Atajuq, Ikkannguaq, Ikiunaq, Tuglavingaaq, and Qavvik, 1773 (Cattewater)

From here, look over the water towards Mount Batten. It was there in the Cattewater that George Cartwright dropped anchor in late May 1773 with five Inuit onboard.

In November 1772, Cartwright, an English explorer and entrepreneur, had brought Atajuq (Connected), his wife, Ikkannguaq (Becoming Shallow), their toddler daughter, Ikiunaq (Spark), Atajuq's youngest brother Tuglavingaaq (the Big Beautiful Braid) and his wife Qavvik (Badger), to London. Like the Cherokee diplomats ten years earlier, these visitors were often seen as a spectacle, much to their frustration. According to Cartwright's sister, it was "extremely disagreeable to them to be stared at in the rude manner they were."

By May, Cartwright wrote, they were "well pleased in the expectation of soon seeing their native country, their relations and friends again." However, as they left London on 13th May, Qavvik complained of feeling ill and a surgeon soon confirmed it was smallpox. Soon after, Ikkanguaq and Tuglavingaaq were also ill and so on 29th May Cartwright decided to anchor in Plymouth. Initially he could not find accommodation in the city. On 1st June, Ikiunaq died, followed shortly afterwards by her mother, Ikkanguaq. Cartwright had by then found a house in the Stonehouse area of the city but left the following day for London to get help. When he returned on 12th June, he found that Atajuq and his brother Tuglavingaaq had both died in quarantine tents set up outside the house soon after he had left Plymouth. The remains of the four Inuit were buried in sand dunes outside Plymouth.

While Qavvik recovered and returned home to Labrador, it seems she took the disease back with her. By winter 1773, smallpox was ravaging Inuit communities in southern Labrador. As historian Coll Thrush has remarked, for Atajuq and his family the trip to England was an "unmitigated tragedy" (Indigenous London, 131).