How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe
Not Just the Tudors
History Hit
4.8 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2023
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
We have long been taught that modern global history began when the 'Old World' encountered the 'New', when Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America in 1492. But, in a groundbreaking new book, Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows that for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and others - enslaved people, diplomats, explorers, servants, traders - the reverse was true: they discovered Europe.
In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Dr. Dodds Pennock about a story of abduction, loss, cultural appropriation, and, as indigenous peoples saw it, of apocalypse.
This episode was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. |
| 0:02.6 | If you'd like not just the Tudors ad-free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. |
| 0:10.5 | With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, |
| 0:16.0 | including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, The Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new release every week. |
| 0:25.2 | Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. |
| 0:35.3 | Our narrative of the encounter between Europeans and Indigenous Americans in the late 15th and 16th centuries |
| 0:43.7 | has generally been written from the point of view of the former discovering the latter, |
| 0:49.9 | that in 1492 and thereafter it was Columbus and those who followed him who were the ones |
| 0:55.9 | finding a strange and savage new world. |
| 1:00.3 | But what if we were to turn this on its head? |
| 1:04.1 | What if we looked at the encounter from the indigenous point of view? |
| 1:08.2 | What have we thought about the thousands of Native American people |
| 1:13.6 | who travelled to Europe from the 1490s, |
| 1:16.6 | either of their own volition or under compulsion |
| 1:20.6 | as those enslaved and kidnapped by Europeans? |
| 1:24.6 | Arguably, it was they who were arriving in a strange and savage new world it is today's guest |
| 1:32.7 | who has proposed this new perspective and who has done the hard graft of following the stories of |
| 1:38.7 | many of these indigenous travelers she is dr caroline Penneck, senior lecturer in international history at the |
| 1:45.6 | University of Sheffield. She's been a guest on the podcast before speaking to me about Aztec society. |
| 1:52.9 | Today we're going to be discussing her important new book, On Savage Shores, How Indigenous |
| 1:59.1 | Americans Discover discovered Europe. |
| 2:02.3 | It's a story you need to hear. |
... |
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