her portrait. During the summer of 1819, a number of attempts were made to return her to her people, without success. Captain David Buchan was to go overland to Red Indian Lake with Demasduit in November, the people of St. John's and Notre Dame Bay having raised the money to return the Beothuk to her home. However, she was taken ill and died of tuberculosis at Ship Cove (now Botwood) aboard Buchan's vessel Grasshopper, on 8 January 1820. Her body was left in a coffin on the lakeshore, where it was found by members of her tribe and returned to her village in February. Demasduit’s body was placed in a burial hut beside her husband and child. There were only thirty-one of the Beothuk remaining at that time. Legacy Demasduit's niece, a young woman named Shanawdithit (1801–1829), was the last known Beothuk. The song "Demasduit Dream", recorded by Newfoundland band Great Big Sea, describes this incident. The Mary March Provincial Museum in the town of Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland and Labrador, is named after her. In May 2006, a group of local grade 2 students, led by student Conor O'Driscoll, helped collect more than 500 signatures on a petition to rename the museum to Demasduit's original identity, rather than the name she was given after her capture. In December 2021, the management of the museum announced they would rename it using Demasduit's original name. Genetic testing In 2007, DNA testing was conducted on material from the teeth of Demasduit and her husband Nonosabasut. The results assigned them to Haplogroup X (mtDNA) and Haplogroup C (mtDNA), respectively, which are also found in current Mi'kmaq populations in Newfoundland. See also List of people of Newfoundland and Labrador References External links Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online Article on petition to rename the Mary March Museum on CBC News Online Ideas on CBC program about Demasduwit 1796 births 1820 deaths Beothuk people People from Newfoundland (island) Newfoundland Colony people 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Newfoundland and Labrador Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada) 19th-century indigenous people of the Americas Violence against Indigenous women in Canada Violence against Indigenous people in Canada Women in Newfoundland and Labrador