Week 4 Prompt- the Black Legend in Empire and Religion

 Although I learned many things about the empires of central Mexico before encountering the Spanish, Conrad and Demarest did not engage directly with the Black Legend; at least until page 83,  their book doesn’t make too much of an effort to directly respond to the Legend.

Through the portion of the reading assigned for this week, I think that if Conrad and Demarest attempt to respond to the legend by refuting it, they do it indirectly. As discussed in class, the Black Legend was the idea spread by competitors, such as the British, that Spaniards mistreated natives in America upon interacting with them and that natives were subjugated to such treatment due to their inferiority. One can certainly argue that Conrad and Demarest attempt to display natives such as the Mexica as more than inferior primitive cultures destined to be conquered, as evident when one they state that “the state cult of accelerated warfare and mass sacrifice was a timely ideological adaptation to the political environment of fifteenth-century Central Mexico.” (48); surely a society sophisticated enough to adapt to its political environment by using such methods as mass sacrifice wouldn’t be ignorant to Spanish intentions. By explaining the advanced state of the Mexica, their Toltec “predecessors,” and other Central Mexican groups prior to the Conquest Period, Conrad and Demarest indirectly address at least a portion of the Black Legend.

Although Conrad and Demarest don’t make it their mission to directly engage the Black Legend, one can certainly find instances in which they indirectly refute it.