The Black Legend In Regards to "Religion and Empire"

As discussed in class, the Black Legend is the myth that was popularized by the British in attempts to make them look bad in the eyes of the world and eventually history. The myth was that the Spaniards had mistreated the native people and perpetrated so that they looked bloodthirsty and victimized, respectively. However, we all know that while certain viewpoints of history may be one sided, the evidence proves otherwise. In our book, “Religion and Empire,” the authors indirectly engage with the Black Legend fairly consistently and ultimately refute as well as support the myth. Their main objective so far has been to identify patterns between the Mexica and Inca’s ideology, thereby getting to the root of their rise and downfall, but have provided evidence that the native settlers were not the helpless nation like the myth infers. Right from the start of the book we are provided with examples such as, “the new state religions gave the Mexica and Inca decisive advantages over their competitors and enabled both peoples to conquer vast territories in a remarkably short period of time.”(4) This proves that both of these empires are really no different from the Spanish in terms of conquering new lands and were rather efficient at it. However, when it came to interactions with the Spanish the authors did make it seem like the natives were indeed helpless. For example, “with the arrival of Cortes and his conquistadors in 1519, the independent evolution of Mesoamerican civilization came abruptly to an end. New World states, weak and strong, rising and waning, were swept away by the Spanish holocaust.”(69) The word holocaust paints a picture of vulnerability within the Triple Alliance as well as makes the Spanish appear vicious. Consequently, you could argue both sides of the myth; the history of the conquering of the Mesoamerica Empire has enough subjectivity that one could easily argue both sides of the myth.