On Savage Shores, Sachbücher von Caroline Dodds Pennock

We are taught that global history began in the late 15th century, when the Old World encountered the New. We imagine Christopher Columbus 'discovering' America in 1492. But at the same instant, the great civilisations of Mesoamerica - the Aztecs, Mayans, and Totomacs - discovered Europe. Tens of thousands of Native Americans made the journey across the Atlantic from the very moment of that first encounter, but their experiences have been written out of mainstream accounts: from the Mayan king who met Henry VIII, to the Inuit who harpooned ducks on the Avon, from the Aztecs who mocked up human sacrifice at the court of Charles V, to the Inuk baby who was put on show in a London pub, from the mestizo children of Spaniards who returned 'home' with their fathers, to the tens of thousands of enslaved people and servants who laboured in European households. Their culture - their foods and clothes, their languages and beliefs - changed the course of European civilisation, just as surely as Europe changed America. For many, Europe was the savage shore.