Black legend

The Black Legend (Spanish: Leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend (Spanish: Leyenda negra española) is a purported historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Its proponents argue that its roots date back to the 16th century, when Spain's European rivals were seeking, by political and psychological means, to demonize the Spanish Empire, its people, and its culture, minimize Spanish discoveries and achievements, and counter its influence and power in world affairs.^[1][2][3]

According to the theory, Protestant propaganda published during the Hispano-Dutch War and the Anglo-Spanish War against the Catholic monarchs of the 16th century fostered an anti-Hispanic bias among subsequent historians. Along with a distorted view of the history of Spain and the history of Latin America, other parts of the world in the Portuguese Empire were also affected as a result of the Iberian Union and the Luso-Dutch Wars.^[1] Although this 17th-century propaganda was based in real events from the Spanish colonization of the Americas, which involved atrocities, the theory of the Leyenda Negra suggests that it often employed lurid and exaggerated depictions of violence, and ignored similar behavior by other powers.^[4]

Wars provoked by the religious schism and the formation of new states in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries also generated a propaganda war against the then Spanish Empire, bastion of the Catholic Church. As such, the assimilation of originally Dutch and English 16th-century propaganda into mainstream history is thought to have fostered an anti-Hispanic bias against the Catholic Monarchs among later historians, along with a distorted view of the history of Spain, Latin America, and other parts of the world.^[1]

Although most scholars agree that while the term Black Legend might be useful to describe 17th and 18th century anti-Spanish propaganda, there is no consensus on whether the phenomenon persists in the present day. A number of authors have critiqued the use of the "black legend" idea in modern times to present an uncritical image of the Spanish Empire's colonial practices (the so called "white legend".