Week 14 Post

Stern does support the black legend in his book. He wrote about it in the book as a truth, rather than a myth. Stern wrote about how the Indians were mistreated, treated poorly, taken advantage of. The Mita being one of these people that mistreated the Indians. “The mitas the most dreaded of the Toledan institutions” (p.103). They would not abuse the Indians physically but mentally when they would separate families ever two months due to the “labor draft”. In order to have Indians comply with the labor drafts the Corregidor would have to often rely to violence to make the Indians obey.

“Violent discipline. then, severed essential fun essential functions without which colonial relationships could not survive” (p.104). The Spanish used violence as to show who had power and keep the Indians in discipline. Stern used the example of the fisher man refusing to give fresh fish and being sent to jail and then later hung not before giving him fifty back beatings. The Spanish had to install fear in those who would go against them and make an example of them so that no one would try to disobey them. Stern gives good examples when it comes to giving examples that the black legend did exist and it was not just a myth.