Joined: 31 May 2005 {Posts: 66 } Location: South Carolina
Posted: Fri 17 Jun 2005 23:27 Post subject: Leyendra Negra
Has anyone heard of the Black Legend or in Spanish, La Leyandra Negra? It was written about the atrocities and the cruelties of the Spanish Empire. I believe that it was written from a British point of view, which is interesting since England and Spain were enemies. How cruel or benevolent really were the Spaniards towards the Indians and Africans or did that also depend on the country? Could someone also tell me of the White Legend, or Leyendra Blanca, of Spain?
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Sat 18 Jun 2005 03:01 Post subject: Re: Leyendra Negra
gera2561 wrote:
Has anyone heard of the Black Legend or in Spanish, La Leyandra Negra? It was written about the atrocities and the cruelties of the Spanish Empire. I believe that it was written from a British point of view, which is interesting since England and Spain were enemies. How cruel or benevolent really were the Spaniards towards the Indians and Africans or did that also depend on the country? Could someone also tell me of the White Legend, or Leyendra Blanca, of Spain?
Hi,
(I will give you my oppinion. Please see references at the end)
I am Latin American, so I have a point of view that is different from both British and Spaniards about the Black Legend of Spain. I believe we have something to say because we are descendents of both the invaded people and of the invasors.
(1) To understand Spain mind one has to go 700 years before contact to the Moors' invasion of the Iberian peninsulae. It was the resistence to the Muslims which make the Spaniard both a warrior and a faithfull Catholic. The devotion to Saint James (Santiago) -a saint that appeared in the battlefields sword in hand, taking out Moors' heads- explain very much the attitude of that people.
Spaniards had a goal in mind: kick the Moors out of Spain and make converts of as much people as they could. That was one of the main reasons they conquered America. For money, of course, but also for glory. For them that was important and it is impossible to understand their minds if one don't accept that fact.
(2) When Spain conquered the Americas they looked for gold because one reason: most of the financing was private. Those campains had to produce utilities and pay by itselves. That's why they were desperated looking for God. However, they never forgot their main goal was to capture souls, and they worked very hard to convert natives to Christianity.
(3) Most of the first waves of Spaniards were young people. Professional soldiers that had expend most their lives fighting. They start in the army at 12 years old, and the one that survived were very coragious indeed; people without fear and without consideration for the human being. They were accustumed to kill people in Europe, so they it did not make difference for them when they arrived to the Americas.
(4) In the Americas the first wave of conquerors commited many crimes. That's very well documented indeed. However, it is not fair to say that they were blind at what they did. There were not massive genocides, as the British pretend, but an endless chain of wars they have to fight from the beginning.
(5) In the wars of conquest, most of the people that fought for the Spaniards where Native Americans. The Spaniards intermarry with the women of those allies and formed with them the base of the future people of the Americas. The captains marry the chiefs daughters, and the common soldier the common native. That way there was a fusion of "races" but not of classes. That's typically Spanish.
(6) The Spanish crown, starting with Isabel the Catholic, put a lot of presure in defending the human rights of the Indians, or, as was known then, to protect the Indians because they were also Christians. The Church as a whole, and a large number of priest fought to ensure Indian rights.
In fact, the Black Legend itself started because father Las Casas, in order to protect the Natives, not only discribe the crimes he has observed being commited against the Natives, but he also exagerated fact very much. In fact, historians don't take Las Casas very seriously at the present.
(7) The Spaniards suceed defending the Indians. Even today about the 35% of the genetic pool of Latin Americans is Native American (It varies from country to country)
( The extinction of the Tainos of Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is a myth. The Spaniards did not exterminate them after all. Genetics have shown they were asimilated for the general population. Around the 15% of the genetics of those countries is still Taino.
(9) The treatment of the Spanish with the Natives did not stop with the care of them. They make the first vaccination campains in the XVIII century to stop Natives from dying of infection diseases.
(10) In the Americas, Natives where developing arts like Barroque, writting in its Native language, and participating of the business of the Spanish Empire. The special importance was the works of the Jesuits, which is still admired in this side of the world.
(11) Although there were many cases of extreme mistreatment of Blacks in the Spanish Empire, one should not forget that the slaves have more rights there than in other places.
The slave was usually Christian, and that mean they were brothers in faith with the master, and they even pray in the same church at the same time. The slave have the right to be marry legaly and that marriage and its children could not be separate at will by the master. The slave have the right to free themselves by work.
The fact was in the Spanish Empire the number of free Blacks were large, and they intermarry freely with Natives and Hispanics. There were also the Pardos armies that received Blacks and Mulattoes in its ranks.
(12) In the Spanish Empire it was very common an European marry a Native. So much that nobody paid attention. The relation with Blacks was usually less open, but church records show it was not unknown.
(13) For the Spanish mind, the link between the parents and its children is more important than the "race" of them. So, the kid of a Spaniard usually enjoyed all the rights of his father. It was so much so that there are numerous cases of mixed people that migrated to went to Spain.
As the case of Francisca Pizarro, the child of Francisco Pizarro and an Inca Pricess. Or of the writter known as the Inca Garcilazo de la Vega.
(14) Spaniards had a lot of enemies: Protestants, British, the liberators of the Americas, and lately the Comunist historians, etc. All of them has their reason to talk bad about Spain.
Also, most of the pictures that describe the crime of the Spaniards -and that are reproduced in every single "serious" history book- in the Americas were of Dutch origin: the enemies of Spain and a people that treated Indians and Blacks worst than the most evil Spaniard.
The actual truth is that, although not the paradise, the Spanish Empire in the Americas was the best place to be if one was Indian or Black. That's a fact.
Today, Latin Americans continue to feed admiration for the brave Spaniards without forgetting the bad thing they did as well. We feel identified with the Natives very much as well, because they are also our ancestors.
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The extinction of the Tainos of Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is a myth. The Spaniards did not exterminate them after all. Genetics have shown they were asimilated for the general population. Around the 15% of the genetics of those countries is still Taino.