HISTORY. There's an extensive fan site out there about him, and there's lots of information collected on the John Jewitt page there.

CANADA: A PEOPLE'S HISTORY also maintains a website with episode summaries and information. Episode One references John Jewitt's experience.

SYLLABI

John Jewitt's place in the literature of British Columbia is analysed in English 359 at Simon Fraser University.

At Evergreen State College, Jewitt's narrative illuminates The Development of Sail Power.

In Anthropology 220 at South Puget Sound Community College, Jewitt's narrative helps students to understand Native American culture.

The View from the West is an assignment that asks students to "use British Columbia-based case studies as focal points for the interpretation of primary historical sources." The page also contains links to relevant sources.

[Contact Me] [Back Home]

Last revised: February 19th, 2004.