DCHP-1 Online

Red Indian [see 1891 quote]

• 1 Hist. a member of the Beothuk people, a now-extinct race inhabiting Newfoundland during the early settlement period.

  See also: Red Man (def. 2)  

  • 1770  (1792)  [These Indians are called Red, from their custom of painting themselves, and everything belonging to them, with red ochre, which they find in great plenty in various parts of the island.]
  • 1819  On Sunday last, the curiosity of the good people of this town, was gratified by an unexpected visit from one of the Red Indians--a native tribe, so called from the pigment of red earth with which they colour their bodies.
  • 1891  The name Red Indians . . . is the translation of the Micmac name for them, Maquajik, which means redmen or red people.
  • 1964  The Journal takes us back to pioneer days in Labrador and Newfoundland to a day when the wigwams of the Red Indians could be seen on the shores of Exploits Bay.

• 2 erroneously, any North American Indian.

  See also: Red Man (def. 1)  redskin  

  • The association of red skin with the North American Indian no doubt derives from early references to the Beothuks of Newfoundland, who made a practice of coating their bodies with ochre, as reported by John Cabot in the closing years of the fifteenth century. This popular misconception gave rise to such synonyms as Red Man and redskin alongside Red Indian.

  • 1852  The tribes of Mongolian extraction . . . finding the more southern portions of North America already tenanted by the warlike and vindictive Red Indians . . . were driven to take up their permanent abodes in the regions of everlasting snow. . . .
  • 1897  Romantic missionary work among the red Indians will soon be a thing of the past.
  • 1957  Since then I have always liked the Red Indians.