Black Legend Research Paper

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The Black Legend or La Leyenda Negra in Spanish is a term coined by Julián Juderías in his book “The Black Legend and the Historical Truth,” in 1914, almost 3 centuries after the Black Legend started. Black legend is referred to the negative perception abroad that was related to Spanish history and its work in the world, to describe the depiction of Spain and Spaniards as "cruel", "intolerant" and "fanatical" in anti-Spanish literature starting in the sixteenth century. It was used very often when conflicts arose between the English and Spanish or between Latin America and Spain. This basically is a way of Spain’s enemies like England, France and Dutch to insult Spain and to question its dominance over the New World. We know that the Black…show more content…
Other rival countries like England, France and Dutch attacked las Casas because he was a catholic Spaniard, both which England and other protestant countries hated and they took advantage of the document and depicted Spain as cruel and ruthless. “Although not named until the twentieth century, the Black Legend was created when Spain’s enemies took Spain’s own internal debates about identity and ‘purity of blood’ and the morality of its behaviour in the New World and constructed an image of the Spanish as violent and close to Barbarians.” Black Legend was used as a potent justification to challenge Spain's predominance in America. The other countries believed that they were better rulers than Spain and they claimed to try to ‘help’ out Indians to save them from Spain's tyranny. But we can say for sure that the English who claimed to be better rulers than Spanish and who promised to treat the Indians differently were the same ones who introduced gunpowder and distilled spirits to the Indians, “both which were capable of destroying life and health.” “Unwittingly Las Casas had given the propagandists verbal ammunition to describe Spaniards as depraved and cowardly people who had committed crimes against defenceless

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