The Black Legend in Spain William of Orange once stated, “Spain committed such horrible excesses that all the barbarities, cruelties, and tyrannies ever perpetrated before are only games in comparison to what happened to the poor Indians.” This statement is an example of an attempt to discredit the Spanish. Attempts such as these are known as the Black Legend. The Black Legend was the name given to the concept of cruelty and brutality spread by the Spanish during the 14th and 15th century. This legend demonizes Spain and specifically the Spanish empire in an effort to harm the reputation of them. It was through this propaganda that made other countries look down upon the Spanish empire. The Black Legend threw discredit upon the rule of the Spanish by building biases and prejudices against Catholicism and the Spanish treatment of the natives of South America. The Black Legend mainly exaggerated the treatment of the native people in the regions of the Spanish Empire and non-Catholic people such as Protestants and Jews in its European territories. The Black Legend was an anti-Spanish movement, which was started due to political and religious reasons by Northern European Protestant countries who were Spain’s enemies in order to discredit them. The Black Legend had a very powerful negative effect on the image of Spain. It, along with Spain’s unwillingness to change their ways, led to their downfall, as suggested by historian Anthony Pagden. “The image of the Spanish Empire changed, however, not because the Empire itself changed, but very largely because it failed to.” The Black Legend began to ruin Spain’s reputation to an irreversible extent and king Phillip III didn’t help Spain’s situation, as stated by historian Ch... ... middle of paper ... ...Spain in the Age of Exploration, Seattle Art Museum, 2004 Keen, Benjamin. 1969. The Black Legend Revisited: Assumptions and realities. The Hispanic American Historical Review. volume 49. no. 4 Mintz, S. (2007). The Black Legend, Digital History. Retrieved October 12th 2011 from, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=197 Pagden, Anthony, Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990, Retamar, Roberto Fernandez. “Against the Black Legend.” Ideologies and Literature 2.10 (1979) Theodor de Bry, SPANISH KILLING NATIVE AMERICANS (1596). Courtesy of WorldArt Kiosk/Kathleen Cohen. http://www.lehigh.edu/~ejg1/doc/lascasas/casas.htm Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America. NY: HarperCollins, 1984. http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/archive.html?f_itemNumber=1773&return=14-3
In Matthew Restall’s book The Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, he argues that many of the widely accepted modern beliefs about the Spanish Conquest are misguided or skewed. These myths more importantly show how dependent history is on the perspective of the one who is writing it, and how the writer perceives the events happening around them. One example, is the myth of white Spaniards going to a foreign land on the decree of a king and finding barbarous natives who are inferior to these so-called great men. Using documentation written from both sides, and taking into account the context of the time period, Restall explores the myths of the Spanish Conquest in order to frame a less romanticized, well-rounded view of what actually happened
The passage from Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s The True History of the Conquest of New Spain is a clear example of a narrative source. Díaz is presenting his personal account of Hernan Cortes’s expedition into Tenochtitlan. An interesting aspect of this narrative is that it was written almost 50 years after the events described occurred . Bernal Díaz del Castillo was only 24 years old when on November 8, 1519 he and the rest of Hernán Cortés’s expedition first entered the city of Tenochtitlán . He did not finish his account, titled The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, which many suspect was intended as a slight to Francisco López de Gómara’s accounts of the expeditions , until 1567 . This was not his first travel to the New World, in fact, it was his fourth . Díaz del Castillo was 19 years old the first time he traveled to the Americas, this time was to Panama . Díaz later became a governor in Guatemala, mostly as a reward for his actions as a conquistador . The event that is commonly seen as spurring the not-well-educated Bernal Díaz del Castillo to write of his experiences with Cortés was the publication of Francisco López de Gómara’s Coleccion de historiadores primitivos de las Indias Occidentales, which Díaz saw as seriously flawed and underappreciating the work of the conquistadors . The book this passage comes from languished on shelves until it was published in 1632, posthumously .
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The Spanish defeat of the Aztecs has been extensively criticized for many years. Religion was a motive for discovery, enabled the Spanish to enter the heart of the empire, and was used as justification for torture of the natives. The centrality of religion as a force in Spanish conquest is undeniable. Virtually all of Aztec culture was destroyed and the Spanish victory has had lasting effects for both natives and Europeans up to and including the present-day.
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Many people misconstrue the harmful and beneficial arrival of the Europeans in the New World. The Spanish black legend is an idea that criticizes the Spanish for their harsh treatment and exploitation towards the Native Americans. The Spanish are known for killing, stealing, and infecting the Native Americans which is all true, however the Spanish also brought culture, religion, plants, animals, and ideas. People and ideas contributed to the notion of the Black Legend.
Boser, Ulrich. "The Black Man's Burden." U.S. News & World Report 133.8 (2002): 50. Academic
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Many people have heard of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. However, only some know of all the things they accomplished. They might be best known for funding the voyages of Christopher Columbus, but they also greatly contributed to the unity of Spain (“Isabella l”). Together, they brought many kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula together to form what Spain is today. Through Spain’s unification, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella strengthened Spain into an economic and dominant world power, enabling the spread of Christianity and the colonization of a New World.
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