thumb|upright=1.2|alt=See caption|A 1598 Dutch engraving by [[Theodor de Bry depicting a Spaniard feeding slain Indigenous American women and children to his dogs. De Bry's works are characteristic of anti-Spanish propaganda which resulted from the Eighty Years' War.]]
The Black Legend () or the Spanish Black Legend () is a purported historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Its proponents argue that its roots date back to the 16th century, when Spain's European rivals were seeking, by political and psychological means, to demonize the Spanish Empire, its people, and its culture, minimize Spanish discoveries and achievements, and counter its influence and power in world affairs.
According to the theory, Protestant propaganda published during the Hispano-Dutch War and the Anglo-Spanish War against the Catholic monarchs of the 16th century fostered an anti-Hispanic bias among subsequent historians. Along with a distorted view of the history of Spain and the history of Latin America, other parts of the world in the Portuguese Empire were also affected as a result of the Iberian Union and the Luso-Dutch Wars. Although some 17th-century propaganda was based in real events from the Spanish colonization of the Americas, some of which involved atrocities, the mainstream academia around the Leyenda Negra suggests that it often employed lurid and exaggerated depictions of violence, and ignored similar behavior by other powers.
Although most scholars agree that the term Black Legend might be useful to describe 17th and 18th-century anti-Spanish propaganda, there is no consensus on whether the phenomenon persists in the present day. A number of authors have critiqued the use of the "black legend" idea in modern times to present an uncritical image of the Spanish Empire's colonial practices (the so called "white legend").
Historiography and definitions of the Spanish Black Legend
The term "black legend" was first used by Arthur Lévy in reference to biographies of Napoleon, and he primarily used it in the context of two opposing legends, a "golden legend" and a "black legend": two extreme, simplistic, one-dimensional approaches to a character which portrayed him as a god or a demon. "Golden" and "black legends" had been used by Spanish historians and intellectuals with the same meaning in reference to aspects of Spanish history; Antonio Soler used both terms about the portrayal of Castilian and Aragonese monarchs. The use of the term leyenda negra to refer specifically to a biased, anti-Spanish depiction of history gained currency in the first two decades of the 20th century, and is most associated with Julián Juderías. Throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, scholars have offered divergent interpretations of the Black Legend and debated its usefulness as a historical concept.
Origins of the concept of a Spanish Black Legend
At an 18 April 1899 Paris conference, Emilia Pardo Bazán used the term "Black Legend" for the first time to refer to a general view of modern Spanish history:
The conference had a great impact in Spain, particularly on Julián Juderías. Juderías, who worked at the Spanish Embassy in Russia, had noticed (and denounced) the spread of anti-Russian propaganda in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom and was interested in its possible long-term consequences. Juderías was the first historian to describe the "black legend" phenomenon, although he did not yet name it as such, in a book regarding the construction of an anti-Russian black legend. His work, initially concerned with the intentional deformation of Russia's image in Europe, led him to identify the same patterns of narration he detected in the construction of anti-Russian discourse in the dominant historical narrative regarding Spain. Juderías investigated the original sources supporting centuries old claims of Spanish atrocities and other misdeeds, tracing the origin or propagation of the majority to rival emerging powers. In his 1914 book, La leyenda negra y la verdad histórica (The Black Legend and Historical Truth), deconstructs aspects of Spain's image (including those in Foxe's Book of Martyrs). According to Juderías, this biased historiography was marked by acceptance of propagandistic and politically motivated historical sources and has consistently presented Spanish history in a negative light, purposefully ignoring Spanish achievements and advances. In La leyenda Negra, he defines the Spanish black legend as:
Historiographic development of the term
Later writers supported and developed Juderías's critique. In Tree of Hate (1971),
Walter Mignolo and Margaret Greer view the Black Legend as a development of Spain's racialisation of Jewishness in the 15th century. The accusations of mixed blood and loose religiosity of the 15th century, first levelled at Jewish and Moorish conversos both inside Spain and abroad, developed into 16th century hispanophobic views of Spaniards as religious fanatics tainted by association with Judaism. The only stable element they see in this hispanophobia is an element of "otherness" marked by interaction with the Eastern and African worlds, of "complete others", cruelty and lack of moral character, in which the same narratives are re-imagined and reshaped.
Antonio Espino López suggests that the prominence of the Black Legend in Spanish historiography has meant that the real atrocities and brutal violence of the Spanish conquest of the Americas have not received the attention they deserve within Spain. He believes that some Hispanicists:
According to historian Elvira Roca Barea, the formation of a black legend and its assimilation by a nation is a phenomenon observed in all multicultural empires (not just the Spanish Empire). For Roca Barea, a black legend about an empire is the cumulative result of the propaganda attacks launched by different groups: smaller rivals, allies within its political sphere and defeated rivals, and propaganda created by rival factions inside the imperial system; alongside self-criticism by the intellectual elite, and the needs of new powers consolidated during (or after) the empire's existence.
In response to Roca Barea, José Luis Villacañas states that the "black legend" was primarily a factor related to the geopolitical situation of the 16th and 17th centuries. He argues that:
The conceptual validity of a Spanish black legend is widely but not universally accepted by academics. Benjamin Keen expressed doubt about its usefulness as a historical concept, while Ricardo García Cárcel and Lourdes Mateo Bretos denied its existence in their 1991 book, The Black Legend:
Historical basis
Despite having a vast empire stretching from Mexico to Peru across the Pacific to the Philippines and beyond, which required many Spaniards to travel overseas and deal with foreigners, eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote, "The Spaniard's bad side is that he does not learn from foreigners; that he does not travel in order to get acquainted with other nations; that he is centuries behind in the sciences. He resists any reform; he is proud of not having to work; he is of a romantic quality of spirit, as the bullfight shows; he is cruel, as the former auto-da-fé shows; and he displays in his taste an origin that is partly non-European." Thus, semiotician Walter Mignolo argues that the Spanish black legend was closely tied to race in using Spain's Moorish (Arab and Berber) history to portray Spaniards as racially tainted and its treatment of Native Americans and enslaved sub-Saharan Africans during Spanish colonization to symbolize the country's moral character. That notwithstanding, there is general agreement that the wave of anti-Spanish propaganda of the 16th and 17th centuries was linked to undisputed events and phenomena which occurred at the apogee of Spanish power between 1492 and 1648.
thumb|An illustration of Spanish atrocities by [[Theodor de Bry. Theodor de Bry's work is characteristic of the anti-Spanish propaganda that emerged in Protestant countries such as the United Provinces and England at the end of the 16th century as a result of the strong commercial and military rivalry with the Spanish Empire.]]
Although these laws were not always followed, they reflect the conscience of the 16th century Spanish monarchy about native rights and well-being, and its will to protect the inhabitants of Spain's territories. These laws came about in the early period of colonization, following abuses reported by Spaniards themselves traveling with Columbus. Spanish colonization methods included the forceful conversion of indigenous populations to Christianity. The "Orders to the Twelve" Franciscan friars in 1523, urged that the natives be converted using military force if necessary. On par with this sentiment, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda argued that the Indian's inferiority justified using war to civilize and Christianize them. He encouraged enslavement and violence in order to end the barbarism of the natives. Bartolomé de las Casas, on the other hand, was strictly opposed to this viewpoint—claiming that the natives could be peacefully converted.
Such reports of Spanish abuses led to an institutional debate in Spain about the colonization process and the rights and protection of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas published Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies), a 1542 account of the alleged atrocities committed by landowners and officials during the early period of colonization of New Spain (particularly on Hispaniola). In his Short Account, de las Casas underscores the innocence of the indigenous peoples while comparing the Spanish conquistadors to "ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions that had been starved for many days." De las Casas, son of the merchant Pedro de las Casas (who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage), described Columbus's treatment of the natives in his History of the Indies. His description of Spanish actions was used as a basis for attacks on Spain, including in Flanders during the Eighty Years' War. The accuracy of de las Casas's descriptions of Spanish colonization is still debated by some scholars due to supposed exaggerations. Although historian Lewis Hanke thought that de las Casas exaggerated atrocities in his accounts, Benjamin Keen found them more or less accurate. However this view has been broadly criticised by other scholars such as Keen, who view Gibson's focus on legal codes rather than the copious documentary evidence of Spanish atrocities and abuses as problematic.
Historians have noted that the mistreatment and exploitation of indigenous peoples was committed by all European powers which colonized the Americas, and such acts were never exclusive to the Spanish Empire. The revaluation of the Black Legend on contemporary historiography has led to a reassessment of non-Spanish European colonial records in recent years as the historiographical evaluation of the Impact of Western European colonialism and colonisation continues to evolve. According to scholar William B. Maltby, "At least three generations of scholarship have produced a more balanced appreciation of Spanish conduct in both the Old World and the New, while the dismal records of other imperial powers have received a more objective appraisal."
This sack of Mechelen was the first of a series of events known as the Spanish Fury; several others occurred over the next several years. In November and December 1572, with the duke's permission, Fadrique had residents of Zutphen and Naarden locked in churches and burnt to death. In July 1573, after a six-month siege, the city of Haarlem surrendered. The garrison's men (except for the German soldiers) were drowned or had their throats cut by the duke's troops, and eminent citizens were executed. After numerous complaints to the Spanish court, Philip II decided to change policy and relieve the Duke of Alba. Alba boasted that he had burned or executed 18,600 persons in the Netherlands, in addition to the far greater number he massacred during the war, many of them women and children; 8,000 persons were burned or hanged in one year, and the total number of Alba's Flemish victims can not have fallen short of 50,000.
The Dutch Revolt spread to the south in the mid-1570s after the Army of Flanders mutinied for lack of pay and went on the rampage in several cities, most notably Antwerp in 1576. Soldiers rampaged through the city, killing, looting, extorting money from residents and burning the homes of those who did not pay. Christophe Plantin's printing establishment was threatened with destruction three times, but was spared each time with payment of a ransom. Antwerp was economically devastated by the attack; 1,000 buildings were torched, and as many as 17,000 civilians were raped, tortured and murdered. Parents were tortured in their children's presence, infants were slain in their mother's arms, wives were flogged to death before their husbands' eyes. Maastricht was besieged, sacked and destroyed twice by the Tercios de Flandes (in 1576 and 1579), and the 1579 siege ended with a Spanish Fury which killed 10,000 men, women and children. Spanish troops who breached the city walls first raped the women, then massacred the population, reputedly tearing people limb from limb. The soldiers drowned hundreds of civilians by throwing them off the bridge over the river Maas in an episode similar to earlier events in Zutphen. Military terror defeated the Flemish movement, and restored Spanish rule in Belgium.
The propaganda created by the Dutch Revolt during the struggle against the Spanish Crown can also be seen as part of the Black Legend. The depredations against the Indians that De las Casas had described were compared to the depredations of Alba and his successors in the Netherlands. The Brevissima relación was reprinted no less than 33 times between 1578 and 1648 in the Netherlands (more than in all other European countries combined). The Articles and Resolutions of the Spanish Inquisition to Invade and Impede the Netherlands accused the Holy Office of a conspiracy to starve the Dutch population and exterminate its leading nobles, "as the Spanish had done in the Indies." Marnix of Sint-Aldegonde, a prominent propagandist for the cause of the rebels, regularly used references to alleged intentions on the part of Spain to "colonize" the Netherlands, for instance in his 1578 address to the German Diet.
In recent years, Maarten Larmuseau has used genetic testing to examine a prevalent belief regarding the Spanish occupation
Regional perspectives
thumb|upright=1.2|Anachronous map of the Spanish Empire, including territorial claims
Italy
Sverker Arnoldsson of the University of Gothenburg supports Juderías' hypothesis of a Spanish black legend in European historiography and identifies its origins in medieval Italy, unlike previous authors (who date it to the 16th century). In his book The Black Legend: A Study of its Origins, Arnoldsson cites studies by Benedetto Croce and Arturo Farinelli to assert that Italy was hostile to Spain during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries when the Crown of Aragon occupied most of Italy and texts produced and distributed there were later used as a base by Protestant nations.
Liberal historians such as Benedetto Croce see in the Risorgimento process the conclusion of the unifying trend that began with the Italian Renaissance, which suffered a long interruption between the middle of the 16th century and the beginning of the 18th century that coincided with direct domination by the Hispanic Monarchy over half of Italy and indirectly over part of the other half. Croce's statements about the Italian aristocracy and their responsibility for the decline of Italy, published in 1917, when the country was in the middle of the world war, aroused reactions, accusations and even indignation on the part of historians, writers, intellectuals and politicians and "the controversy", wrote a well-known contemporary Spanish historian, "it has not yet died out, but there are many historians who today accept, at least in part, Croce's arguments."
The vision of some Italian historians continues to identify the Spanish domination of Italy with a period of decadence for the country, due, in part, to the action of the Inquisition (the traditional religious court, not to be confused with the Spanish institution, which operated with different criteria). Authors such as Campanella or Giordano Bruno suffered persecution for religious reasons, as had also happened at the end of the fifteenth century and in the Florence of Savonarola. The identification of the occupier with oppression was part of the widely spread anti-Spanish propaganda known as the black legend, whose artistic products include Manzoni's The Betrothed (set in 17th-century Lombardy) or Verdi's Don Carlos. According to one interpretation of the Risorgimento, the historical period of Spanish misrule in Milan had been chosen by Manzoni with the intention of alluding to the same oppressive rule of Austrian rule over northern Italy. Other literary critics believe instead that what Manzoni wanted to describe was the Italian society of all times, with all its defects that have remained over time.
Arnoldsson's theory on the origins of Spain's black legend has been criticized as conflating the process of black-legend generation with a negative view (or critique) of a foreign power. The following objections have been raised:
- The Italian origin of the earliest writings against Spain is an insufficient reason to identify Italy as the origin of the black legend; it is a normal reaction in any society dominated by a foreign power.
- The phrase "black legend" suggests a tradition (non-existent in Italian writings) based on a reaction to the recent presence of Spanish troops (which quickly faded).
- In 15th- and 16th-century Italy, critics and Italian intellectual admirers of Spain (particularly Ferdinand II of Aragon) coexisted.
Edward Peters states in his work "Inquisition":According to William S. Maltby, Italian writings lack a "conducting theme": a common narrative which would form the Spanish black legend in the Netherlands and England. Roca Barea agrees; although she does not deny that Italian writings may have been used by German rivals, the original Italian writings "lack the viciousness and blind deformation of black-legend writings" and are merely reactions to occupation.
Germany
Arnoldsson offered an alternative to the Italian-origin theory in its polar opposite: the German Renaissance. German humanism, deeply nationalistic, wanted to create a German identity in opposition to that of the Roman invaders. Ulrich of Hutten and Martin Luther, the main authors of the movement, used "Roman" in the broader concept "Latin". The Latin world, which included Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy, was perceived as "foreign, immoral, chaotic and fake, in opposition to the moral, ordered and German."
In addition to the identification of Spaniards with Jews, heretics, and "Africans", there was an increase in anti-Spanish propaganda by detractors of Emperor Charles V. The propaganda against Charles was nationalistic, identifying him with Spain and Rome although he was born in Flanders, spoke Dutch but little Spanish and no Italian at the time, and was often at odds with the pope.
To further the appeal of their cause, rulers opposed to Charles focused on identifying him with the pope (a view Charles had encouraged to force Spanish troops to accept involvement in his German wars, which they had resisted). The fact that troops and supporters of Charles included German and Protestant princes and soldiers was an extra reason to reject the Spanish elements attached to them. It was necessary to instill fear of Spanish rule, and a certain image had to be created. Among published points most often highlighted were the identification of Spaniards with Arabs, Berbers, and Jews (due to the frequency of intermarriage), the number of conversos (Jews or Muslims who converted to Christianity) in their society, and the "natural cruelty of those two."
England/Britain
Spanish statesman Antonio Pérez del Hierro, who served as the secretary to Philip II of Spain before fleeing to France and then England after being arrested, wrote Pedacos de Historia o Relaciones, which was published in London by English printer Richard Field in 1594. The work, which was read widely in England, heavily denounced the Spanish monarchy and further contributed to pre-existing anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic sentiments among the English. A violently hispanophobic preacher and pamphleteer, Thomas Scott, would echo this sort of epithet a generation later, in the 1620s, when he urged England to go to war against "those wolvish Antichristians" instead of accepting the Spanish match.
William S. Maltby, regarding Spain in the Netherlands, said that:
Sephardic Jews
According to Philip Wayne Powell, the criticism which was spread by the Jews who were expelled by Spain's Catholic monarchs was an important factor in the spread of anti-Spanish sentiment (particularly religious stereotypes). Powell places the beginning of the criticism of the Jewish populations against Spain in 1480, with the creation of the Spanish Inquisition, which was directed mainly against crypto-Jews and false converts. But it was from the expulsion of 1492 that this opinion became general. Despite the fact that they had previously been expelled from almost all European countries, in no other had they had such deep roots during the Middle Ages, coming to live what has been called a Golden Age, giving special relevance to this expulsion. The persecution of Jews, crypto-Jews, Muslims and converts was viewed favorably in the rest of Europe and even applauded in the case of "a country so mixed with Jews and Moors" like Spain.
Studies by Kaplan, Yerushalmi, Mechoulan and Jaime Contreras show that many expelled Jewish intellectuals collaborated in spreading the negative image of Spain. The largest Sephardic community was in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, with two synagogues. His activity, "little affected to the service of his Majesty", came to provoke the protest of the Spanish ambassadors before the archduke in Brussels. Especially hated was the Inquisition, considered the "fourth beast spoken of by the prophet Daniel", a denatured justification, an accumulation of evil, which had corrupted society. Criticism spread to Flanders and Venice, where Sephardim had also settled. Thus, the communities publicized the executions of the Inquisition, such as the one that occurred in 1655 in Córdoba.
The Sephardim were grateful to their new homeland during the Eighty Years' War: just as Spain was a "land of idolatry" and slavery, like Egypt, whose rulers suffer the curse of Yahweh; The Netherlands, on the other hand, is the land of freedom, on which the God of Israel will bring down all the blessings, as Daniel Levi de Barrios or Menasseh Ben Israel (previously called Manoel Soeiro) wrote. They also used their power within the publishing industry, both to support the Dutch in their struggle and to spread criticism of Spain. |In Italian anti-Spanish invective ... the Spanish Inquisition ... was regarded as a necessary cleansing, since all Spaniards were accused of having Moorish and Jewish ancestry. ... First condemned by the impurity of their Christian faith, the Spaniards then came under fire for excess of zeal in defending Catholicism. Influenced by the political and religious policies of Spain, a common type of ethnic invective became an eloquent and vicious form of description by character assassination. Thus when Bartolomé de las Casas wrote his criticism of certain governmental policies in the New World, his limited, specific purpose was ignored.
According to Elvira Roca Barea, the Spanish Black Legend is a variant of the antisemitic narratives which had already been circulated in medieval-era Northern, Central and Southern European nations since the 13th century, critical of the perceived tolerance of Jews and heretics in Spain. This climate would facilitate the transfer of antisemitic and anti-Muslim stereotypes to Spaniards. This case has three main sources of proof, the texts of German Renascence Intellectuals, the existence of the black legend narrative in Europe prior to the conquest of America, and the similarity of the stereotypes to other stereotypes which were attributed to Judaism by anti-Semitic Europeans and the stereotypes which the Black Legend attributed to the Spanish.
Martin Luther correlated "the Jew" (who was detested in Germany at the time) with "the Spanish", whose power was increasing in the region. According to Sverker Arnoldsson, Luther:
- Identified Italy and Spain with the papacy, even though the Pontifical States and Spain were enemies at the time
- Ignored the coexistence (including intermarriage) of Christians and Jews in Spain
- Conflated Spain and Turkey out of fear of an invasion by either power.
In 1566, Luther's conversations were published. Among many other similar affirmations, he is quoted as saying: