![]() ![]() What’s more, he says, the black legend has come to eclipse Spain’s role in the development of the concept of human rights through the School of Salamanca. Things were even worse with the Incas, whose empire was very totalitarian.” “Cortés had no problem allying himself with those indigenous people who saw the Spanish as liberators from Aztec oppression. “Cortés and Pizarro went into territories that have been eulogised … but the Aztecs practised human sacrifice,” he says. But Bartolomé de las Casas also suggested that Indians could be saved by importing slaves from Africa.”Ĭardelús, who takes a markedly benign view of the conquest of the Americas, argues that Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro brought “a far more humanitarian system” to the Aztec and Inca empires they conquered. “In that respect, his position was very laudable. “It’s true that, through his exaggerations and lies, Bartolomé de las Casas managed to get the Spanish crown and the country’s politicians to protect the Indians,” says Cardelús. ![]() The 16th-century Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas has long been feted for his early and fierce defence of the indigenous people of the Americas, but some historians have criticised him for overstating the barbarism of the Spaniards and getting his figures badly wrong. “That has meant that others, outside Spain, have been the ones making Spain’s image, and that’s what’s called the leyenda negra.”Īlthough he singles out figures such as the Dutchman Theodor de Bry – whose engravings of Spanish imperial atrocities helped cement the conquistadors’ reputation for cruelty – Cardelús lays much of the blame for the black legend at the door of a famous Spaniard. “They’ve done this brilliantly well – but Spain hasn’t,” he says. “There are various reasons why self-esteem is so low but it’s fundamentally because neither Spain nor Hispanic countries have cultivated their images.”Ĭardelús said that, unlike Spain, the US, the UK and France had used culture and education to foster a favourable international image. “We need to improve the self-esteem and cohesion of Spaniards when it comes to their shared history and what they have contributed to humanity,” says Borja Cardelús, a writer and vice-president of the foundation. The foundation, made up of businessmen, diplomats, journalists, lawyers, academics and writers, aims to restore a lost sense of pride in the spread of Spanish culture.Īccording to the foundation, Spaniards have spent far too long feeling guilty and ashamed of their past and worrying about how they are seen by the rest of the world. #The black legend tvFive centuries on, a newly established group, the Hispanic Civilisation Foundation, is hoping to lay the legend to rest by using feature films, TV programmes, books and mobile exhibitions to lighten Spain’s historical image. ![]()
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