The 'Black Legend' (
Spanish: '''La Leyenda Negra''') is a term coined by
Julián Juderías in his 1914 book ''La leyenda negra y la verdad histórica'' (''The Black Legend and Historical Truth''), to describe the unfair and biased depiction of
Spain and
Spaniards as "cruel", "intolerant" and "fanatical" in anti-Spanish pamphlets and books starting in the 16th century. The Black Legend propaganda is said to be influenced by national and religious rivalries as seen in works by early
Protestant historians and Anglo Saxon writers, describing the period of
Spanish imperialism in a deliberately negative way. Other examples of the Black Legend are said to be the
historical revision of the Inquisition, and in the villains and storylines of modern fiction and film.
The Black Legend and the nature of
Spanish colonization of the Americas including contributions to civilization in Spain's colonies have also been discussed by Spanish writers, from
Gongora's ''Soledades'' until the
Generation of '98. Inside Spain, the Black Legend has also been used by regionalists of
non-Castilian regions of Spain as a political weapon against the central government or Spanish nationalism. Modern historians and some political parties have countered with the 'White Legend', in an attempt to describe Spain's history in a more neutral and balanced way. The White Legend is sometimes mistakenly associated with Spanish
Nationalistic politics and with the regime of dictator
Francisco Franco.
Definition
The creator of the term,
Julián Juderías, described it in 1914 in his book ''La Leyenda Negra''
[Juderías, Julián, ''La Leyenda Negra'' (2003; 1st Edition of 1914) ISBN 84-9718-225-1] as
The second classic work on the topic is ''Historia de la Leyenda Negra hispanoamericana'' (History of the Hispanoamerican Black Legend),
[Carbia, Rómulo D., ''Historia de la leyenda negra hispano-americana'' (2004; 1st Ed. 1943) ISBN 84-95379-89-9] by
Rómulo D. Carbia. While Juderías dealt more with the beginnings of the legend in Europe, the Argentine Carbia concentrated on America. Thus, Carbia gave a broader definition of the concept:
After Juderías and Carbia, many other authors have defined and employed the concept.
Philip Wayne Powell, in his book ''Tree of Hate'', also defines the Black Legend:
One recent author, Fernández Álvarez, has defined a Black Legend more broadly:
Elements of the Legend
Expulsion of the Jews and Muslims
The
expulsion of the Jews and Muslims in 1492 has often been quoted as an example of the Spaniards' religious
intolerance, but Jews had been
expelled from other European countries before (including
England in 1290.) Indeed recent scholarly research such as by Henry Kamen estimates that at least half converted and stayed and the numbers involved was a fraction of those traditionally claimed by Spain's enemies.
The Spanish Inquisition and religious intolerance, Catholic Spain
The
Inquisition has always been one of the main parts of the Black Legend. Its incorporation into the legend dates from the 16th century, when it was first criticised by, amongst others, two Protestant authors: the Englishman
John Foxe, a polemicist who published the ''
Book of Martyrs'' in 1554, and the Spaniard
Reginaldo González de Montes, author of ''Exposición de algunas mañas de la Santa Inquisición Española'' (''Exposition of some methods of the Holy Spanish Inquisition'') (1567).
The
legend depicts the
Spanish Inquisition as cruel and bloodthirsty. The image of moats, chains, cries and rooms of torture is inseparably attached to it. Thousands of Jews, Muslims,
Protestants and anyone who had fallen from favour would then have been cruelly tortured and finally murdered in the dungeons of a Catholic institution by
Dominican friars.
Legally, the inquisition only had jurisdiction over Catholics - as pointed out by its apologists both at the time and later. It never claimed authority over openly practicing Jews or Muslims, and hence never persecuted them. The problem was and remains who should be defined as being "A Catholic" in this context.
In the view of the inquisition - and of the Church in general - any person who had been baptized was a Catholic, once and for all; the sacrament of baptism was irreversible, even if enacted under duress and the threat of death (as was the case, for example, with numerous baptisms during the anti-Jewish riots of
1391). A baptized person secretly practicing Jewish or Muslim customs was a Catholic culpable of a grave
heresy and punishable as such, under Spanish law as it stood at the time. Legally, the inquisition was indeed doing nothing more than the task entrusted to it, namely keeping guard over Catholics' orthodoxy and rooting out heresy; a secret Jew was just as culpable as a secret Protestant or a secret holder of any doctrine contrary to the Church's teachings, no more and no less.
However, from the Jewish point of view - as still expressed, for example, in the school curriculums of contemporary
Israel - such persons, the
Marranos, were Jews who had been forced to adopt the outward seeming of an alien faith, who courageously maintained secretly their true identity, and whose persecution by the inquisition was therefore a persecution of Jews by Christians. Muslims, too, hold a similar view of the matter.
The Inquisition was also in violation of modern
Enlightenment concepts of
human rights.
Spanish colonization of the Americas
Main articles: Spanish colonization of the Americas
The European colonization of the Americas disrupted the civilization of
indigenous peoples of the Americas and used African
slaves for their plantations in the
New world. The Spanish conquered vast areas of North, Central and South America, and were initially also involved in the Atlantic slave trade. However, the aims and philosphy of Spanish colonization were different from those of her European contenders.
One of Spain's primary endeavours was to bring
Christianity to the native peoples of America. Kings such as
Philip II allocated important resources to sending missionaries and building churches in America and the
Philippines, because they considered it a divine mission. This religious objective was quite unique among European powers, and clearly diferentiates Spanish colonial policy. Another major difference is the early Spanish recognition of native people's rights, due to Spaniards' own critiques of colonial policies, particularly the works of the
School of Salamanca and the first-hand account of
Dominican friar
Bartolomé de las Casas. By contrast, British and Dutch colonial expansion largely sought trade and natural ressources, and did not carry this religious or moral component.
Worth mentioning is the important academic work conducted by Spanish missionaries and friars on native cultures and languages, very rare in the colonies of other European powers. These works are considered valuable material by modern scholars, as they are the only first-hand sources on native American life and culture, described by Europeans. Spain and Portugal also approved and even encouraged
interracial marriages in their colonies, whereas British and Dutch authorities banned them and considered them immoral. As a result, the native peoples in many British colonies were marginalized, expelled and even killed in large numbers. This explains the very small contemporary populations of
American indians or
Australian aborigines, practically confined to reservations and often excluded from urban life. In former Spanish and Portuguese colonies however, the absence of such (arguably racist) policies has led to large
mestizo populations, which are a majority in most Latin American countries nowadays.
The Black Legend created anti-Spanish propaganda based on exaggerated interpretations of colonial history, which ignored the basic differences between both types of colonization. British and Dutch writers even emphasized the northern countries' preference for "
settler colonialism" versus the more "military" Spanish colonialism, an argument with very little historical base.
Origin
From the 13th century, the
Crown of Aragon dominated
Naples and
Sicily, laying the foundations for a widespread resentment of
Aragonese dominance. The reputation of the
Aragonese pope,
Alexander VI Borgia, assumed an almost mythical
villainy. Countless legends and traditions attached to his name, and Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere dismissed him as, "Catalan,
marrano and
circumcised".
According to
Sverker Arnoldsson, Italian criticisms of the Spanish derived not only from economic and political concerns, but also from prejudices over culture. Sverker Arnoldson also states that with the insults by the Italian pope, Paul IV, the Italians demonstrated an inferiority complex in the face of a victorious, conquering and powerful neighbor nation.
In his book ''Tree of Hate'',
Philip Wayne Powell describes how the Black Legend developed in different European countries, such as Germany, France, Holland and England. This development is put down to the reaction against Spanish supremacy in Europe and the New World, which was influenced by the emergence of Protestantism - and even by the rise of Nordicism - in an effort to counter the power of the Spanish-dominated southern part of the continent.
Sources
16th century
Exaggerated and lurid accounts of the Roman Catholic
Inquisition in Spain were, in the 16th century (a time of great
Protestant-Catholic strife) and still today, principal sources for the anti-Spanish Black Legend. The Inquisition had existed in many European countries before it came to Spain. It had existed in the Kingdom of Aragon for some two centuries but not in Castile until the year 1480 when the Catholic Monarchs,
Isabel I of Castile and
Ferdinand II of Aragon, requested its establishment throughout Spain with the
converso and Dominican friar,
Tomás de Torquemada, as its first Inquisitor General, primarily to investigate and punish Judaizing ''
conversos'', Jews who had converted to
Roman Catholicism but had continued practicing their religion in secret.
Some of the strongest and earliest support for the Legend came from two Protestants: the
Englishman John Foxe, author of the ''
Book of Martyrs'' (1554), and the Spaniard
Reginaldo González de Montes, author of the ''
Exposición de algunas mañas de la Santa Inquisición Española'' (''Exposition of some vices of the Spanish Inquisition'', 1567). Another early source from which the Black Legend drew support was
Girolamo Benzoni's ''Historia nuovo'' (''New History''), first published in
Venice in 1565.
Support for the Black Legend comes from published self-criticism from within Spain itself. As early as 1511, some Spaniards criticized the legitimacy of the
Spanish colonization of the Americas. In 1552, the
Dominican friar
Bartolomé de las Casas published his famous ''Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias'' (''
A Very Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies''), a polemical account of the abuses that accompanied the colonization of New Spain, and especially the island of
Hispaniola (now home to the
Dominican Republic and
Haiti). In the section regarding Hispaniola, Las Casas compares the indigenous
Arawaks to tame ewes and writes that when he arrived in 1508, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it."
[1] The work of Las Casas was first cited in English with the 1583 publication ''The Spanish Colonie, or Brief Chronicle of the Actes and Gestes of the Spaniards in the West Indies'', at a time when England and Spain were preparing for war in the Netherlands. Many scholars agree that Las Casas's population figures are exaggerated.
The
Duke of Alba's actions in the
United Provinces contributed to the Black Legend. Sent in August 1567 to stamp out heresy and political unrest in a part of Europe where printing presses were a constant source of heterodox opinion, one of Alba's first acts was to gain control of the book industry. In a single year, several printers were banished and at least one was executed. Book sellers and printers were raided in the search for
banned books, many more of which were added to the ''
Index Librorum Prohibitorum''. In 1576 Spanish troops attacked and pillaged
Antwerp, over three days that came to be known as "
The Spanish Fury". The soldiers rampaged through the city, killing and looting; they demanded money from citizens and burned the homes of those who refused to (or could not) pay.
Plantin's printing establishment was threatented with destruction three times but was saved each time when a ransom was paid. Antwerp was economically devastated by the attack, and Plantin's business suffered. Such facts similar to German rampages in the
sack of Rome (1527) were enlarged upon to enhance the Black Legend.
Other critics of Spain included
Antonio Pérez, the fallen secretary of King
Philip II of Spain. Pérez fled to England, where he published attacks upon the
Spanish monarchy under the title ''Relaciones'' (1594).
These books were extensively used by the Dutch during their
fight for independence from Spain, and taken up by the
English to justify their piracy and wars against the Spanish. Foxe's book was among Sir
Francis Drake's favourites; Drake himself was and is regarded by the Spaniards as a cruel and bloodthirsty pirate. The two northern nations were not only emerging as Spain's rivals for worldwide colonialism, but were also strongholds of
Protestantism while Spain was the most powerful
Roman Catholic country of the period.
The Enlightenment
Guillaume Thomas François Raynal published, in 1770, his most important work, ''L'Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes'' (''The philosophical and political history of the establishments and commerce of Europeans in the two Indies'', that is to say the
East Indies and the
West Indies).
Also during
the Enlightenment, the imprisonment and death of Don Carlos inspired the blank verse play ''Don Carlos, Infant v. Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Prince of Spain'', 1787), by
Friedrich Schiller, and later the opera ''
Don Carlos'' by
Giuseppe Verdi.
Romantic travellers
In the 19th century, many writers, such as
Washington Irving,
Prosper Mérimée,
George Sand, and
Theophile Gautier, invented a mythical
Andalusia. In their writings, Spain is converted into the Orient of the Western World (''Africa begins in the
Pyrenees''), an exotic country full of
brigands, economic underdevelopment,
Gypsies,
ignorance,
machismo,
matadores,
Moors,
passion, political chaos, poverty and fanatical religiosity.
In classical music,
Georges Bizet with
Carmen (1875) and
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov with
Capriccio espagnol (1887) contributed to this theme.
The Black Legend in fiction
Charles Kingsley's popular historical romance of 1855, ''
Westward Ho!'', draws its inspiration from the Black Legend: the buccaneering hero sets out from Elizabethan England to defeat the Spanish at sea and on land; the Spanish characters are vain, arrogant and cruel.
Edmund Spenser's
Faerie Queene has a strong Black Legend component in Book Five. Arthur and Artegall's joint victory over the cruel Souldan and his forces in Canto VIII can be seen as an allegorical recreation of the English defeat of the Spaniards at the time of the
Spanish Armada.
Charles de Coster's
The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak (
French title ''La Légende et les Aventures héroïques, joyeuses et glorieuses d'Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak au pays de Flandres et ailleurs'') of 1867 depicts the
Dutch War of Independence in an extremely partisan manner, though it was an event nearly three centuries old at the time of writing. Spaniards are depicted throughout the book as cruel, rapcious and fanatic, and tortures by the
Inquisition are described in graphic detail - followed by a scene in Heaven where God consigns the Spanish perpetrators to ever-lasting damnation in Hell. In particular, King
Philip II of Spain is depicted in the book is a total caricature, a vicious moron with not the slightest redeeming feature.
The novel, comics and films about
El Zorro have also contributed to the legend by showing Spanish officials as corrupt, lazy and cruel.
In one can find several clichés concerning the Black Legend.
The Spanish Civil War
While the
Spanish Civil War in 1936-1939 aroused among the international Left and Right strong waves of support and admiration for the corresponding sides in Spain, there was a considerable part of international public opinion that disapproved of both sides in the civil war. For them, the widespread atrocity stories emanating from Spain (and often exaggerated as part of both sides' war propaganda) were taken as a new proof of the supposed inherent brutality of all Spaniards, whatever their politics. This was reinforced by the statements of Spaniards who chose to sit out the war in exile, expressing disgust with both sides.
Other uses of the term ''Black Legend''
The term ''Black Legend'' has been also used outside Spain. It can be referred to any person/organization/situation/period in history presented (according to the user of the term) unfairly in popular culture. Examples can be
Richard III in England,
Cardinal Richelieu in France,
Golden Liberty in Poland and many others.
White Legend
The term "white legend" refers to attempts to describe Spain's history as gentler, more virtuous, and generally better than that of other European countries. It is associated with Nationalistic politics and with the regime of dictator Francisco Franco.
Proponents of the White Legend argue that the Spanish Inquisition was no worse than -- or even better than -- practices in other parts of Europe, such as the suppression of Catharism in France, the Inquisition compares favorably with French Wars of Religion, Oliver Cromwell's conquest of Ireland, and the witch hunts in many Protestant countries.
Similarly, these advocates tend to explain the "The Spanish Fury" or the sack of Rome, emphasizing that troops of Habsburg Spain were composed by many different European nationalities and ethnicities under “fragile” Spanish command. They charge that Belgian, Italian or German rampages were enlarged upon and attributed to Spanish soldiers in order to enhance the anti-Spanish Black Legend.
Henry Kamen argues that Spain does not deserve blame for the actions of the Spanish Empire. According to his book, the Spanish Empire was a multinational enterprise, incorporating armaments from Milan, Genoese and German bankers, foreign sailors, German and Italian soldiers, Native American allies, and English and Chinese merchants.
The White Legend argues that the conquest of the Americas was relatively benign. The White Legend emphasizes that Cortés's army consisted largely of Native American enemies of the Aztec Empire, and credits accounts of Aztec human sacrifice and cannibalism. Supporters of the White Legend claim that the demographics of much of Latin America today contradict claims that Spain destroyed or suppresses native populations and cultures. Furthermore, the demographic collapse which occurred in the Americas upon the conquest was mainly due to diseases imported from Europe which would have been transmitted even if the English or French, rather than the Spaniards, had been the first to arrive into the Americas.
The White Legend also emphasizes the role of other European nations in the
trans-Atlantic slave trade. The defenders of this point of view argue that Spain was prohibited by the Pope from taking part in such activities, together with the fact it would be in breach of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the world outside of Europe in an exclusive duopoly between the Spanish and the Portuguese, assigning Africa to Portugal.
Critics of The White Legend counter that it downplays the Spanish role as purchasers and users of slaves in the Americas in the
Atlantic slave trade, the treatment of
Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and the taking of resources from
New Spain during the period known as the
Spanish Golden Age. They also point out that much of the cruel treatment of indigenous peoples and the destruction of their culture was documented by
Hernan Cortez's and
Francisco Pizzaro's own men, who had no reason to soil the reputation of the Spanish empire by creating false charges of cruelty. The Conquistadores were much more likely to exaggerate their accounts of barbaric rituals performed by the indigenous people in order to justify their actions.
[1]
See also
★
Anti-Catholicism
★
Bullfighting
★
Encomienda
★
Colonial mentality
★
Hispanic culture in the Philippines
★
History of the west coast of North America
★
Lucrezia Borgia
★
New Laws
★
Philip II of Spain
★
Antonio Pérez (Secretary of king Philip II of Spain)
★
Population history of American indigenous peoples
★
Slavery
★
Spanish Armada
★
Spanish colonization of the Americas
★
Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire
★
Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
★
Spanish conquest of Yucatán
★
Spanish culture
★
Spanish Empire
★
Spanish Inquisition
★
The Inquisition myth
★
Valladolid debate
Notes
1. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1080737
References
★ Kamen, Henry, ''Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492-1763''. New York: HarperCollins. 2003. ISBN 0-06-093264-3
★ Powell, Philip Wayne, ''Tree Of Hate: Propaganda and Prejudices Affecting United States Relations With The Hispanic World''. Basic Books, New York, 1971, ISBN 0-465-08750-7.
★ Maltby, William S., ''The Black Legend in England''. Duke University Press, Durham, 1971, ISBN 0-8223-0250-0.
★ Julian Lock, ''How Many Tercios Has the Pope?' The Spanish War and the Sublimation of Elizabethan Anti-Popery,'' History, 81, 1996.
★ M. G. Sanchez, ''Anti-Spanish Sentiment in English Literary and Political Writing, 1553-1603'' (Phd Diss; University of Leeds, 2004)
★ Frank Ardolino, Apocalypse and Armada in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Studies, 1995).
★ Sverker Arnoldsson, 'La Leyenda Negra: Estudios Sobre Sus Orígines,' Göteborgs Universitets Årsskrift, 66:3, 1960
★ Eric Griffin, 'Ethos to Ethnos: Hispanizing 'the Spaniard' in the Old World and the New,' The New Centennial Review, 2:1, 2002.
★ Andrew Hadfield, 'Late Elizabethan Protestantism, Colonialism and the Fear of the Apocalypse,' Reformation, 3, 1998.
External links
★
Immigration and the curse of the Black Legend
★
The Shadow of the Black Legend in John Smith's ''Generall Historie of Virginia'', by Eric Griffin
★
''Myth and Reality: The Legacy of Spain in America'' by Jesus J. Chao
★
'Before, During and After the Armada: England's Changing Attitudes to Spain, 1588-1598' , by M. G. Sanchez
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