La Leyenda Negra

The Black Legend (Spanish: La leyenda negra) is the depiction of Spain and Spaniards as bloodthirsty and cruel, intolerant, greedy and fanatical. The Black Legend is evident in works by early Protestant historians describing the period of dominant Spanish Imperialism, many also see its influences in the villains and storylines of modern fiction and film.

There is an excellent, and more lengthy overview of the “legend” at http://www.catholicleague.org/research/blacklegend.htm.

I broach this topic today as it is the feast of Saint Martin De Porres, the first black saint from the Americas. Also because the Dominicans dropped a prohibition against blacks becoming brothers to admit him to their order, in the early 1600’s!

This is quite an enlightened undertaking for the supposedly bloodthirsty “Spanish Imperialists.” Clearly there were gross personal sins against native populations, Martin was himself the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman, Juan, and a young freed black slave, Anna Velasquez, who was forced to grow up in poverty as his father apparently abandoned he and his mother.

Nonetheless, as early as 1537 his Holiness, Pope Paul III, in an encyclical entitled Sublimus Dei,  , affirmed:

“that the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it.”

(see: http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_pa03sd.htm)

What the English and Dutch Protestant propagandists of the 1500's and 1600's did to Spain, the modern media is doing to Holy Mother Church today.

We are supposedly chained to a “medieval mindset,’ opposed to science, and the equality of women. What was bunk 500 years ago is still bunk.

Comments

[Comandante Agi]

There’s no need for historical revisionism--both Protestants and Catholics were cruel towards Native Americans and both Christian sects exploited Africans for their labor.

The English and Dutch couldn’t have spread tales of Spanish cruelty if the Spanish weren’t cruel in the first place. While Pope Paul III was writing that Native Americans were fully human his disciples were busy slaughtering the peoples of the New World. Other popes outright encouraged the conquest of the Americas calling it a “just war” against infidels.

Thanks to the writings of Bartoleme de Las Casas we know how cruel, merciless and un-Christian the Spaniards behaved towards the peoples they encountered. Hell, the Spanish perfected torture during the Inquisition. They just continued this tradition into the New World. By the late 1500s Las Casas’ work had been translated into English and was widely read. This gave the Protestants ample material to use in their propaganda campaign against Spain’s empire while Sir Francis Drake pillaged Spanish ports in the Caribbean and “liberated” the natives.

To put it succinctly, there were no “good guys” during this period. Everyone involved has fault – except a few virtuous folks like Las Casas.

[A Simple Sinner]

GREAT INFO.

Amazing to me is that most kids in "Catholic" School get the same nonsense as their public school bretheren. Going to "Catholic" school K-12, I had always been taught about this as a dark time...

Years later I read some more accurate histories of the Spanish Inqusisition. And then read some histories of the Northern European witch burnings. Do some research...

I find history generaly vindicates the Catholic Church. Not all moments were noble, but historians need to compare apples to apples! Certainly in history we do have more than a few bad apples - but let's compare the Catholic situation to the rest of the world at any given point.

How many spiritual descendants are their among people with native ancestory are there in New England today? How many in Mexico?

[jeffersonranch]

Knowing the lack of truth in current affairs can anyone claim all written history is the truth. Humans are flawed and will continue to be. One thing for sure if all historical sins need to be paid for, what human will be the one to say the debt has been paid.

[A Simple Sinner]

ok...

[Rob]

To Comandante Agi:

Just by mentioning Bartolome de las Casas, you have invalidated your point. His writings show that there was an open and active resistance to all forms of attrocities toward the natives. The Dominicans of the time were very active in pleading the case for fair treatment. Sure, there were problems, but the Historians who propagated the Black Legend have been documented to have exaggerated or even created bogus statistics.
The difference between the English and the Spanish approach is this: The English just conquered the people and took their land--the Spanish (and more to a greater extent the French) married the people they found, and learned to live side by side with them.