Black Legend Debate This historically bad treatment of Natives Americans, was common in many of the European colonies of the Americas and was often used as propaganda for the competing European powers to create criticism and animosity towards the Spanish Empire. From the perspective of history and the colonization of the Americas, all of the European powers that colonized the Americas, such as England, Portugal, the Netherlands and others, were guilty of the same atrocities towards the Native Americans. Colonial powers have all been accused of massacring the natives in the Americas. The type of propaganda has been employed for centuries and in every country. We have even heard this from our parents, those people are no good because they …show more content…
The Aztecs were constantly launching raids to capture prisoners for the enormous number of human sacrifices they conducted. There is important archeological evidence showing that several Indian civilizations suffered violent ends at the hands of other Indian cultures long before the arrival of the Europeans in America.
• In effect, the Spanish employed a colonization strategy of "gold and souls." Converting the native population to Catholicism not only spread the doctrines of the Catholic Church, then under threat in Europe, but could, it was believed, further the control of Indian behavior in the mines and on the plantations.
In conclusion there is evidence that The Black Legend was no more atrocious than that of any other European country that settled in the new world. However, with the hatred of the Spanish people and the exploitation of things that were done to the Native Americans it was easy to make believers of the people of Europe. The one thing that keeps coming to mind is something I watched as my children grew up, “He was bad daddy but I didn’t do anything wrong.” Make the other look bad as we do the same thing. That is exactaly what happened during the “Black Legend”, they were bad but we did nothing wrong.