Hispanic identity and the black legend

[Bluegazer]

So there was a question about the Black Legend in the session

All this is true, but like everything else there are nuances.

When you read for example that the Aztec empire, captured and cannibalized their enemies / tribes in the area, when Cortes arrived, this ended because it was those other tribes who asked Cortes for help.

Hernán Cortés, el conquistador del Imperio azteca

En 1521, un reducido grupo de españoles liderados por Hernán Cortés, con el apoyo de una amplia coalición de pueblos indígenas, conquistó a sangre y fuego Tenochtitlán, la gran capital de los aztecas.

historia.nationalgeographic.com.es

In 1519 - the year I Caña according to the Aztec calendar - Cortes and his people arrived at the Mexican coast of Tenochtitlan, where they quickly overcame the hostile indigenous people of the area. As part of the spoils of war, they received twenty young Indian girls, among whom was the one who would be known as Malinche, or Doña Marina, a maiden who mastered several indigenous languages and soon learned Spanish, which was crucial for Cortés in his invasion plans. The conquistador fathered with her his son Martín, considered the first mestizo in continental America. On their way to the capital of the Aztec Empire, the Spaniards gained the support of the native Totonacs of the city of Cempoala, who thus freed themselves from Aztec oppression.

Así logró Hernán Cortés derrumbar al imperio más brutal que ha conocido América

Con sus luces y sus sombras, el extremeño fue una figura inesperada y de gran inteligencia política, que aprovechó en beneficio español el odio creciente entre las tribus locales hacia la dominación azteca

www.abc.es

The Aztec Empire was the most powerful political formation on the continent, estimated to be populated by 15 million souls and controlled from the city-state of Tenochtitlan, which flourished in the 14th century. Using the military superiority of their warriors, the Aztecs and their allies established a system of domination through the payment of tribute over numerous towns, especially in central Mexico, the region of Guerrero and the Gulf Coast of Mexico, as well as some areas of Oaxaca.

Mass human sacrifice was a key mechanism in the Aztec system. Each year between 20,000 and 30,000 people, captured from neighboring tribes, were immolated in these ceremonies. Hundreds of tribes celebrated with jubilation the disappearance of that killing machine, defined by María Elvira Roca Barea, as “a bloody totalitarianism based on human sacrifice”. As the Australian historian Inga Clendinnen points out, lamenting the fall of the Aztec Empire is like mourning the defeat of the Nazis in World War II.

It would not be strange (and here is where the mixture of ignorance and horror comes into play) that after the defeat of the Aztec Empire, you would also want to eliminate any vestige of that system. On the other hand, we can suppose that it is part of the karma of those peoples and the Aztecs who apparently had not learned their lesson...until Cortes arrived.

On the other hand, we have no idea of the exact plans that the 4D STS have in mind, so we do not know if in their long term planning they preferred to let the Aztecs pay the price by taking advantage of the karmic circumstances. We can even assume that among 4D STS there are factions fighting internally and that this will determine what plan or what future events will take place.

 

[Alejo]

It would not be strange (and here is where the mixture of ignorance and horror comes into play) that after the defeat of the Aztec Empire, you would also want to eliminate any vestige of that system. On the other hand, we can suppose that it is part of the karma of those peoples and the Aztecs who apparently had not learned their lesson...until Cortes arrived.

As far as this Karma goes, I've thought about it.. it is interesting to ponder about it from several angles, on the one hand you probably have some of the vestiges of the Atlanteans, who were pretty much stuck in a position of having no world influence and destined to exterminate one another until someone stronger came along and got rid of them because they were weaker, because they were exterminating one another.

On the other, the spaniards didn't fare too well either, they did get to mix in with the people of the region rather successfully, conserved a lot of the knowledge and stories of the former inhabitants of the americas, and "civilized" the americas in very decent ways, from our point of view.. BUT.. ended up being hated and the notion of ever being part of the Spanish empire are gone, most people growing up have no idea and do not consider it, they all consider Spanish presence in their country as a negative situation, and Spain itself has suffered from further divisions in the peninsula in recent years. What I am saying is that there might be more Karma involved from both parties, it may not be a straight forward relation.

The movement that has surfaced recently to try to reconnect Spain and America, I think it has a lot of merit, it sheds a lot of light into an obscure era, obscured by political movements that had the intention of making Spain look like an evil empire, and succeeded because of other global happenings and influences, so great! But that movement also tends to fall in a very small niche that seems stuck trying to recreate a greatness that, well it's gone.

I've always had the feeling that there's a bit more to this entire episode in history, and I still think that to be the case, and it deserves research.

Now, if anyone's interested in some history, there's this channel that did a wonderful take on the history of the Spanish empire, the viceroyalties and independences. The channel tends to be a bit more.. official history, but he does a decent job, and I think remains decently objective, so I'd recommend it. Quite a bit went on and as per usual, things are not that straight forward as it is presented to students.

 

[Chu]

I've always had the feeling that there's a bit more to this entire episode in history, and I still think that to be the case, and it deserves research.

Yes. And from another angle, the way I see it, FWIW, is that the problem is in how history is told in very generalized terms. Good guys vs. bad guys, all of one "people" bad, the other victims, etc. But if we look at the PRESENT, what do we see?

- A small percentage of psychos causing a lot of destruction and suffering
- Another portion of the population buying into the propaganda and following whatever is trendy or that they are told to do, some even believing they are doing good.
- Another portion of the population who simply doesn't care either way
- Another portion who sees through the lies and tries to do something (either by being "militants", or by sharing knowledge, etc.)

Look at any modern conflict, and you still see that even when MOST of a group is causing suffering (e.g Israelis and Jews around the world being against the genocide in Palestine, some even trying to actively help).

So, why would it have been any different during the colonies? It was likely a mixture of people on both sides, from the cannibal Aztecs and the psycho Spaniards, to sincere missionaries who wanted to help, and sincere natives who needed help and wanted a different life. I don't think it will ever be super clear cut. The most we can get to, maybe, is a sort of overall balance, where you can see that one group was "mostly bad", the other "mostly good", etc. But even that is not so clear cut. Some good people did something bad while thinking they were doing the right thing (spreading the word of God, or whatever), and viceversa: maybe some thought they were dominating other groups, while in fact they ended up liberating them from psycho tribes, or whatever. It's complicated, especially when you are talking about such a vast territory being conquered.

Maybe this is too obvious or simplistic, I don't know.

 

[BHelmet]

So, why would it have been any different during the colonies? It was likely a mixture of people on both sides, from the cannibal Aztecs and the psycho Spaniards, to sincere missionaries who wanted to help, and sincere natives who needed help and wanted a different life. I don't think it will ever be super clear cut. The most we can get to, maybe, is a sort of overall balance, where you can see that one group was "mostly bad", the other "mostly good", etc. But even that is not so clear cut. Some good people did something bad while thinking they were doing the right thing (spreading the word of God, or whatever), and viceversa: maybe some thought they were dominating other groups, while in fact they ended up liberating them from psycho tribes, or whatever. It's complicated, especially when you are talking about such a vast territory being conquered.

Great stuff and not obvious or simplistic at all and it tends to get overlooked because it’s problematic in terms of having tidy bits of easily digestible and rememberable “facts”. The winners tell the history and naturally tend to whitewash and justify their own actions. That’s just natural. To lie is the way. And to believe the lies is also the way. It just makes life easier.

And just who are the primary sources for the stories? The church? Was there a reporter from the Madrid Times there? And what about all the records and writings destroyed by the church? (Which probably supported a way different historical record). It’s so hard to nail down the truth but everybody acts like they have it because the mind likes certainty and closure.

“Give me a simple story that I can believe so I can go back to sleep and not have to think about this any more and get back to wishfully thinking about my preferred illusions.” The Predators Mind.

 

[Alejo]

So, why would it have been any different during the colonies? It was likely a mixture of people on both sides, from the cannibal Aztecs and the psycho Spaniards, to sincere missionaries who wanted to help, and sincere natives who needed help and wanted a different life. I don't think it will ever be super clear cut. The most we can get to, maybe, is a sort of overall balance, where you can see that one group was "mostly bad", the other "mostly good", etc. But even that is not so clear cut. Some good people did something bad while thinking they were doing the right thing (spreading the word of God, or whatever), and viceversa: maybe some thought they were dominating other groups, while in fact they ended up liberating them from psycho tribes, or whatever. It's complicated, especially when you are talking about such a vast territory being conquered.

Right!

And I think that using a reductionist approach, as some in the recent movement to revise the history of Spain have, truly does the truth of the matter a disservice. There is something there that I think would be very beneficial for most hispanics to understand, but not with the goal of simply finding a different good guy to rally behind. Not that there aren't heroic figures that probably deserve attention and may even provide role models, but this is true on both sides of that equation, the natives and the spaniards, and both also had despicable parts of themselves.

So, if anything, the study of this episode should serve as a reminder of just what you said, history isn't a simplistic and infantile narrative of good vs evil, there is definitely good and evil, but it takes work and objectivity to recognize, and even so.. our current paradigm might affect how we perceive such endeavors as the conquest.

 

[Alejo]

Hi guys,

It's been a little over a week and I have been meaning to post here, but I finished making my way through España contra su leyenda negra by Javer Rubio.

It was a really good book, tons of information and data on Spain itself, the author gets really detailed into several topics, like when did the idea of Spain became solid as a nation, he talks about the Reconquista of the peninsula, the Visigoth period, and quite a bit that transpired afterwards until today. He presents a lot of information from oficial sources as much as he can.

Even though he does let some ideological inclination take over form time to time, and from time to time he allows himself to be overtly loving of Spain as a nation, I think he does a decent job. My conclusion from reading his work and having thought about it for a few years is that Spain, like most every other nation in the planet, has a complex history. The author makes the point and warns people against being too self defeating and adopting notions that may have been false altogether, but also against adopting none of them and jumping on the other extreme. He invites people to take a balanced look at Spain and I believe that is the best approach and simplest conclusion to the entire topic.

He goes on quite a bit about the inquisition, demystifying it quite a bit, the relationship between the peninsula and the americas, which has been expanded here quite a bit, the relationship between Spain and its neighbors, and the current situation of the country as a whole and what it faces.

Overall a good read, recommended if you read Spanish and have interest in the topic.

Now, there was something that kept bugging me while getting through this work. He, and a lot of historians and academics, present the relationship between America and Spain in more or less the following terms: You cannot complain saying that Spain came to invade Mexico, Colombia, etc. And that those countries then expelled the invader. What happened was that Spain lead the colonization of the continent that was populated by various nations that weren't peaceful at all, the conquest was done by native Americans, the independence was done by spaniards.

Which is true, Mexico or Colombia or any other nation, did not exist until after the independence, and while it is understandable to create a sense of pride as the victors and to validate the choices made, it's a fallacy to claim that Spain invaded Mexico, or to deny the hundreds of years that the region that now is Mexico was once New Spain and it had a very good level of prosperity, a lot of the customs that make Mexico feel proud today are of Spanish origin, not Aztec. All of central and South America was Spain, that empire broke off into smaller nations and to seek to gather a sense of belonging by denying the Spanish influence and only focusing on the native one is, cockeyed.

However, it struck me as if the author criticized that, adequately in my opinion, while at the same time doing the exact same thing with the Reconquista period. I kept thinking, well... Spain was not Spain before Al-andalus, it wasn't really Hispania Romana either, not quite.. it was a Visigoth Kingdom, and in fact, it spent a lot more time being a caliphate than America spent being Spain, yet in Spain they do grab quite a bit of pride from the reconquista effort, and after the reconquista, which were 8 centuries according to historians, what was reconstituted wasn't that same kingdom, was something else altogether, yet there it is.

I don't know if I want to call it hypocrisy per se, but maybe a blindspot?. Or am I missing something perhaps? that's why I wanted to post it here.

 

[Wandering Star]

Spain was not Spain before Al-andalus, it wasn't really Hispania Romana either, not quite.. it was a Visigoth Kingdom, and in fact, it spent a lot more time being a caliphate than America spent being Spain, yet in Spain they do grab quite a bit of pride from the reconquista effort, and after the reconquista, which were 8 centuries according to historians, what was reconstituted wasn't that same kingdom, was something else altogether, yet there it is.

Yes, The Reconquista was an invention of 19th century scholars.

It was a gradual conquest or invasion by the Christian kingdoms of territories that had been Muslim since 711.

The last territory conquered for the Christian kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula was in 1492.

In short, territories that were previously part of Spain were not liberated, but Muslim territories called Al-Andalus were conquered.

 

[Wandering Star]

As a curiosity, the following:

“The Battle of Covadonga never existed. In all the Christian chronicles before the year 883, the Battle of Covadonga never appears, which is symptomatic. And in the Muslim chronicles it does not appear in any,” says José Luis Corral, professor of History at the University of Zaragoza and author of historical novels such as “El Cid.”

“This account of the battle is literally copied from a passage in the Bible. In these first medieval accounts, King Pelayo appears defeating the Chaldeans, a mythical people of present-day Iraq, instead of the Muslims. This is because it is an account copied from the Bible, specifically from the Book of Exodus of Moses' journey to the Red Sea and from the First Book of Judges,” concludes the professor.

“Pelayo is a leader who existed as a character who defended the territory of the Christian north from the Muslims,” he clarifies. “There are many theories: that he was a grandson of the Visigoth royal family, that he was a descendant of a Duke of Cantabria, others place him as a leader of the local aristocracy. It is not very clear. It is true that he is a historical figure who resisted the Islamic invasion probably because he did not want to pay taxes or submit and that he wanted to vindicate himself through the Christian religion,” according to Corral.

 

[Alejo]

In short, territories that were previously part of Spain were not liberated, but Muslim territories called Al-Andalus were conquered.

Right, reconquista implies that something was stolen, and then reclaimed.. but maybe it wasn't quite like that.

It isn't to say that Spain wasn't a great empire on its own afterwards for centuries, but maybe it wasn't a resistance as much as, simple the desire for expansion with the rules of the time.

It isn't to defend Al-Andalus either, they themselves violently moved in and expanded, so.. you live by the sword you die by the sword type thing, in both cases.. or the three of them. the Iberian peninsula, Al-andalus, and Spanish America.