On Savage Shores

How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe

By: Caroline Dodds Pennock

Narrated by: Caroline Dodds Pennock

AN ECONOMIST AND SMITHSONIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A landmark work of narrative history that shatters our previous Eurocentric understanding of the Age of Discovery by telling the story of the Indigenous Americans who journeyed across the Atlantic to Europe after 1492

"On Savage Shores not only changes how we think about the first contact between America and Europe but also sets the methodological standard for a new way of understanding the origin of the modern world." —New York Review of Books

We have long been taught to presume that modern global history began when the "Old World" encountered the "New", when Christopher Columbus “discovered” America in 1492. But, as Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows in this 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 story 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 marginalized, but whose worldviews and cultures had a profound impact on European civilization.

Drawing on their surviving literature and poetry and subtly layering European eyewitness accounts against the grain, Pennock gives us a sweeping account of the Indigenous American presence in, and impact on, early modern Europe.

Vital reading.

A top notch work of general readership history on a critical subject, demonstrating the agency and exchange between indigenous peoples and Europeans and amplifying the voices of indigenous witnesses to the age of colonialism.

Wonderful

Insightful and full of detail. Was really excited to listen to this and it did not disappoint!

Researchers using decolonial methods need to read

This is a must read for all people working in decolonial researcher methods and who are allies of Indigenous Researchers, scientists and community educators. I Learned so much, and still have much more to learn. Pennock is a sensitive and excellent researcher.

The Authors ability to portray events without an obvious agenda.

Excellent listen. Written and read very well. The focus on the pre-American history was appreciated and informative.

The completely new (to me) information about the indigenous people who travelled to Europe. The author reads the book well.

I liked the history, I liked the reader's voice, I liked learning a whole new thing.