Caroline Dodds Pennock's On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe is a remarkable piece of work. The task she's set for herself is to explore the flip side of Europeans' "discovery" of the Americas: indigenous Americans' "discovery" of Europe. Drawing on the available evidence—there's more of it than one might have expected, but still less than one might have hoped—she examines the identities of indigenous Americans who traveled or were taken to Europe; their status, raging from slavery to reception as "sibling" royalty by the king of Spain; and how they attempted to use contact with Europe as a way of defending existing indigenous hierarchies or to advocate for indigenous communities as a whole. In some ways, this is a frustrating read because there is so much that's not known, but Pennock makes good use of the information available, both to document events known to have happened and to consider what extrapolations can reasonably be made from those events.

If you're at all interested in the history of contact, On Savage Shores is a must-read for the perspective it provides that has been missing from this literature. I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

2 1/2 stars rounded up to three.

If you are new to the subject of Indigenous Americans this might be a good place to start, especially with this specific area of inquiry.

I would have preferred a slightly more academic style of writing. The author made a lot of personal commentary on the subject and often told us how we should feel about something rather than letting us come to our own conclusions. Sometimes it was rather redundant, such as when she described something that was obviously bad and then still felt the need to tell us that this was a bad thing.

The author also asked a lot of open-ended questions such as getting us to imagine how people would feel under certain circumstances, again and again, which got a little repetitive. Most likely because this topic suffers from a lack of information in general, so there's not much left but to resort to supposition at times.

However, I did pick up some useful facts and was also directed towards interesting primary sources as well as other books on the subject.

Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy.

Much needed corrective to the "discovery" histories written about the nations of the Americas and their contact with Europeans. I really think Pennock does a great job of writing in an approachable way, and think this is a very teachable text. Along the way, I found the footnotes thoughtful, and have already recommended it to several people.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC*

The book is trying to actively do something important. It focuses on making sure that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas are treated as full humans coming from impressive cultures. The issue with it is colonization itself. Because colonization worked so well, the records of the people kidnapped or willingly traveling to Europe are scant on the ground. Therefore the author is forced to rely on supposition far more than they ought to. This would be fine for people just beginning to explore the vast depth and breadth of Indigenous cultures, but if you are looking for something beyond a primer, you'll be left wanting.

This is an interesting book that shows how indigenous people traveled to Europe and how they were treated and looked at. It also reminds that it’s not just “Indians” that were part of the new world, but others, such as Inuit, as well. It’s an interesting book about the history that we don’t hear about often

When thinking about the early years of exploration, we may think of, or been taught, about explorers such as Hernan Cortes, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan or Walter Raleigh. These individuals left behind evidence of their travels, such as Columbus' Journal, Cortes' letters, or the selected writings of Raleigh. But, what impact did this exploration, colonisation and conquest have on the Native peoples of the Americas? And, what about the early Indigenous people who travelled to Europe? On Savage Shores - How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock takes a deep dive into the sources to piece together the lives of Indigenous people during this time.

I first heard about Dr Dodds Pennock's work while listening to Episode 175 of the Talking Tudors podcast focusing on The Lives of Aztec-Mexica Women. Then more recently, I listened to an episode of Not Just the Tudors, in which Dr Dodds Pennock was interviewed about How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe. While I generally focus on English history, I have been making an effort to read more widely. Additionally, while this book focuses on Indigenous Americans, it hones in on the sixteenth century, which is an area that I am particularly interested in. I must admit, when reading English history books, I often find myself wondering what is going on in the rest of the world at this time. This book certainly opened my eyes to some of it.

As Dr Dodds Pennock identifies in the Introduction:
"For the Indigenous travelers in my work, Europe was the 'savage shore'; a land of incomprehensible inequality and poverty that defied pre-invasion values and logics, where resources were hoarded, children ruled great kingdoms, and common people were meant meekly to accept injustices without dissent."
This really set the scene and tone of the book. From reading the introduction, I was hooked and needed to know more. On Savage Shores is well written and impeccably researched. While there are many unfamiliar names and terms, which can be challenging to remember, the comprehensive glossary aids with this hurdle. Dr Dodds Pennock draws from a wide range of sources - including those more familiar primary sources from the well-known explorers, to brief glimpses of Indigenous peoples who appear in Ambassadorial accounts, letters and court records.

Throughout this brilliant, yet sensitive book, readers will learn about the initial relationships between explorers and Indigenous peoples, slavery, Indigenous diplomacy, and the many lives that were lost. There was a lot of information in this book that both shocked and saddened me. I learnt a great deal from this book and it is certainly one that I will purchasing to add to my collection of history books. I highly recommend reading On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for early access to this book. On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Dr Caroline Dodds Pannock is due for publication in the 24th of January, 2023.

I couldn't finish this book. After being disappointed that a white person wrote it, I was also dismayed at the amount of conjecture the author included. Too many sentences started with, "they must have felt...." if you're going to write a history book, please build a narrative around facts, not your assumptions.

The premise of this book is a very unusual one, it looks at the "discovery" of the "new world" from the prospective of the indigenous people. On every one of the early voyages to the New World by Spanish and Portuguese ships, the voyagers brought back indigenous people to show off to the Royals who had paid for their voyage. Whether they were volunteers or had been kidnapped isn't always easy to tell. Quite a few of the early visitors considered themselves to be ambassadors to the old world.

These original visitors were treated with great kindness and courtesy, as they worked to learn the language of the old world. But it wasn't unusual for them to be made members of the King's retinue and to live as did the nobles. Later when the Conquistadors returned to Spain/Portugal the returned with the first Mettzos (children of the sailors and native woman). It wasn't very long before they became servants for the nobility.

Their are few direct statements by the immigrants and mostly they are known from the writings of the "owners". It's and interesting anthropological study of the people who are usually forgotten about once most were wiped out by war and disease.

On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe flips the perspective from our traditionally Euro-centric focused history of the Americas, to the experiences of the indigenous peoples. Beginning with first contacts in the 1490s through to the present day ramifications, Caroline Dodd Pennock explores the history of the Indigenous peoples in the face of colonization and their accounts or experiences traveling to Europe.

An extensive work of research, that due to COVID-19 complications was completed through digitally available texts, On Savages Shores is a work built on absences. While Pennock could draw on some sources directly from indigenous peoples, such as oral traditions or some writings by indigenous peoples, much of the work had to rely on the "ventriloqui[zed]' experience of the indigenous by way of a European writer or artist. Pennock was able to utilize judicial records, memoirs or writings of courtiers or even drawings and paintings of indigenous peoples.

Pennock, begins by answering the "so what?" of the work by emphasizing the importance of words, language and names. Noting, "This is not just a question of respect, but also an intentional push against colonial attempts to erase Indigenous identities, and to obliterate their langues and beliefs through deliberate cultural genocide." (Kindle Book location 53). To further this focus, the book also includes a glossary of terms after the text.

The narrative looks at the time period of first contact in the 1490s to the establishment of Jamestown, divided into six thematic chapters: slavery, go-betweens, kith and kin, the stuff of life, diplomacy and spectacle and curiosity. Each of the chapters uses the known evidence of individuals to provide some understanding of the lives lived in the Americas, Europe and the ocean that separates them.

While there is not one stereotypical experience, given that we are looking at a multi-century time span within a large geographical area, what will be striking to the reader are the indigenous responses or adaptions to Europe. The shock of the population size, disgust at the cleanliness and concern with the societal disparity. Time is also devoted to some of the commodities exchanged and the erase of the indigenous peoples from their identities as in potatoes, tobacco and tomatoes.

Pannock's work does what any strong work of history does, it elucidates a lesser known perspective while making sure to explain the methodology and sources that made it possible. There are many footnotes, especially detailing the reasoning for certain word choices or phrasings. In other reviews of this work, particularly from British Media (The Times and Literary Review their are criticisms over too frequent usage of speculative language, or a goal or focus on reparations or moralizing.

A recommended read for anyone interested in the establishment of America, though the author's "voice" might not appeal to all.

This is one of my favorite kinds of history reads - one in which voices long left out of the greater historical narrative are finally given a chance to speak. In this case, author Caroline Pennock gives a spotlight to the countless indigenous Americans who made the journey from their homelands to Europe during the age of colonization and so-called “exploration.” It immediately made for reading that was both fascinating also frequently heart-wrenching. Although a fair amount of diplomats, emissaries, and various go-betweens consented to make the Atlantic trip, more often than not these women and men did not have any say in the matter as they were taken abroad as slaves, servants or to displayed and gawked at as exotic oddities.

Based upon the book’s own official summary, I anticipated a sizable amount of first-hand indigenous accounts. However, this turned out to be misleading, for the very eclectic collection of records and accounts referenced here are overwhelmingly from a European perspective. Pennock ends up doing a considerable amount of speculation based on the limited resources. That, and she occasionally does some meandering from her own narrative at times, which is while always well-intentioned did at times interrupt the reading flow. Overall though, I think she does a great job here synthesizing what she could find in the historical record and providing as full a picture as she could of the experiences of these women and men.

Having just been introduced to this topic, I do hope that much more will be researched and written on this topic, either by Pennock or others. In the meantime though, this is a fantastic start to filling in a major modern-day knowledge gap.

A story that needs to be told..but by someone else.. The author is so prepossessed with making sure she lets the reader know that being a Historian is difficult and any native American couldn't possibly have willingly went to Europe or be baptized. Filled with commentary that not only takes the reader from the narrative but actually sets out to do what the author says she is trying to prevent- the stories of people being erased, An editor needs to intervene and say "we love the subject, we love how you want to tell the story of these people, now how about we dont write a book like a blog post and not put ourselves in it so much?" The author name drops other books throughout her commentary so it may be better to read one of those books instead.

If you want in depth analysis and explanation on how people may have spelled their name different or how people disappear from history but give multiple hearsay reasons as to why that happened without evidence then this is the book for you.

I was so excited to dive deep into this book. The synopsis was so tantalizing....what did Native Caribbean, Native Americans, Native South Americans think of Europe when they were brought there against their wills?

With romanticism, scant evidence, and verbosity in her heart, the author decides to destroy the subject.

Too much of the book is the author explaining why she was using certain words, even going so far as to write a paragraph on the word "stuff" instead of another word.
This was done on place names, Native names, explorer names, just about everything in the book had multiple names and the reasons behind it.

Further, the book had too many questions from the author....imagine what the Native would think? The Native person must have seen this, felt this, wondered this.
Not enough was concrete evidence

The author premises that these enslaved "indios" or people from the New World were diplomatic and advocated for their tribe, Nation, population.
Her own work in the book does not prove this. Over and over again the scant evidence in the records were that of the Natives begging the Crown for their OWN FREEDOM! Their inheritance, begging for alms, etc.

The book needs a good editor in which to cut out 2/3 of the content and to get the author to stop TALKING ABOUT HERSELF ALL THE TIME!

The author skipped around so much, I was pretty sure that I had whiplash and there were many times in which I had to reread several pages back to understand how the heck did I end up in Wild Bill Hickok's wild west show when the author had been talking about an event in 1521!?!

Save yourself the trouble, read the synopsis, then don't read the book. Think about what Native peoples might have felt going to a strange land.....and you would save yourself HOURS of your life by NOT reading this poorly written book.

For fans of Graeber & Wengrow, On Savage Shores is a (shorter) addition to the growing lexicon of writings peeling back our Eurocentric knowledge of history to shed light on the Indigenous lives, culture, language, and "stuff" that has been marginalized, whether intentionally or not, from common knowledge. If this book is short, it is because there is frustratingly little that was preserved in the historical record about the millions of Indigenous lives that were lost when the "exploration" and colonial period kicked off, and even less preserved about those who were forcibly removed (or willingly traveled) in the other direction. Nevertheless, this is an illuminating piece about the men, women, and children who went from the "new world" to the "old," and their experiences there. It is about the impact that Indigenous cultures had on Europe. It is a fascinating read, and I can only hope that more is forthcoming from this author and others on this topic.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for an advance copy of this book on the history of indigenous people traveling from the Americas to Europe, and what they saw and experienced.

I remember in school learning about the brave Pilgrims and their travels from Europe to America, mainly I learned later no one in Europe wanted to deal with these unpleasant people. Our class learned how they met Squanto a native of their new home, who spoke their language, and helped the Pilgrims survive. I remember wondering, wait how did Squanto speak English? The Pilgrims were the first English people here, how could a Native American communicate with them, or even why? Much later I learned the life of Tisquantum, his capture and enslavement in Europe and his return to his native land. Never was the subject really addressed, nor was there ever any discussion on indigenous people traveling to Europe. Pocahontas possibly, but so much fiction had been created that it was hard to know or even to care about what the truth was. Nothing about people, natives of this New World, who traveled across the seas to a world that was new to them. In On Savage Shores, Caroline Dodds Pennock writes about these people who crossed an ocean to Europe, some willing and curious, some unwilling and fearful, some even assigned as representatives, what they saw, experienced, and the legacies they left behind.

The book begins with a time line and an introduction with an explanation about the naming of people and the places they might have come from, which have been lost to time, and why this is important. There is a brief summation of the European explorers what they discovered, and how they dealt with the people they found, and what was reported. From there we start to meet the travellers, many whose voyages are known, but who they has been lost. Starting in 1519 with two conquistadors bringing back ships laden with treasures, even using gold as ballast. Leaving from Mexico aboard were members of the Tononacs from eastern Mexico, a diplomatic party to meet the ruler of Spain. From there we learn of other indigenous explorers, ambassadors, traders, from the Inuit to even Mesoamericans who were used as servant slaves in European homes.

I enjoy narrative history like this, especially on subjects that I am new too, or that sadly never occurred to me to further investigate. Using journals, official reports and letters, along with songs and poetry, Pennock does a very good job of explaining these natives and what their experiences must have been like in this strange new world they found themselves in. I knew about the slave trade, but knew nothing about people going for jobs, opportunities or even in the diplomatic sense. And I don't think it would have occurred to me, as I don't ever recall seeing this in other books about the time. The fact that many of these people were used by Europeans to finance further exploration and exploitation was a new idea also, but makes sense from a public relations view. Pennock has a very nice writing style, full of information, but never overwhelming or making the reading seem like homework. Not just clean and clear, without the textbook feeling but also respectful of those who found themselves sometimes very far from home, with no understanding, or even of being remembered.

Recommended for history readers, especially as this is not a subject that I recall seeing in many books. Maybe 1491 by Charles Mann. This is a very well done, fascinating book, on a subject that should be covered more, but knowing how little history people are getting anymore, will not be. A nice addition to the list for people who received a lot of gift cards, and need book ideas.

While I may not agree with everything the author writes in this book (some theories are tenuous), I admire someone willing to go against conventional writing, and I'm in complete support of asking questions that may not have been asked before, or may not have been considered worth asking.