Dan Snow's History Hit - The First Indigenous Americans in Europe

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

1492 marked the beginning of the Colombian Exchange - the transfer of people, goods, ideas and commodities across the Atlantic between Europe and the Americas. We hear a lot about the conquistadors, the settlers, Jesuit priests and colonisers from Spain, Portugal and Britain whose success in the 'New World' was built on the help and enslavement of indigenous people. But what of the indigenous peoples who made the journey in the opposite direction? Many travelled to Europe, some as slaves, others as courtiers, diplomats and even tourists.Author and Britain's only Aztec historian Caroline Dodds Pennock joins Dan to tell the stories of the Maya who first brought chocolate to the court of Isabella and Ferdinand, the Algonquin diplomats who travelled with Walter Raleigh and took residence in Elizabethan London and the Brazilian King who stopped by Hampton Court palace to see Henry VIII.Caroline's new book is called 'On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe'Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!Download the History Hit app from the Google Play store.Download the History Hit app from the Apple Store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, in the Caribbean, in 1492. It was the start of a gigantic transfer of culture, of peoples, of goods, of commodities, of ideas across the Atlantic. It was the start of the creation of an Atlantic world in which we still in many ways live today. We hear a lot about the conquistadors, the settlers, the Jesuit priests that went out to the Americas from Spain, from Portugal, and then from England, France, and elsewhere. But what about the indigenous peoples of the Americas who ends up in Europe? And there are many. They came back on European ships, some as slaves, others as courtiers. They came back on European ships, some as slaves, others as courtiers.

Some met emperors like Charles V. Some kings and queens like Henry VIII and Ferdinand Isabella. Some came as slaves. It is a remarkable story. And here's Caroline Dodds-Pennock. She is a senior lecturer in international history at the University of Sheffield. She's been on the podcast before to talk me through Cortés, the Spanish conquistador, and his conquest of the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico. How the story is far more nuanced than traditional tellings would have it.

And how Cortés' success was down in large part to his indigenous American allies, like the Tlaxcalans you'll be hearing more about in this podcast. Very grateful to Caroline for coming on the podcast. She's just written a new book, On Savage Shores. It is a fascinating story of indigenous Americans exploring Europe. Enjoy. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower.

Caroline, thank you very much for coming back on the podcast. Thank you for having me back again. It's exciting to be on again. We're talking about indigenous Americans in Europe, but you've turned the field on its head. Why did you do that? Well, I guess I would say I'm not the first person to mention that there've been indigenous people in Europe. It's just that the fact that indigenous peoples are discovering Europe at the same time as people like Columbus are going West is something that tends to get neglected from the story we tell about this period, I think,

entirely. We think about white men travelling across the globe, you know, discovering in heavy inverted commas, and exploring, but we never think about the indigenous people that are coming the other way, and there are really a lot of them. How are they making that journey? Now, that is a question that reveals the power dynamics that underlie a lot of this. Most of these people are traveling on European ships. The majority come either enslaved or as dependents or servants of Europeans. But then there are also a large number who come as diplomats, as part of embassies, representing their communities or their families or their cities. And then there are others who come simply because they want to visit Europe, as it were.

There are others who come as part of what the Europeans call spectacles for the purposes of curiosity. But most often people are brought rather than travelling, though I wouldn't want to completely take away the agency. There are many independent travellers too. Did they leave descriptions? Did they write? Is there a large body of work and archives that you can look at for this? Sadly, there's not. We do have the voices of indigenous travellers preserved, for example, in the cantares, the poetry that Nahua people composed, where we have their memories and kind of collective impressions of the Atlantic and of journeys. We have some occasional voices of indigenous people recorded by Europeans where they've interviewed them, for example. And the place where we most often find indigenous voices is in legal

records. Often when they're appealing for their freedom, for example, we get to hear, albeit a kind of formulaic, but a version of their past created in order to explain why they shouldn't be enslaved. More often, though, we're relying on the records of people who either saw them or kidnapped them or happened to meet them or see them, essentially external perspectives. And so we have to disentangle them or kidnapped them or happened to meet them or see them, essentially external perspectives. And so we have to disentangle them and read them against the grain to try and understand the indigenous perspective as far as we can. Is there a typical journey that these people make? No, there really isn't one typical journey. There are people who travel enslaved and become part of

the transatlantic slave trade, which is so famous, but going in the other direction towards Europe, mostly to Spain and Portugal. There are people who come as dependents or family members of Europeans. There are elite travellers who travel in extraordinary luxury, sometimes nobles and royalty. There are people who come as entertainers and part of what you might call curiosities from a European perspective who then go back afterwards. There's simply a massive diversity of people that are traveling and being brought to Europe. There's no single typical voyage or typical experience of this period. And you point out that it's fascinating how we've

divorced the objects, in some ways, the culture, the material culture of the so-called Columbian Exchange, i.e. the things that are exchanged across the Atlantic after the era of Christopher Columbus. You're putting the people back into that exchange. We know about tomatoes and potatoes and tobacco, but you're saying actually those didn't just sort of waft over here on the breeze. and tobacco. But you're saying actually those didn't just sort of waft over here on the breeze. Yes, absolutely. So often we think of what you call the Columbian exchange, the exchange of plants and goods across the Atlantic after 1492 as being something that is framed by Europeans. In our imagination, for example, Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake, people like this bring great novelties from the Americas. But actually, Walter Raleigh, who is supposedly famous for his tobacco and potatoes,

isn't anywhere near the first person to bring either of those things to Europe. The first people to bring chocolate to Europe are Maya lords. So we have a record of an earlier of a merchant bringing a shipment of cacao, but the very first people to make drinking chocolate in Europe are Maya lords who make it at the Spanish court. Very often it's hard to detect these people. I think commodities have become divorced from the people who brought them, who grew them, who were associated with them. I mean, smoking is an indigenous practice. If you think about it, every time anyone smokes a cigarette or a pipe or chews tobacco,

they're engaging in an indigenous tradition. And yet we don't think of it as an indigenous way of doing or of thinking. It's so fascinating how all of this stuff has simply become completely disentangled from the people who were involved with it. And overtaken by other people. I mean, you make the point about tomatoes being thought of as like quintessentially Italian. Yes, absolutely. These objects and commodities, as they're often called, though I always shy a little bit away from the word commodity because it makes it seem just like it's to do with trade, where for indigenous people, these things often are to do with much more symbolic or reciprocal meanings. But for want of a better word, these plants and commodities have become disentangled with other people's national narratives. So can you imagine Italian cooking without tomatoes or West African cooking

or Asian cooking without chilies or, for example, Irish cooking without potatoes. These things have been divorced from their original contexts. Speaking of the so-called Columbian exchange, the first indigenous Americans that you can identify, there's a person brought back by Columbus and sort of presented to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Columbus and sort of presented to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain his paymasters. Columbus, when he comes back, he brings not just one person, but several indigenous Tainos. Unfortunately, like many people, they die on the passage, some of them, but at least six make their way to the Spanish court and they're baptised and given the names of the king and queen Ferdinand and Isabella and of their children and they become part of this great spectacle of Europeanness

and of Christianity where supposedly they're baptised and then the rulers fall to their knees weeping which must have been a very strange experience for the indigenous people but we also know that in this experience, they were surrounded by objects that they would very likely have seen as symbols of indigenous power, gifts that had been given to Columbus by rulers in the Caribbean and had been brought to the Spanish monarchs. And so you have this amazing entanglement of meanings where it may very well be that the Europeans think one thing is going on, that they're demonstrating their power and the influence of Christianity, where the indigenous people actually seem possibly to have been diplomats, quite high

status people, some of them, and seeing themselves very likely as involved in some kind of reciprocal exchange. Further north, what about England? You mentioned Walter Raleigh earlier on, and English colonisation, exploration tended to take place up in what we'd now call New England or in parts of Canada. Who are some of the first people to come back from that part of the world? Well, we have a very early record of some indigenous people from, we think, kind of up in the far north, but we know very, very little about them. The first people who come are entangled with the voyages of people like Harriet and Walter Raleigh. And what's amazing is how involved in the exchange these people are.

So two figures in particular, Manteo and Wanchese, are brought back from the coast of what is now near Roanoke, is probably the most famous place on this coast, what becomes the doomed colony of Roanoke. And Manteo and Wanchese travel back and become part of the household of Walter Raleigh and of his circle. Now, there's a famous story that John Harriot creates the very first Algonquian alphabet. It's actually an Osamukamuk orthography. But when you look into the story a little bit more, it seems that it was actually created alongside an indigenous person, Manteo. His signature is even on the orthography, which was found in London in recent years. It's so fascinating that when we flip the perspective, you stop seeing this as just

about white explorers and see it as more of a collaborative process between these indigenous go-betweens and the men that they're helping. And then Manteo in particular becomes very entangled with those early voyages and expeditions attempting to establish English influence. Wanchese, on the other hand, seems to have had enough of the English. The first time they take him back to near his homeland, he runs away and goes back to his people. And so you do have these very different responses. But Manteo and Wanchese are just an incredible example of people who become part of a period that we think we know really, really well, but actually have never really considered their role in. We think they probably met Elizabeth I, for example, and they lived in London for quite a long time.

You're listening to Down Snow's History. We're talking about indigenous Americans crossing the Atlantic. More coming up. I'm Tristan Hughes, host of the Ancients from History Hit, where twice a week, every week, we delve into our ancient past. I'm joined by leading experts, academics and authors who share incredible stories from our distant history and shine a light on some of antiquity's great questions. Was the Oracle of Delphi really able to see into the future?

The Oracle certainly operated, certainly gave many thousands these prophecies, and they were taken seriously in most cases. What can be discovered from lost civilizations? There was a lot of volcanic activity, and in one of these sites called Kwekoko actually got covered with volcanic flows and the early archaeologists they used dynamite you know to get at this archaeology. And was King Arthur actually real? Ambrosius is far less well known. It looks as if he has got a significant impact on the creation of the Arthur story itself.

You can expect all of this and more from the Ancients on History hit wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings.

Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit.

Wherever you get your podcasts. I was really struck by another group of indigenous people in your book, You Make the Journey. And those are the ones, the rather elite group who go following Cortes' conquest of Mexico and meet the emperor, Charles V. Yes, that's right. In 1521, Cortes, with the aid of the Tlaxcalans, another group of indigenous people, has conquered Tenochtitlan, the Aztec Mexica capital. And he has been setting about establishing his influence, allying with other indigenous groups in Mexico.

And then in 1528, he comes back to Spain for the first time after the invasion. And he brings with him this huge group of people that includes some of the sons of Moctezuma, as well as lords from his successful Tlaxcalan allies, the people who helped the Spanish conquer the Aztec Mexica people. allies, the people who helped the Spanish conquer the Aztec Mexica people. And so these guys are there quite clearly to gain privileges for their families. They've come to Europe. Some of them come like the Tlaxcalans. And again, unfortunately, quite a number succumb to European diseases. But the Tlaxcalan ambassadors gain privileges for their city, the right to be under the crown exclusively and not subject to local rule. They gain coats of arms, the title, the right to be under the crown exclusively and not subject to local rule. They gain coats of arms, the title, the loyal city of Tlaxcala. And the sons of Moctezuma

seem at least one of them and possibly two to live at court and take royal posts and grants. You have this establishment of indigenous nobilities alongside Spanish nobility. And this is something that in this early period is really, really important. This isn't just about conquest, especially in the 16th century, so much European power in the Americas is negotiated. They're having to try and legitimate their presence there. They're having to try and establish their authority. And they're in very small numbers as well. And so an awful lot of what goes on is to do with negotiation. This is how we end up with a Brazilian king at the court of Henry VIII. King, for want of a better word, we don't know what he would have called himself. It seems that he comes as a ruler of his people to meet the ruler of the English,

and they leave in his place a hostage for his safe return. And the king comes, he meets Henry VIII. We know very little about the actual meeting, but we know he spends several months in London, and again, unfortunately, dies. His people, fortunately for the hostage, believe their story and do actually release him. But we think we know Henry VIII and his court really well, but we very rarely imagine him meeting a Brazilian diplomat. It's so interesting that this is a period we think we know really, really well, but there's a whole kind of group of people that has been completely omitted from the popular stories we tell about this period.

It's a very different picture to that of the sort of hugely technologically advanced white man landing on a beach and everyone falling at their feet. Yeah, and I think that's exactly the point for me, is that it's not that I'm the very first person, as I said, ever to notice any of these people. But I think that they've been seen as isolated examples, or as seen as isolated examples or as occasionally as curiosities or examples of European power. But in actual fact, what we have going on is an incredibly complex exchange in which indigenous peoples are powerful agents, as well as very commonly enslaved in European households. They're living alongside Europeans at every level from as early as 1493, when the first Taino people are brought back from the Caribbean.

So it's a case where we just need to start telling the story a little bit differently. I think it's become the case that people accept now that this is not simply a story of European domination, that we ought to focus on indigenous perspectives too, to understand that there is not just one indigenous perspective, but many. As you said, we spoke about the Tlaxcalan alliance with the Spanish, but there are multiple cities all seeking to promote their interests at court in this period across Europe. It's a story with many, many layers. And I think that the really important thing is that we start recognising this as something that happens in Europe, as well as something that happens on the peripheries, that happens in the

colonies. People accept now, I think, that indigenous people have a lot of power and influence and agency and interesting, important influences in colonial history. And now I want us to start talking about this as part of European history as well. What about the perhaps traditionally overlooked area of the union, the partnerships between Spanish and indigenous people, the product of those unions, they carry both traditions within them. Absolutely. And it's very complex because the Tlaxcalans, for example, for a long time were seen as betrayers of the indigenous cause, but they had no common cause with the Aztec Mexica during the Spanish invasion. Rather, they were the ones that were seeking to further their interests and to defeat their old enemies. You also have a lot of intermarriage, some of it consensual,

and some of it very murkily consensual after the invasion. So, Doña Isabel, as she's called, one of the daughters of Moctezuma Tecuchpozin. She has six husbands, four of them after the Spanish invasion. And she becomes the mother of a dynasty, which is incredibly influential in Spain. You can still go to Spain and see the Moctezuma crest in amongst the European architecture. Similarly, one of the daughters of the Inca ruler, who becomes known as Francisca Pizarro, her mother is Inca and is an Inca niusta, an Inca princess. And her father is the conquistador Pizarro. And she's exiled to Spain because they think she might be too influential. And in Spain, she intermarries with another of the Pizarro's and they become an influential family in and around

Trujillo and you can go and see what's called the Palace of the Conquest where there's a relief of her and her husband actually their faces are still visible on the palace people go there to see the figure of Francisco Pizarro the conquistador the square, but just across the way is her face looking almost at him. And for me, this is kind of symbolic of what's going on in this whole story. She's kind of side-eyeing him across the square almost. Her story is off to one side, while his is the one that's being centred. In Spain, how were these indigenous or part indigenous people treated? Did they attract the beginnings of the racism that we're now so familiar with over the centuries that followed? varies so wildly. So people who are enslaved are, of course, treated in a very, very different way to the indigenous nobility. What's quite clear is that the attitudes to heritage are really different to what happens later. So it's much more about whether you're a Christian and whether

you're a noble in this period than it is about the colour of your skin. So we have cases of many indigenous and mestizo, that's mixed heritage nobility, becoming influential at the Spanish court. The Spanish recognise the indigenous nobility as what they call the señores naturales, lords of the land, and so they seek to ally with them and to use them rather than to oppress them. That said, they also enslave millions of indigenous people. Andres Resendez has estimated that a million people were enslaved in Central America and the Caribbean before 1600. And that is a part of the story that's often forgotten. After 1542, you're not supposed to be able to enslave people though. The idea is that all indigenous people are vassals of the crown, they're potential

Christians, and so you can't go around just enslaving them. Before 1542, there are justifications by which you can enslave people. Supposedly, just war is one of them. Being a cannibal is the second, supposedly just war is one of them. Being a cannibal is the second. And then the third is a thing called rescate, which basically means rescuing someone from a worse fate. Now, the problem with having justifications, of course, is that it means what happens is that Europeans go around the place finding these justifications everywhere. But after 1542, the new laws, as they're called, come into place in the Americas. They cause a big controversy. There's a revolt in Peru and the viceroy has his head pulled around on a string. And so in Mexico, they suspend them because they see what happens. But in Spain,

the laws are implemented, which say that, in theory at least, indigenous people should not be enslaved under any circumstances. And you see indigenous people appearing in the courts, appealing for their freedom with the support of Spaniards. It does seem that the crown is quite serious about freeing indigenous people in this period, about the fact that they're potential converts. The Valadolid debates in 1550 to 51 are all about the Spanish crown literally suspends invasions and further conquests in order to debate whether the indigenous people have true rights. Now, you might say that this is all theoretical, but it does seem to be genuinely implemented. And there's a real distinction made between people of African descent, Black people in Europe, and between Indigenous peoples, to the extent that Nancy

Van Dusen, a colleague of mine, uncovered an incredible case of a woman who pretends to be Indio, Indigenous, as it's called in the sources, in order to try and gain her freedom and she's actually of African descent she's a mixed black and white woman but what happens is that she eventually under torture admits this so racism very much is present but there are gradations and your status really really matters in this world both where you come your heritage, and then also your social status. So unsurprisingly, the more elite you are, the less your race, as we've come to call it later, matters. Caroline Dospinot, that was amazing. As ever, you've made me think so differently about this period. Thank you very much indeed. What is your book called?

My book is called On Savage Shores, How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe. I have read that book, folks. It's very good. Please go out and buy it and buy one for your friend. Thank you very much, Caroline. Thank you so much. you