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BARTHOLOME
DE LASCAS
PROTECTOR OF THE INDIANS
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La
leyenda Negra ( The Black
Legend ): Myths and Truths
about the Spanish
Colonization of the
Americas
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Historical Perspective
In 1992, when the western world was about to celebrate the Quincentennial of Columbus accidental discovery of the Americas, Spain was facing a
dilemma caused by an ambivalent nostalgia
containing a blend of pride and pain.
It was suppose to be a time to celebrate the
glorious past when the Spanish Crown stood at the summit of world power. However, it was undoubtedly
also an occasion for the world to remember the atrocities of the Spanish
Colonization which was an invasion of the New World leading to the
genocide of the Indians.
The Atrocities committed by the Spanish conquistadors were popularized by many writers but the most popular was
Bartholome
de Las Casas. His writings are the intellectual foundation of the
body of Spanish sentiments and
prejudices known as the Black Legend, La leyenda Negra.
He depicted the cruelties of the Spanish but the legend it self is the child of the general context of anti-Spanish sentiments which
prevailed in Europe in the 16th century A.D.
The
Anti-Spanish campaign
Spain
was in the 16th Century, the most
powerful nation on earth. It
controlled the greatest empire in the
history of the West. Holland,
Italy, Austria were in its
control. The empire crossed the
Atlantic Ocean and stretched on the
Americas.
The Spaniards were a very prosperous
and powerful people. This
position of power was attained through
a change of fortune which contained
several key historical elements of the
late 15th.
One was the ascension to power of
Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI, the
Spanish Pope, who gave Spain the
upper hand in its constant jockeying
for power with Portugal by publishing
a series of pro Spanish Papal Bulls. (
view Legal background of Spanish
Colonization).
The other was the discovery of
the America by Christopher Columbus in
October 1492. This discovery
gave Spain an astronomic amount of
riches, a vast land and an huge
indigenous subject hood, capable of
being transformed into a vast
reservoir of human resources.
Columbus never knew until he died that
discovered a new Continent but he
understood well the potential of using
the indigenous people of the New World
as tools of labor. One can see
his perception of the Indians in his
first report where he wrote that it
appeared to him that they could be
molded into anything the crown wanted.
The
other potential powers of Europe
feared and resented Spain. Some
modern writers, like Gregory
Cerio, point out that painting the
Spanish as Cruel and Avaricious became
an integral portion of the patriotic
duties of pamphleteers of London, Frankfort
and France.
The Spaniards were depicted as a
people " inherently barbaric,
corrupt and intolerant; lovers of
Cruelties and Bloodshed".
"Tyranny is as natural to a
Spanish as laughter is to a man",
said a French text in 1597. In the modern literature
one is often reminded of the Spanish
tremendous intolerance by those who
point out that while Columbus was on
its way to the discovery of the New
World the Jews were being expelled
from Spain. Spain religious intolerance
is indeed an historical fact which was
part of its posture as a defender of
the purity of Christianity
against those seen as heretics and
presenting a clear and present danger
to the dominance of the Pope, the Holy
See. One can see an instance of
the implication of this
philosophy in the introductory
portion of the log of Christopher
Columbus.
Excerpt from the Columbus log: " Your
Highnesses as Catholic Christians and
Princes devoted to our Holy Christian
faith and to the spreading of it, and as
enemies
of the Muslim sect and of all
idolatries and heresies,
ordered that I should go east,
but not by land as it is customary. I
was to go by the way of the west,
whence until today we do not know with
certainty anyone that has gone. Therefore,
after having ban all the Jews
from your Kingdoms and realms, during
the same month of January Your
Highnesses ordered me to go with a
sufficient fleet to the said region of
India."
See
more of the excerpt
This key role of the Spanish Crown as
a defender of the the Holy Sea and
later as the military power behind its
hold on Europe led to a tremendous
opposition from the other countries of
Europe. At some point the
political power of Spain became
intimately associated with the
religious power of the Pope. When
Charles V became the the King of Spain
in 1517, he was also Holy Roman
Emperor. As the anointed
defender of Christianity, Charles V
saw it as his duty to purify Europe
from what he perceived as heresies.
He launched a bloody
counterreformation war against Germany
and
defeated the Schmalkadic League of
Protestant princes, at
Mühlberg in 1548.
Holland became in 1568 the other party
in a war that lasted 80 years. In the
same vain, Spain launched an attack against
England. This venture
resulted in the disastrous
defeat of its armada in 1588.
Emperor Charles V 1548
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Oil on Canvas by TIZIANO Vecellio
Click on the Picture to view a largerversion
The winds of the anti papacy and anti
Spanish movements blowing all over
Europe with tremendous vigor shaped
the political perspective of the
protestants of Europe who saw it as a
duty to Christ and Country to destroy
Spain which they saw as an agent of
devilish "Anti Christ, the Pope, the
Bishop of Rome."
In his address to the Parliament in
1656, Oliver Cromwell describe Spain
as the "Head of the Papal
interest, the head of the
antichristian interest that is so
describe in the Scripture".
From the historical facts mentioned
above one can have a accurate
perspective of the European attitude
toward Spain. Most of all,
an
objective seeker of the truth can
understand the fundamental elements
that are the real roots of the body
of emotional, religious and
nationalistic resentment against Spain
known as the leyenda negra, the black
legend. The general portrait of the
Spaniards as inhuman were based on
facts stemming from their role as the
repressive power of the Catholic
Church in Europe and the killers
of the Indians but the truth was
inflated by a very effective
propaganda campaign which used very
efficiently the writings of Las Casas,
the Defender and Apostle of the
Indians.
Bartholomé de Las Casas worked
for 50 years to improve the condition
of the Indians. In 1552 he wrote
a book called " A brief account
of the destruction of the
Indies". The Book contained
some very graphic description of the
cruelties of the Spanish against the
Indians. He talk about the hanging of
Indians in groups of 13 to honor
Christ and the 12 apostles. He
talked about the Spaniards taking
babies by their feet and slamming
their head against rocks to kill them.
The European enemies of Spain took
advantage of Las Casas publication.
During the next hundred years 42
editions of the Las Casas Book
appeared in Holland, England, France
and Germany.
A person of today
One can easily understand the power of the
psychological war against Spain by looking,
for example, at
the modern propaganda campaign of
Joseph Goebel on behalf of the third
Reich during world war 2. The
Soviet empire used propaganda very
effectively in its campaign of
demoralization of the west and in its attempt to portray
the United States as a land devoid of
respect of humanity. The
United States responded well by
matching the intensity of the Russian
campaign with radio broadcasts, books
and even jokes about the lives of the
people in the Soviet Union. An intense
propaganda campaign was directed by
the Japanese against the United States
during world war 2. This
campaign done through radio broadcast
from Tokyo was directed mainly at the
US soldiers The United
States responded in kind by
dehumanizing the Japanese and creating
an anti Japanese sentiment which
mobilized the nation and effectively
fuelled its desire to fight the
Nippon Empire.
In fact the dehumanization
of the enemy is part of war
fair. One wins against an enemy
by having better weapons and a better
organization of the logistics, but the
psychological component of war fair
allows one to wins the mind of the
people without firing a shot.
By
Looking at the psychological component
of the campaign led by the other
European powers who fought a 300 yeas
war against Spain, one can say that it
was indeed very effective. It even
outlasted the physical war by
providing even today a set of
negative standards by which Spain and
people of Spanish ancestry are judged
by other people.
Those of us who were raised and educated
in countries influenced by the enemies
of Spain can, without knowing it,
carry an intellectual bias against the
Spanish and have the tendency to think
that the Spaniards were more cruel than
the other European. There is even
a tendency to portrait Christopher
Columbus as a humanitarian who tried to
save the Indians against the cruelties
of the Spanish. An instance of
this kind of bias which does not reflect
the totality of historical truth can be found in the
fundamental historical text offered
to Haitian children by the
Brothers of Christian Instruction ( Les
Freres de l'Instruction Chrétienne a
French based religious organization) .
This fundamental book was written by Dr.
J.C. Dorsainville, a Haitian historian.
It contains, in the part dealing with the
discovery of Haiti and the treatment of
Indians a strong indictment of the
behaviors of the Spaniards. Columbus,
however, is portrayed as a gentle soul who was
persecuted by the Spanish because of
their jealousy. Columbus is not
portrayed as the founder of slavery
and the repartimiento in the New
World. The book interprets each
one of those political decisions as the
result of the craving for gold of the
Spanish. In fact, Columbus is not
blamed for anything except his
weaknesses that allowed him to yield to
the inhuman demands of the cruel and avaricious
Spaniards. The Child
learning Haitian History from this book
get a perspective of good and evil where
Columbus and his family symbolizes the
Good and the Spanish represents the
Evil.
The key question emerging out of all
the above considerations are the
followings:
1. Were the Spanish the cruelest of
all the Europeans?
2.Did their actions violated the
European Standard of behavior toward the indigenous people of the
Americas and the Africans who came to
replace them as slaves.
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