Description
Three men seen in Westminster Palace were the first known North Americans to ever visit what is now the United Kingdom. They were either brought to England by Sebastian Cabot in 1498 or Bristol Seamen in 1501/2. References to their clothing and dietary practices (“Beastes skins” and “raw Flesh”) suggest that they were Inuit, although it is also possible that they were Beothuk from what is currently known as Newfoundland, and some have also claimed they were Mi’kmaq. How they got to London is unclear; what happened to them is also unknown. Two years after their first appearance, two of them were again seen at Westminster; the fate of the third man is not described in the one brief passage of text that refers to the men. We do know that they had some sort of relationship with Henry VII. Perhaps more will be found someday, but the archival realities of the dawn of the sixteenth century are such that this may be all we ever know.
Bibliographic sources
Thrush, Indigenous London, 1-3. Image by H J Brewer – First published: The Builder magazine, 1884 / Republished: parliament.uk / transferred to Commons from en.wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11614821