George Cartwright (trader)

George Cartwright (12 February 1739/40 – 19 May 1819) was an English army officer and a trader and explorer in Newfoundland Colony.

[4][5] Cartwright became a gentleman cadet in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, London, when he was fifteen.

Between 1770 and 1786, Cartwright occupied a number of fishing and furring stations from Cape St Charles to Sandwich Bay and developed connections with the Inuit and Innu people there.

[8][5] This came about when his servant Dominick Kinnien defected to join the crew of the Bostonian John Grimes.

Travelling on this ship to England was Atajug, his youngest wife Ikkanguaq and their toddler daughter Ikiunaq.

[11] They travelled with Cartwright to Ireland and England, where they were a sensation, drawing the attention of King George III, Joseph Banks, John Hunter, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, and great crowds.

[10] In January 1786, Captain Cartwright and his twenty companions sacked an Indigenous (Beothuk) village of a hundred inhabitants in Newfoundland, killing some thirty women, children and old men unable to defend themselves.