John R. Jewitt

John Rodgers Jewitt (born 21 May 1783 in Boston, England; died 7 January 1821 in Hartford, Connecticut) was an armourer who entered the historical record with his memoirs about the 28 months he spent as a captive of Maquinna of the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) people on the Pacific Northwest Coast of what is now Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes Jewitt as a shrewd observer and the Narrative as a "classic of captivity literature". The memoir, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, is a major source of information about the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Jewitt's father was a blacksmith and trained his eldest son for that trade, intending that John go into one of the learned professions. Accordingly, from the age of 12 he attended an academy at Donington that provided an "education superior to that which is to be obtained in a common school" (p. 6). He learned Latin, higher mathematics, navigation and surveying. After two years, his father withdrew him from school in order to apprentice him to a surgeon at Reasby, in the neighbourhood of the great traveller and naturalist Sir Joseph Banks. Jewitt pleaded with his father to be allowed to learn metalwork instead, and eventually he was allowed to do so. He quickly learned his trade. About a year later (c. 1798) the family moved to Hull, then one of the main ports and trading centres of Britain, where the Jewitt business picked up a lot of custom from the ships.

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