To the Land of the Mistogoches: American Indians Traveling to Europe in the Age of Exploration

Abstract

Tlhey had observed that there were men amongst us, full and gorged with all kinds of good things, and that their [compatriots] were begging at their doors, emaciated with hunger and poverty; and that they thought it strange how these havenots could suffer such injustice, and that they did not seize the others by the throat or set fires to their houses." -Montaigne writing about the observations of Tupinambh visiting Rouen, 1562lBy the time English Pilgrims sailing on the Mayflower landed on the shore of Massachusetts in 1620, perhaps as many as two thousand American Indians had already made the passage to Western Europe.= About two-thirds went as captives, usually sold as slaves, but, of these unfortunates, almost all went to Europe before 1500 A. D. Although Indian slaving continued afterwards, few of the subsequent transatlantic voyages with Indians on board involved people destined for the slave markets of Spain and Portugal. Indeed, the vast majority of the voyages after 1500 A. D. were made by American Indians who traveled for other reasonsas adventurers, envoys, sightseers, or performers. As far as weHarald Prins is a professor of anthropology at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. He has been a researcher for the Micmac Indians since 1981 and has produced a documentary about them. His case study of the tribe will be published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

“Our Amazing Visitors”: Catherine Cartwright’s Account of Labrador Inuit in England

“…Amerindians and Inuit were put on display, often traveling from city to city, and were featured in European newspapers and broadsheets that described their dress, physical shape, tattooing and other bodily decoration, and cultural paraphernalia. Some of our earliest descriptions of aboriginal peoples stem from such circumstances (Foreman, 1943;Sturtevant, 1980;Dickason, 1984;Sturtevant and Quinn, 1989;Prins, 1993;Feest, 1999). Cartwright held to a centuries-old tradition when he put his party of Inuit on display in London for a time and "had so many applications for admittance" that he was forced to rent larger premises (Cartwright, 1792, Vol.…”

Transatlantic Indians in the Early Modern Era

“…An example of the former, which actually does not even cite Foreman, is Prins, ‘To the Land of the Mistigoches’.…”

Cultural Encounters: Americans and Europeans

“…One scholar has estimated that perhaps 1,600 Americans visited Europe by the early seventeenth century (Prins 1993). One scholar has estimated that perhaps 1,600 Americans visited Europe by the early seventeenth century (Prins 1993).…”