Were the Spaniards That Cruel?

The Black Legend

† By Gregory Cerio, in Newsweek (Special Issue, Fall/Winter 1991, pp. 48-51)

The Black Legend

In his essay Gregory Cerio explains why the Spaniards have been so maligned for their exploitation of the  indigenous people of the Americas and colonization of their lands.

Freedom of Speech,

Freedom of the Press

The Spaniards fell victim to their own freedom of speech.  From the time of King Ferdinand, the Spanish Crown had encouraged its citizens to report the events taking place in The New World, both positive and negative.  One of Spain’s most tireless critics was a Dominican friar named Bartolomé de las Casas.  A rhetorician, he exposed the atrocities committed by some Spaniards in a pamphlet entitled “A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies.” It was translated into many languages, printed and circulated throughout Europe.

Freedom of Religion

At a time when so much of Europe was opposed to the Catholic Church, it did not take much effort to stoke the vitriolic passion burning within their breasts.  Martin Luther had refuted certain dogma of Catholicism and established the Lutheran Church in the German principalities.  John Calvin had established a Protestant following in Geneva, which later spread to France and Scotland.  Henry VIII had disestablished the Catholic Church in England, after Pope Clement VII had refused to grant him a divorce from Catharine of Aragon, and declared himself the head of the Anglican Church.  There was no separation of church and state in XVI Century Europe.  Freedom of religion was a precept whose time had not yet come. 

Success Breeds Hatred

Spain had been at war with France, Germany, Holland and England.  Quite simply, the Spaniards’ unprecedented success in establishing an empire that spanned the Atlantic Ocean from Western Europe to the Americas resulted in unprecedented antagonism on the part of other European powers.  They were all beside themselves with jealousy.  They too were able to establish colonies in The New World, but Spain had hit the mother lode in the gold and silver mines of New Spain and Peru; and the British, the Dutch and the French were every bit as avaricious as the Spaniards. 

Indians, Africans and Europeans

Like Spain and Portugal, Holland, England and France all engaged in the African slave trade to support colonial expansion in The New World; but France and Holland were more interested in expanding trade than building empires.  The Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the British were interested in both.

Unlike the Dutch and the British, the French, the Portuguese and the Spaniards took Native American women as wives and created an amalgam of the two races called creole or mestizo.  Despite the cries of atrocity and tyranny, Spain’s European enemies could scarcely be taken seriously; the British had killed off entire populations of Native Americans themselves.  The truth of the matter was that far more Indians succumbed to European diseases than did to the atrocities of war and conquest, and the Spaniards had no way of knowing the cause of their demise, much less of stopping it.

Castes and Tribute

The Spaniards also allowed the Indians to retain many of their societal norms, such as utilizing the extant system of tribute to tax their American subjects through Indian nobility.  Native tribal chiefs were known as caciques; they were accorded respect and not required to pay tribute.  Other Indians had to pay tribute to their Spanish masters.  African slaves were treated better than Indian slaves and mestizos were treated better than Africans.  Spaniards who were born in The New World were accorded more respect than mestizos, but less than Spaniards who had been born in Spain

Final Assessment

Despite their unrelenting cries of the Spaniards’ cruelty and barbarousness, the other European powers had committed more than their share of atrocities in The New World.  And if the Spaniards had not discovered New Spain and Peru first, they would have been part of New England, New Netherlands, or Nouvelle France.  And the other European empires’ lust for gold and silver would have assuredly resulted in harsh treatment of the Native Americans too.

While it is true that the Spaniards exploited the Indians for their gold and silver, it is also true that neither gold nor silver would hold much value if we didn't will it so. If we were to decide one day that jade or obsidian was more valuable than gold, it would be.  In Mexico and Peru, the aborigines used gold to fashion jewelry, but they didn't have a gold standard.  They used anything and everything as a means of barter - crops, bird feathers, animal hides, shells, pearls, etc.  They gave their daughters to tribal chieftains as presents.  They did not use specie or paper currency.

In some ways, the Amerindians were advanced, whereas in others, they were absolutely primitive.  Before the Spaniards conquered them, the aborigines of Mesoamerica practiced sodomy, ritual sacrifice and cannibalism.  The Aztecs in particular believed that the only way to keep their gods happy was to cut open the chests of their young men and boys, rip out their hearts and offer them in sacrifice.  And they did so in staggering numbers.  That is why so many aborigines marched on Tenochtitlan with Cortés - the Aztecs were demanding so much tribute, so many of their sons were taken to be sacrificed, so many of their daughters were taken to be slaves of the Aztec nobles - they were more than willing to ally themselves with the Spaniards.  In fact, Cortés never could have conquered the Aztecs without the help of thousands of warriors from other Mexican tribes.

The Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City has an exhibit depicting the ritual sacrifice:  it is accompanied by Florentine Codices, the Aztec version of history recorded in Náhuatl.

Cortés and his men were sickened by the smell of death everywhere they went.  Blood flowed constantly on the altars of sacrifice. The Spaniards brought Christianity to the Americas.  They took the idols from the aborigines and forbade them sodomy, human sacrifice and cannibalism.  It wasn't just gold and silver, but these things too, that the Spaniards took away from the native Americans.
 

Contributed by Richard Wible

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