Reviewed by Karl Hele

Caroline Dodds Pennock’s On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe explores the experiences of Indigenous Peoples who travelled willingly and unwillingly to Europe from the 1400s to 1600s.  The title, a turn about of European visionings of the Americas, is indicative of how Indigenous People saw and experienced Europe “as 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.”(xiv) Pennock’s book is about bringing the marginalized and silenced Indigenous presences to the fore. Simply, On Savage Shores wonderfully illustrates how Indigenous Peoples were part of a “vast network[s] of global connections” who entered Europe as slaves, captives, entertainers, servants, families, diplomats, and nobles which “sowed the seeds of our cosmopolitan modern world.” (2)   Pennock seeks to show how Indigenous peoples had a greater impact on the past than the standard narratives of discovery, colonization, and the ‘Columbian Exchange’(9).

The author’s un-silencing creates a fascinating read as she brings the Indigenous presence in Europe – specifically in Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, France, England, and Italy – to the fore across six chapters that discuss “Slavery,” “Go-Betweens,” “Kith and Kin,” “The Stuff of Life,” “Diplomacy,” and “Spectacle and Curiosity.” In each chapter, Indigenous individuals fight for their freedom and their peoples’ rights as well as serve as cultural-linguistic translators, marriage partners, children, diplomats, and objects of spectacle and curiosity. Many stories end in tragedy as travellers fell victim to European pathogens, or in silence as individuals vanished after a brief appearance in the written records.

It is also apparent that the individuals identified within the book’s pages represent only a small faction of Indigenous People in Europe. According to Pennock, tens of thousands of Indigenous People entered European slave markets in the sixteenth century (46-7) while hundreds more arrived as family members and diplomats. Likewise, Pennock shows that the vast majority remained in Europe – a few even established long-lived dynasties that extend into the contemporary era (138).

In expanding on the Indigenous presence in Europe, the chapter titled “The Stuff of Life” deftly shows the cultural impact the presence had on European culture. For instance, it was Indigenous women who taught Europeans how to make whipped chocolate. In other words, Europeans imported the ‘commodity’ of chocolate while “also adopting Indigenous habits and preferences, along with their language.” (167) Yet, while we know the names of the Europeans who supposedly introduced the commodity, we do not know the names of the “actual Indigenous people who shaped the story” and introduced the culture and practice associated with the commodity.  It is also apparent that European languages and culture were enriched and expanded by Indigenous Peoples’ cultures, voices, and actions – albeit silenced (166-8).

I really liked her efforts to remind readers that many supposed Indigenous speeches and views on Europe were published after the fact, sometimes decades or centuries later. For instance, Pennock contests claims, that still are taught today, that Indigenous Peoples viewed Europeans as gods. She notes that these claims were recorded, as fact, well after contact and interactions that took place across mutually unintelligible languages and cultures. Instead, she argues the ‘god claims’ speak more to European hubris and ego that in turn justified taking of Indigenous Peoples and lands which Pennock ties to the evolution of racism (88-90).

On Savage Shores is an excellent exploration of Indigenous presence in and contribution to Europe and nascent globalization. Pennock, by recognizing and voicing a space for Indigenous Peoples in Europe, she has told a story that needs to form a part of every history class from grade school to university. I highly recommend On Savage Shores for an original and important recasting of sixteenth-century Europe. It is really a decolonizing and un-whitening approach to the past.

Caroline Dodds Pennock, On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe.  New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2023.

ISBN: 1524749265