ON SAVAGE SHORES: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe

This was the New Statesman Best Book of the Year, Waterstones Book of the Year, BBC History Magazine and winner of other awards in its year of publication, 2023. We have long been taught that when the Old World encountered the New, when Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America in 1492, that that was when modern global history began. But as Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows in her groundbreaking book, for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and others - enslaved people, diplomats, explorers, servants, traders - the reverse was true. They discovered Europe. For them, Europe comprised savage shores, a land of riches and marvels, yet perplexing for its brutal disparities of wealth and quality of life, and its baffling beliefs. The stories of these Indigenous Americans abroad is a story of abduction, loss, cultural appropriation, and as they saw it of apocalypse - a story that has largely been absent from our collective imagination of the times. From the Brazilian king who met Henry VIII to the Aztecs who mocked up human sacrifice at the court of Charles V, from the Inuk baby who was put on show in a London pub, to the mestizo children of Spaniards who returned 'home' with their fathers, from the Inuit who harpooned ducks on the Avon river to the many servants employed by Europeans of every rank, here are a people who were rendered exotic, demeaned, and marginalised, but whose worldviews and cultures had a profound impact on European civilisation. Drawing on their surviving literature and poetry, and subtly layering European eyewitness accounts against the grain, Pennock gives us a sweeping account of early modern Europe. A monumental work of historical excavation, beautifully written and first-rate scholarship which changes how we look at transatlantic history and a much needed and refreshing take on our all-too Eurocentric telling of the past. She deftly weaves fascinating tales of adventure, complex diplomatic missions, voyages of discovery and triumphant incursions and heartbreaking exploitations. 302pp, many colour plates.