SPA 147 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Latin American Wars Of Independence, American Revolutionary War
Document Summary
Ferdinand and isabel, the king of spain, conquered the last. Spanish inquisition probably killed between 3000 and 5000 people in 350 years of existence. Torture was used, and it was highly regulated. Then, as now, there were lots of debates about whether you could trust the information acquired through torture. It does mean that when we see arguments that spain was uniquely cruel, violent, fanatical and bigoted, we are seeing effects of the black legend. Sanchez and many others who tried to defend the dignity of mexicans and mexican-americans did so by attacking the black legend. As we have said, the effect of the black legend in the us was racialize or lump together all of the people who spoke spanish and came predominantly catholic countries. Once again, this time according to powell, las casas is part of problem. Teaching las casas to student deforms student mind.
