The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World
The Spanish-Indian relationship can be defined in many
ways. One definition used is through the Black Legend and the
White Legend. The interpretation of the Black Legend can
depend on whom you are talking to. The Black Legend speaks of
the Spaniards abusing the Indians and being guilty of much
more misconduct than history has ever recorded. The White
Legend speaks of how the Spaniards benefitted the Indian
society by building communities, hospitals and spreading the
Word of God. There are two reasons why the Spaniards were so
intent on spreading the Gospel. The first is because Spain
wanted to ensure political and military means of safety and
independence of their own religious community and even more so
their predominance over others. The second was a deeper
desire to convert, which included appealing to the minds and
hearts of individual unbelievers by preaching, reasoning and
if needed by force (Plumb 152).
The conquest of the new world began with a small band of
Spanish soldiers. The soldiers proceeded to march against and
subdue the huge population of the mainland (Black 24). The
Black Legend speaks of all that the Spanish had done to the
Indians and the horrible things done to them and the land.
This Black Legend exists only in areas where the people are
"anti-Hispanic" especially where English is spoken, and in
modern Spanish America (24).
The White Legend is true only in reverse. The people who
claim to believe in this Legend hold to the belief that the
Spanish were a credit to society and help the Indians in their
everyday lives by providing livestock and new medici...
... middle of paper ...
... they had never intended to live. They were forced
to lose their families in the name of the Spanish crown and
the Spanish crown had only a vague knowledge of what was
really happening in the new world. Which one, whether Black
or White Legend, a person believes will have to depend on
their own personal view of the truth.
Bibliography
Gibson, Charles. The Black Legend: Anti-Spanish Attitudes
in the Old World and the new. New York: Knopf 1971.
--------- Spain in America. New York: Harper 1966.
--------- Spanish Tradition in America. Ny: Harper 1968.
Haring, C.H. The Spanish Empire in America. New York: Oxford
1947.
Ludenfeld, Marvin. 1492 Discovery Invasion Encounter. Massachussets: 1991.
Plumb, J.H. The Spanish Seaborne Empire. New York: Knopf 1966.
Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Conquest of Paradise. New York: Plume
1990.
The article, “Native Reactions to the invasion of America”, is written by a well-known historian, James Axtell to inform the readers about the tragedy that took place in the Native American history. All through the article, Axtell summarizes the life of the Native Americans after Columbus acquainted America to the world. Axtell launches his essay by pointing out how Christopher Columbus’s image changed in the eyes of the public over the past century. In 1892, Columbus’s work and admirations overshadowed the tears and sorrows of the Native Americans. However, in 1992, Columbus’s undeserved limelight shifted to the Native Americans when the society rediscovered the history’s unheard voices and became much more evident about the horrific tragedy of the Natives Indians.
In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.
Keen, Benjamin. 1969. The Black Legend Revisited: Assumptions and realities. The Hispanic American Historical Review. volume 49. no. 4
Hino, R. (2013, September 25). Hospital Strategic Plans Must Go Beyond the Status Quo. Retrieved from http://www.hospitalimpact.org/index.php/2013/09/25/p4358
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