Sprinkles_penguin
Senior Member
Disclaimer
• By no means I’m racist, colorist or classist.
• I respect all religions and races equally.
• I love my country, Mexico, as well as its culture and traditions
• I recognize Mexico is a mixed-race country, with a mixture of European and Indigenous culture.
• By no means I support social or political anarchism.
• I’ve learned and read a lot about Mexican, Indigenous and Spanish history and culture.
Historical Background
Mexico is a country in North America that was initially inhabited by Indigenous cultures, such as the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Toltecs, the Olmecs and many more. They shared similar characteristics, such as language, culture, religion and food. They built pyramids and grew corn.
However, starting in 1492 with Cristopher Columbus, the Spanish Kingdom, that had recently been formed by the union of the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, started investing in explorers and conquerors who embarked on adventures, coming from the other side of the ocean, questing for gold, treasures, new food and animals and other sorts of things in a new continent which they didn’t know about until later until a few years after.
In 1510, conquerors like Hern?n Cort?s sailed, bedazzled by the treasures he had heard of, towards modern-day Mexico. He brought an army, and by forming alliances with neighboring cultures, the Spanish fought the Aztecs, the biggest, most powerful empire of the time in that region. The Spanish won, and they started conquering lands as far north as Montana, in modern-day US and as south as Tierra de Fuego, in modern-day Argentina and Chile. They also started sending people, soldiers and priests, which the latter group served a very important function in colonial life, which we’ll talk about later. The Colonial Age had begun. After that, a vice-monarchy was stablished, and trade between Spain and its colonies begun, bringing hundreds of new spices, animals and other things into Spain.
With the establishment of the colony, a very important process took place: evangelism. Thousands of priests were sent into the colonies to teach Catholicism to the indigenous people, as well as the Spanish Language and culture. With this, another important process took place: miscegenation. White Spanish people started having families with the local Indigenous people, (and less numerously, with Black slaves brought from Africa) which resulted in the creation of new castes, each given a social position.
However, after nearly three hundred years of dominion, the people who lived in the colonies started getting fed up with the Spanish, and thus started fighting for their Independence. Slowly, one by one, the colonies started claiming independence, being that of Mexico in 1821. They got rid of all Spanish people and started forming their own democracies. However, the Spanish language, the Catholicism, and many other Spanish traditions, were still left in Mexico.
???
So, you might ask, where do I want to get with all of this? Me, as a scholar myself, have identified a very unique pattern on how they teach history in Mexican schools. Since we are children, we are taught history in school in a very biased perspective. We are always taught how the Indigenous civilizations used to live in peace and order. They always tell us how well organized they were, how clean and hygienic they were, or even how intellectually superior they were compared to Europeans. In comparison, they show the Europeans as greedy, violent, dirty, deceptive, malicious, treacherous, or even intellectually inferior to the Indigenous people. They try to make us feel pity for the conquest and get certain feeling of revenge and resentment against the Europeans, specially the Spanish because they “conquered us”. Even if all of this is not explicitly expressed or said in textbooks, it’s very easily detected, only provided that you are brave enough to challenge your conceptions, ideas, opinions and previous knowledge about history, culture and even your worldview, most of which were heavily influenced or manipulated by the Spanish Black Legend and the government. And I know many people don’t like or want to do this, because I know it’s not easy. It’s tiring. It’s very much easier to live with conformist, short minds who take manipulated lies for granted, than to live with the ever-lasting questions: What do I know? Is what I know, correct?
Spanish Black Legend
A black legend can be defined as a series of real events that happened in a certain part of the history of a country, a family or a person, distorted in a way in order to intentionally create a fake image, with the intention of discrediting them.
The Spanish Black Legend is a movement that happened in many countries in order to try to defeat Spain, by distorting events or creating fake ideas over the Spanish Empire. We call it a Black Legend because it was not limited to criticize Spanish government and politics, economy, society, religion, but it also involved unchangeable elements, such as racial and geographical elements, thus setting Spain as intrinsically inferior in all ways.
Spain, between 1450 and 1650 experienced certain jealousy from other European countries due to its rapid territorial expansion and its economical prosperity, as Spain was the first country to have colonies in the Americas, but also as it had territories in modern-day Italy, Portugal, France and Netherlands. Although some people would mark Italy as the birthplace of the Spanish Black Legend, most people would agree on England and The Netherlands, as these Protestant countries were against Catholicism. However, more and more countries joined this movement, mainly by creating fake propaganda which I’ll talk about below:
Italy
As Spain had territories such as Naples, many Italian people spoke against the Spanish soldiers. This is sometimes considered the birthplace of the Spanish Black Legend, as they were the first to express certain discontent leading to their own version of this legend. Soon after, the Spanish were assimilated with stereotypes such as being ignorant, dumb, immoral, or short-minded, sometimes being called pigs. They were even presented as culturally inferior, even though Spain was one of the first European countries which experience the Renaissance movement.
The Netherlands
Considered by most as the birthplace of this movement, was one of the countries who retaliated Spain the strongest. As Spain had territories in modern-day Netherlands, many and many Dutch Protestants started protesting against Spain and Catholicism in all its ways. Anti-Spanish Propaganda was spread around The Netherlands, speaking against the Spanish Duke de Alba, or mentioning stuff like war crimes committed by the Spanish, the similarities between the Spanish people and the Turks, or a fake document which stated that the Inquisition was about to be stablished in The Netherlands.
However, this didn’t stop here, as the Dutch Prince William D’Orange in 1580 wrote a document accusing the Spanish to be cruel, savage, dumb, and even inferior because of “being mixed with Jews and Arabs”. He even accused the Spanish King, Philip II of being incestuous, adulterer and a womanizer.
Later, the Dutch did it again, now exaggerating the Inquisition numbers, and even creating fake images like these about life in the colonies (which they claimed to be true and everyone believed them), which were very powerful at making the Spanish look truly evil:
England
As recently England had finished its Protestant Reforms and stablished Protestantism as its religion, it was against Catholicism. In addition, England and The Netherlands were allies, the reason why England also retaliated Spain in its own way. They supported the Dutch Independence, and they were against The Treaty of Tordesillas in which the Pope declared Spain as the owner of most of the Americas, in a way of jealousy for not having colonies. This is why the English fought Spain, first by hiring pirates to fight Spanish fleets, thus hurting the Spanish economy. This forced King Philip II to invade England in 1588, in which he catastrophically failed, which is one of the most exaggerated yet remembered events in English history. After all of this, the English accused the Spanish to be weak, incompetent, evil, arrogant, mischievous, cruel and treacherous, which really took root in the minds of the English, explaining why the future countries of USA and Canada, were also against Spain. But they also appealed with the racial slurs everyone called them, such as semi-Jewish or semi-Arab.
Portugal
Portugal’s vendetta against Spain was mainly a resentment about the annexation of Portugal in 1580. Although both Spain and Portugal were throwing shade against each other, Portugal’s propaganda was more successful, and really viewed the annexation as if Philip II had personally taken the previous king of Portugal, Sebastian I, to jail.
France
The French retaliation was due to the growingly tensions between Spain and France, which resulted in the French to write some propaganda like Antoine Arnauld, who in 1590 wrote about how the Spanish were cruel, evil, cowards, bluffs and greedy. The French also criticized them for being arrogant, ambitious and tyrant. They even personally attacked the King and the Queen, accusing them condescendingly of having Jewish and Arab ancestry, which they didn’t and is a common historical misconception even nowadays. Possibly that was one of the reasons Napoleon invaded Spain in the Napoleonic Wars.
However, what really made the French criticism so important around Europe was the Enlightenment, which helped spread all French ideas, whether good or bad, into most of Europe and other parts of the world such as North America. Even famous philosophers like Montesquieu, which believed in equality and tolerance, marginalized Spain as a non-European country, but a very African-related one. They actually started thinking of Spain as a country completely out of Europe, alien to the Enlightenment, which is ironical because King Charles III carried a completely Enlightened government, even creating at least 20 universities around Spain.
Germany
Initially, the German retributions weren’t solely against Spain, but due to the German Humanism, they were against everything Roman-related, thanks to the Lutheranism movement, which was against the mainly-Catholic countries. That included France, Italy and Portugal as well. The Germans thought of the Spanish as arrogant, treacherous, thieves, luxurious, cruel, immoral and disingenuous, as well as half-Jewish and half-Turks. However, the Spanish were even discriminated against by their ethnicity, which the Germans claimed to be brown, short, or even black and resembling monkeys.
A few centuries later, when Hitler rose to power with its extremely racist and antisemitic ideas, the German dictator saw the Spanish as inferior, condescendingly referring to them as Goths and Moors. The racial stigma was still there, and the idea of Spain not being in Europe, was there, as well.
Jews
Even some Jews, who were, in 1492, expelled from Spain, had some sort of vendetta against the Spanish. They criticized the Inquisition, spreading information about the mistreatment they and other people suffered in Spain. As they fled to, mainly the Netherlands, they helped spread Dutch Propaganda around Europe. Some of them called the Spanish idolatries and enslavers and said that the curse of Yaveh would fall on the King and Queen of Spain, while the blessings of the God of Israel would fall on The Netherlands.
United States
After its Independence, the US started an expansionist policy, which rivaled Spain as they shared borders. The US viewed its expansion and its war against Spain as a way to free the Indigenous peoples. In numerous times, propaganda in the US was spread in order to get more people on their side against Spain. They criticized the Spanish for being arrogant, treacherous, intolerant, cruel, superstitious and indolent. They thought of the Spanish and the Catholic as uncivilized. All this led to the war between Spain and the US, which resulted in a tired, defeated Spain to leave its last colonies in North America (Cuba, Florida and Puerto Rico).
Canada
Yeah, even the peaceful, hockey-loving country retaliated against Spain at some point. In 1994, Canada engaged on a war with Spain, because of a Spanish fisher boat fishing in international waters. Although Spain won, Canada spread false information about Spain being anti-ecological.
Spain
Even inside Spain many people criticized certain aspects of the nation. They complained about the Inquisition, the mistreatment of the Indigenous people, and although it started around the XVI century, in the Spanish Civil War it was when it experienced its full expression, especially because the dictator Francisco Franco wanted to create a new Spain that was not Catholic, and that was completely different from the past.
You might be asking yourself: What does all this have to do with the way Mexico thinks of Spain? All these countries contributed to said legend, which heavily and negatively impacted the way we think of Spain. Probably a lot of those stereotypes sounded familiar to you. And this is the way the government manipulated us to think of Spain a certain way, inheriting all those ideas.
Mexican nationalism arose in the XIX century to help unify all the people of Mexico into the same reality and help form a national unity where it wasn’t any, creating heroes for everyone to follow, like Benito Ju?rez, which, although was extremely wrong with its ideals, and did many bad things was instantly ranked a national hero, just for the sake of being Indigenous, or by creating the “mestizo” ideology, to fight for the Independence of our country. However, it was always misleadingly biased towards the Indigenous people of Mexico, as you might detect in textbooks or general advertising. For example, in the first years of Independent Mexico, population censuses exaggerated Indigenous numbers in order to create the illusion that we were more Indigenous. Another example is how Mexicans are always talking about how beautiful the Indigenous cultures are, the 68 Indigenous languages, their food, their clothes, their architecture and pyramids, how their traditions and cultures have impacted us, how we should feel proud about them, etc. But they never talk about our other roots, the Europeans. Some of them even despise the Europeans, blaming them for the poverty and social problems of the Latin American countries. For example, our president, L?pez Obrador who asked the Kingdom of Spain to apologize with us for the conquest. Some of them, like our president are brave enough to say, “they conquered us”.
“They conquered us”
This is a very common phrase that you will listen to in Mexico very frequently, or at least when speaking about history. I’ve never liked this phrase because it intrinsically denies any kind of mixture between the two worlds, and states that you only have Indigenous ancestry. Not a single mestizo holds the rights to say, “they conquered us”, as the ones who were conquered were the Indigenous cultures. We, as mestizos, have both the conquered, and the conquerors in our DNA. We cannot say we were only conquered as we also conquered. As much as sometimes people despise to accept it, most of us are partly Spanish, and that can be reflected on our genetic traits. Do you have blond, brown, red, wavy or curly hair? You have European ancestry. Do you have light skin, big light eyes, long eyebrows, a narrow or sharp nose and abundant facial/body hair? You also have European ancestry. Do you consider yourself to be tall or lactose-resistant? Chances are, you’re also partly European. Only 100% pure Indigenous people could feel conquered, as they are the direct descendants of the Aztecs or other Indigenous cultures. The fact that we are mixed is extremely enrichening and beautiful for me, even if some people don’t consider it that way.
Even our culture in elements such as the music, our clothes, our way we think of the world, the way we build our houses, our language and our religion are majorly influenced by Europe, even if we like to admit it or not. If we’re really so influenced by Europe, then why don’t we venerate our European ancestors as well? Why do we only venerate the Indigenous ones?
My proposal
My proposal over this is to accept we’re partly Indigenous but also partly European, and to learn about and love both of our ancestries. I’d also like to be able to feel proud about both the Indigenous cultures as well of the Europeans, as every time I feel proud for anything European, I get either called a wanna-be European or I get weird looks. I’d like everyone to know they can also feel proud and identified with Europe as our ancestors also come from Europe. I’d like schools to teach both European and Mexican history, as the main point in learning history is learning about your ancestors, and our ancestor aren’t exclusively from Indigenous. Actually, I think our European ancestors would feel extremely ashamed and sad after seeing how most of us don’t recognize them enough.
If I’m able to feel proud of the 68 Indigenous languages of Mexico, then I’m equally able to feel proud of the Spanish, Catalan, Valencian, Asturian, Basque, Aragonese and Galician languages. If I’m able to feel proud about Chichen Itz?, the pyramids of Teotihuac?n and the other Indigenous pyramids and architecture, I’m equally able to feel proud of the Spanish castles, forts, cities and cathedrals. If I’m able to feel proud about la Danza del Venado and la Guelaguetza, I’m equally able to feel proud of the Flamenco dance. And the list could go on and on…
What I’m trying to say is not that we should forget our Indigenous roots completely, but that we should love them equally, and venerate them equally into our nationalism, and also feel assimilated and identified with both of them. Because at the end, what is the purpose or such pro-Indigenous exacerbated nationalism, if at the end we discriminate them anyways? I think it’s extremely hypocrite and double-faced to claim that you’re proud of the Aztecs while you think of the Indigenous cultures of the south as poor, lazy, short or even foolish, while denying accepting that you’re slightly European. And then, what are you? You’re nothing then. You’re left in an emotional void that’s sadly very difficult to get out of. You’re left with a “horror vacui”, which traditional nationalists get the easy way out of by that previously mentioned pro-indigenist and anti-Spanish misleading nationalism. This is why I think we should feel identified with the history and realities of both sides. We should feel as pity about the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs as the Muslim Invasion of the Catholic Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. We should feel as pity about the Mexican Revolution as the Spanish Civil War. Even if you’re not convinced at this point about how European and Indigenous you are, you should accept that even if all this sounds like I don’t want to be Indigenous, I’m trying to compensate for all those years of blind pro-indegenism, and to create a balance between both heritages, as hurtful or difficult to accept it is.
But the Spanish were bad!
This is a very common misconception that is apparently very ingrained into everyone’s mind. You might ask yourself: After I accepted, I’m partly Spanish, what can I be proud of, if they were greedy, cruel, treacherous and mischievous people?
First of all, everyone should try to see whole picture, and we should always remember that history is written by the victors, and it’s very biased depending on where it’s written and who wrote it. The Spanish were not evil as our textbooks want them so badly to be.
Yeah, I do recognize that in the first 50 years of the Conquest and Colonization, the Spanish caused thousands of deaths in the Americas. I know they mistreated, enslaved and tortured many people. However, this was not as numerous as we are told. Contrary to common beliefs, the Spanish weren’t that cruel. As I wrote before, the Dutch exaggerated Inquisition numbers. Also, in comparison to other European powers, the Spanish were very kind to the Indigenous people For example, the English conquest was done merely for an economic purpose, that’s why they just expelled and exterminated Indigenous cultures to take their lands, in order to bring black slaves to work on their cotton and sugar plantations, in comparison to the Spanish, whose conquest’s purpose was to evangelize the Indigenous people, as the Spanish always considered them soul holders, whilst the English didn’t. The Spanish interbred with the Indigenous and always tried to include them into their society, enrichening themselves (the Spanish) as well with elements of the Indigenous cultures. Also, the Spanish didn’t bring into their colonies as much black slaves as the Portuguese or the English. And anyways, most other World powers once committed several massacres, so why just pick on Spain?
Also, the evangelization was, for most part, done peacefully. Yeah, the first wave of priests forced the Indigenous people to convert to Catholicism. And yeah, the Inquisition was always there throughout the Colonial Era. However, the following waves of priests that came into New Spain were very nice towards the Indigenous. Most of them taught the Indigenous people to speak and write Spanish, literature, Catholicism, science and many other subjects, with the excuse of teaching them exclusively Catholicism. They also protected them from abuse. One example of this is San Bartolom? de las Casas, who fought for the protection of the Indigenous people. He’s actually considered worldwide as a pioneer of the fight for human rights.
The “Leyes de Indias” stablished laws for the protection of the Indigenous people, granting them rights, fair pay and fair working hours, and it abolished Indigenous slavery. Actually, there was a moment called the Controversy of Valladolid in 1550 in which everyone stopped everything and started caring about the Indigenous peoples and fought for their rights and protection, which is why many Indigenous villages were left alone, but were granted protection by the Spanish.
End Statements
Finally, we can conclude several things. First, that denying everything that’s different (like what we do with European or Spanish history, cultures and ideas) keeps us from developing any further and accepting new ideas. This is a short-minded, pessimist and defeatist ideology, and its one of our main problems of the ideology of our country, and therefore, the reason why keep getting behind. This is represented in the way Mexicans always victimize themselves and blame all of their problems on other people, rather than proposing ideas or doing something to overcome those problems. We should look at our past as enrichening, rather than threatening.
Secondly, that we, as a mixed-race country, should care equally about both our European and Indigenous ancestors, and we should feel proud and identified by both of them. We should embrace our history as it is: the one of a country whose one half lived in the beautiful Iberian Peninsula, and whose other half lived around the vast and majestic landscapes of modern-day Mexico. I love the fascinating culture our country has, a combination of other two gorgeous cultures. I love Indigenous culture. I love European culture. It’s our responsibility to protect and love our culture just as it is, and we should feel proud of how culturally rich our country is, from both Europe and the Indigenous people. I love Mexico, and it’s our duty to embrace it just as it is. Embrace Europe. Embrace the Indigenous people. Embrace Mexico. Embrce yourself. Love Mexico. Love yourself.
• By no means I’m racist, colorist or classist.
• I respect all religions and races equally.
• I love my country, Mexico, as well as its culture and traditions
• I recognize Mexico is a mixed-race country, with a mixture of European and Indigenous culture.
• By no means I support social or political anarchism.
• I’ve learned and read a lot about Mexican, Indigenous and Spanish history and culture.
Historical Background
Mexico is a country in North America that was initially inhabited by Indigenous cultures, such as the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Toltecs, the Olmecs and many more. They shared similar characteristics, such as language, culture, religion and food. They built pyramids and grew corn.
However, starting in 1492 with Cristopher Columbus, the Spanish Kingdom, that had recently been formed by the union of the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, started investing in explorers and conquerors who embarked on adventures, coming from the other side of the ocean, questing for gold, treasures, new food and animals and other sorts of things in a new continent which they didn’t know about until later until a few years after.
In 1510, conquerors like Hern?n Cort?s sailed, bedazzled by the treasures he had heard of, towards modern-day Mexico. He brought an army, and by forming alliances with neighboring cultures, the Spanish fought the Aztecs, the biggest, most powerful empire of the time in that region. The Spanish won, and they started conquering lands as far north as Montana, in modern-day US and as south as Tierra de Fuego, in modern-day Argentina and Chile. They also started sending people, soldiers and priests, which the latter group served a very important function in colonial life, which we’ll talk about later. The Colonial Age had begun. After that, a vice-monarchy was stablished, and trade between Spain and its colonies begun, bringing hundreds of new spices, animals and other things into Spain.
With the establishment of the colony, a very important process took place: evangelism. Thousands of priests were sent into the colonies to teach Catholicism to the indigenous people, as well as the Spanish Language and culture. With this, another important process took place: miscegenation. White Spanish people started having families with the local Indigenous people, (and less numerously, with Black slaves brought from Africa) which resulted in the creation of new castes, each given a social position.
However, after nearly three hundred years of dominion, the people who lived in the colonies started getting fed up with the Spanish, and thus started fighting for their Independence. Slowly, one by one, the colonies started claiming independence, being that of Mexico in 1821. They got rid of all Spanish people and started forming their own democracies. However, the Spanish language, the Catholicism, and many other Spanish traditions, were still left in Mexico.
???
So, you might ask, where do I want to get with all of this? Me, as a scholar myself, have identified a very unique pattern on how they teach history in Mexican schools. Since we are children, we are taught history in school in a very biased perspective. We are always taught how the Indigenous civilizations used to live in peace and order. They always tell us how well organized they were, how clean and hygienic they were, or even how intellectually superior they were compared to Europeans. In comparison, they show the Europeans as greedy, violent, dirty, deceptive, malicious, treacherous, or even intellectually inferior to the Indigenous people. They try to make us feel pity for the conquest and get certain feeling of revenge and resentment against the Europeans, specially the Spanish because they “conquered us”. Even if all of this is not explicitly expressed or said in textbooks, it’s very easily detected, only provided that you are brave enough to challenge your conceptions, ideas, opinions and previous knowledge about history, culture and even your worldview, most of which were heavily influenced or manipulated by the Spanish Black Legend and the government. And I know many people don’t like or want to do this, because I know it’s not easy. It’s tiring. It’s very much easier to live with conformist, short minds who take manipulated lies for granted, than to live with the ever-lasting questions: What do I know? Is what I know, correct?
Spanish Black Legend
A black legend can be defined as a series of real events that happened in a certain part of the history of a country, a family or a person, distorted in a way in order to intentionally create a fake image, with the intention of discrediting them.
The Spanish Black Legend is a movement that happened in many countries in order to try to defeat Spain, by distorting events or creating fake ideas over the Spanish Empire. We call it a Black Legend because it was not limited to criticize Spanish government and politics, economy, society, religion, but it also involved unchangeable elements, such as racial and geographical elements, thus setting Spain as intrinsically inferior in all ways.
Spain, between 1450 and 1650 experienced certain jealousy from other European countries due to its rapid territorial expansion and its economical prosperity, as Spain was the first country to have colonies in the Americas, but also as it had territories in modern-day Italy, Portugal, France and Netherlands. Although some people would mark Italy as the birthplace of the Spanish Black Legend, most people would agree on England and The Netherlands, as these Protestant countries were against Catholicism. However, more and more countries joined this movement, mainly by creating fake propaganda which I’ll talk about below:
Italy
As Spain had territories such as Naples, many Italian people spoke against the Spanish soldiers. This is sometimes considered the birthplace of the Spanish Black Legend, as they were the first to express certain discontent leading to their own version of this legend. Soon after, the Spanish were assimilated with stereotypes such as being ignorant, dumb, immoral, or short-minded, sometimes being called pigs. They were even presented as culturally inferior, even though Spain was one of the first European countries which experience the Renaissance movement.
The Netherlands
Considered by most as the birthplace of this movement, was one of the countries who retaliated Spain the strongest. As Spain had territories in modern-day Netherlands, many and many Dutch Protestants started protesting against Spain and Catholicism in all its ways. Anti-Spanish Propaganda was spread around The Netherlands, speaking against the Spanish Duke de Alba, or mentioning stuff like war crimes committed by the Spanish, the similarities between the Spanish people and the Turks, or a fake document which stated that the Inquisition was about to be stablished in The Netherlands.
However, this didn’t stop here, as the Dutch Prince William D’Orange in 1580 wrote a document accusing the Spanish to be cruel, savage, dumb, and even inferior because of “being mixed with Jews and Arabs”. He even accused the Spanish King, Philip II of being incestuous, adulterer and a womanizer.
Later, the Dutch did it again, now exaggerating the Inquisition numbers, and even creating fake images like these about life in the colonies (which they claimed to be true and everyone believed them), which were very powerful at making the Spanish look truly evil:
England
As recently England had finished its Protestant Reforms and stablished Protestantism as its religion, it was against Catholicism. In addition, England and The Netherlands were allies, the reason why England also retaliated Spain in its own way. They supported the Dutch Independence, and they were against The Treaty of Tordesillas in which the Pope declared Spain as the owner of most of the Americas, in a way of jealousy for not having colonies. This is why the English fought Spain, first by hiring pirates to fight Spanish fleets, thus hurting the Spanish economy. This forced King Philip II to invade England in 1588, in which he catastrophically failed, which is one of the most exaggerated yet remembered events in English history. After all of this, the English accused the Spanish to be weak, incompetent, evil, arrogant, mischievous, cruel and treacherous, which really took root in the minds of the English, explaining why the future countries of USA and Canada, were also against Spain. But they also appealed with the racial slurs everyone called them, such as semi-Jewish or semi-Arab.
Portugal
Portugal’s vendetta against Spain was mainly a resentment about the annexation of Portugal in 1580. Although both Spain and Portugal were throwing shade against each other, Portugal’s propaganda was more successful, and really viewed the annexation as if Philip II had personally taken the previous king of Portugal, Sebastian I, to jail.
France
The French retaliation was due to the growingly tensions between Spain and France, which resulted in the French to write some propaganda like Antoine Arnauld, who in 1590 wrote about how the Spanish were cruel, evil, cowards, bluffs and greedy. The French also criticized them for being arrogant, ambitious and tyrant. They even personally attacked the King and the Queen, accusing them condescendingly of having Jewish and Arab ancestry, which they didn’t and is a common historical misconception even nowadays. Possibly that was one of the reasons Napoleon invaded Spain in the Napoleonic Wars.
However, what really made the French criticism so important around Europe was the Enlightenment, which helped spread all French ideas, whether good or bad, into most of Europe and other parts of the world such as North America. Even famous philosophers like Montesquieu, which believed in equality and tolerance, marginalized Spain as a non-European country, but a very African-related one. They actually started thinking of Spain as a country completely out of Europe, alien to the Enlightenment, which is ironical because King Charles III carried a completely Enlightened government, even creating at least 20 universities around Spain.
Germany
Initially, the German retributions weren’t solely against Spain, but due to the German Humanism, they were against everything Roman-related, thanks to the Lutheranism movement, which was against the mainly-Catholic countries. That included France, Italy and Portugal as well. The Germans thought of the Spanish as arrogant, treacherous, thieves, luxurious, cruel, immoral and disingenuous, as well as half-Jewish and half-Turks. However, the Spanish were even discriminated against by their ethnicity, which the Germans claimed to be brown, short, or even black and resembling monkeys.
A few centuries later, when Hitler rose to power with its extremely racist and antisemitic ideas, the German dictator saw the Spanish as inferior, condescendingly referring to them as Goths and Moors. The racial stigma was still there, and the idea of Spain not being in Europe, was there, as well.
Jews
Even some Jews, who were, in 1492, expelled from Spain, had some sort of vendetta against the Spanish. They criticized the Inquisition, spreading information about the mistreatment they and other people suffered in Spain. As they fled to, mainly the Netherlands, they helped spread Dutch Propaganda around Europe. Some of them called the Spanish idolatries and enslavers and said that the curse of Yaveh would fall on the King and Queen of Spain, while the blessings of the God of Israel would fall on The Netherlands.
United States
After its Independence, the US started an expansionist policy, which rivaled Spain as they shared borders. The US viewed its expansion and its war against Spain as a way to free the Indigenous peoples. In numerous times, propaganda in the US was spread in order to get more people on their side against Spain. They criticized the Spanish for being arrogant, treacherous, intolerant, cruel, superstitious and indolent. They thought of the Spanish and the Catholic as uncivilized. All this led to the war between Spain and the US, which resulted in a tired, defeated Spain to leave its last colonies in North America (Cuba, Florida and Puerto Rico).
Canada
Yeah, even the peaceful, hockey-loving country retaliated against Spain at some point. In 1994, Canada engaged on a war with Spain, because of a Spanish fisher boat fishing in international waters. Although Spain won, Canada spread false information about Spain being anti-ecological.
Spain
Even inside Spain many people criticized certain aspects of the nation. They complained about the Inquisition, the mistreatment of the Indigenous people, and although it started around the XVI century, in the Spanish Civil War it was when it experienced its full expression, especially because the dictator Francisco Franco wanted to create a new Spain that was not Catholic, and that was completely different from the past.
You might be asking yourself: What does all this have to do with the way Mexico thinks of Spain? All these countries contributed to said legend, which heavily and negatively impacted the way we think of Spain. Probably a lot of those stereotypes sounded familiar to you. And this is the way the government manipulated us to think of Spain a certain way, inheriting all those ideas.
Mexican nationalism arose in the XIX century to help unify all the people of Mexico into the same reality and help form a national unity where it wasn’t any, creating heroes for everyone to follow, like Benito Ju?rez, which, although was extremely wrong with its ideals, and did many bad things was instantly ranked a national hero, just for the sake of being Indigenous, or by creating the “mestizo” ideology, to fight for the Independence of our country. However, it was always misleadingly biased towards the Indigenous people of Mexico, as you might detect in textbooks or general advertising. For example, in the first years of Independent Mexico, population censuses exaggerated Indigenous numbers in order to create the illusion that we were more Indigenous. Another example is how Mexicans are always talking about how beautiful the Indigenous cultures are, the 68 Indigenous languages, their food, their clothes, their architecture and pyramids, how their traditions and cultures have impacted us, how we should feel proud about them, etc. But they never talk about our other roots, the Europeans. Some of them even despise the Europeans, blaming them for the poverty and social problems of the Latin American countries. For example, our president, L?pez Obrador who asked the Kingdom of Spain to apologize with us for the conquest. Some of them, like our president are brave enough to say, “they conquered us”.
“They conquered us”
This is a very common phrase that you will listen to in Mexico very frequently, or at least when speaking about history. I’ve never liked this phrase because it intrinsically denies any kind of mixture between the two worlds, and states that you only have Indigenous ancestry. Not a single mestizo holds the rights to say, “they conquered us”, as the ones who were conquered were the Indigenous cultures. We, as mestizos, have both the conquered, and the conquerors in our DNA. We cannot say we were only conquered as we also conquered. As much as sometimes people despise to accept it, most of us are partly Spanish, and that can be reflected on our genetic traits. Do you have blond, brown, red, wavy or curly hair? You have European ancestry. Do you have light skin, big light eyes, long eyebrows, a narrow or sharp nose and abundant facial/body hair? You also have European ancestry. Do you consider yourself to be tall or lactose-resistant? Chances are, you’re also partly European. Only 100% pure Indigenous people could feel conquered, as they are the direct descendants of the Aztecs or other Indigenous cultures. The fact that we are mixed is extremely enrichening and beautiful for me, even if some people don’t consider it that way.
Even our culture in elements such as the music, our clothes, our way we think of the world, the way we build our houses, our language and our religion are majorly influenced by Europe, even if we like to admit it or not. If we’re really so influenced by Europe, then why don’t we venerate our European ancestors as well? Why do we only venerate the Indigenous ones?
My proposal
My proposal over this is to accept we’re partly Indigenous but also partly European, and to learn about and love both of our ancestries. I’d also like to be able to feel proud about both the Indigenous cultures as well of the Europeans, as every time I feel proud for anything European, I get either called a wanna-be European or I get weird looks. I’d like everyone to know they can also feel proud and identified with Europe as our ancestors also come from Europe. I’d like schools to teach both European and Mexican history, as the main point in learning history is learning about your ancestors, and our ancestor aren’t exclusively from Indigenous. Actually, I think our European ancestors would feel extremely ashamed and sad after seeing how most of us don’t recognize them enough.
If I’m able to feel proud of the 68 Indigenous languages of Mexico, then I’m equally able to feel proud of the Spanish, Catalan, Valencian, Asturian, Basque, Aragonese and Galician languages. If I’m able to feel proud about Chichen Itz?, the pyramids of Teotihuac?n and the other Indigenous pyramids and architecture, I’m equally able to feel proud of the Spanish castles, forts, cities and cathedrals. If I’m able to feel proud about la Danza del Venado and la Guelaguetza, I’m equally able to feel proud of the Flamenco dance. And the list could go on and on…
What I’m trying to say is not that we should forget our Indigenous roots completely, but that we should love them equally, and venerate them equally into our nationalism, and also feel assimilated and identified with both of them. Because at the end, what is the purpose or such pro-Indigenous exacerbated nationalism, if at the end we discriminate them anyways? I think it’s extremely hypocrite and double-faced to claim that you’re proud of the Aztecs while you think of the Indigenous cultures of the south as poor, lazy, short or even foolish, while denying accepting that you’re slightly European. And then, what are you? You’re nothing then. You’re left in an emotional void that’s sadly very difficult to get out of. You’re left with a “horror vacui”, which traditional nationalists get the easy way out of by that previously mentioned pro-indigenist and anti-Spanish misleading nationalism. This is why I think we should feel identified with the history and realities of both sides. We should feel as pity about the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs as the Muslim Invasion of the Catholic Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. We should feel as pity about the Mexican Revolution as the Spanish Civil War. Even if you’re not convinced at this point about how European and Indigenous you are, you should accept that even if all this sounds like I don’t want to be Indigenous, I’m trying to compensate for all those years of blind pro-indegenism, and to create a balance between both heritages, as hurtful or difficult to accept it is.
But the Spanish were bad!
This is a very common misconception that is apparently very ingrained into everyone’s mind. You might ask yourself: After I accepted, I’m partly Spanish, what can I be proud of, if they were greedy, cruel, treacherous and mischievous people?
First of all, everyone should try to see whole picture, and we should always remember that history is written by the victors, and it’s very biased depending on where it’s written and who wrote it. The Spanish were not evil as our textbooks want them so badly to be.
Yeah, I do recognize that in the first 50 years of the Conquest and Colonization, the Spanish caused thousands of deaths in the Americas. I know they mistreated, enslaved and tortured many people. However, this was not as numerous as we are told. Contrary to common beliefs, the Spanish weren’t that cruel. As I wrote before, the Dutch exaggerated Inquisition numbers. Also, in comparison to other European powers, the Spanish were very kind to the Indigenous people For example, the English conquest was done merely for an economic purpose, that’s why they just expelled and exterminated Indigenous cultures to take their lands, in order to bring black slaves to work on their cotton and sugar plantations, in comparison to the Spanish, whose conquest’s purpose was to evangelize the Indigenous people, as the Spanish always considered them soul holders, whilst the English didn’t. The Spanish interbred with the Indigenous and always tried to include them into their society, enrichening themselves (the Spanish) as well with elements of the Indigenous cultures. Also, the Spanish didn’t bring into their colonies as much black slaves as the Portuguese or the English. And anyways, most other World powers once committed several massacres, so why just pick on Spain?
Also, the evangelization was, for most part, done peacefully. Yeah, the first wave of priests forced the Indigenous people to convert to Catholicism. And yeah, the Inquisition was always there throughout the Colonial Era. However, the following waves of priests that came into New Spain were very nice towards the Indigenous. Most of them taught the Indigenous people to speak and write Spanish, literature, Catholicism, science and many other subjects, with the excuse of teaching them exclusively Catholicism. They also protected them from abuse. One example of this is San Bartolom? de las Casas, who fought for the protection of the Indigenous people. He’s actually considered worldwide as a pioneer of the fight for human rights.
The “Leyes de Indias” stablished laws for the protection of the Indigenous people, granting them rights, fair pay and fair working hours, and it abolished Indigenous slavery. Actually, there was a moment called the Controversy of Valladolid in 1550 in which everyone stopped everything and started caring about the Indigenous peoples and fought for their rights and protection, which is why many Indigenous villages were left alone, but were granted protection by the Spanish.
End Statements
Finally, we can conclude several things. First, that denying everything that’s different (like what we do with European or Spanish history, cultures and ideas) keeps us from developing any further and accepting new ideas. This is a short-minded, pessimist and defeatist ideology, and its one of our main problems of the ideology of our country, and therefore, the reason why keep getting behind. This is represented in the way Mexicans always victimize themselves and blame all of their problems on other people, rather than proposing ideas or doing something to overcome those problems. We should look at our past as enrichening, rather than threatening.
Secondly, that we, as a mixed-race country, should care equally about both our European and Indigenous ancestors, and we should feel proud and identified by both of them. We should embrace our history as it is: the one of a country whose one half lived in the beautiful Iberian Peninsula, and whose other half lived around the vast and majestic landscapes of modern-day Mexico. I love the fascinating culture our country has, a combination of other two gorgeous cultures. I love Indigenous culture. I love European culture. It’s our responsibility to protect and love our culture just as it is, and we should feel proud of how culturally rich our country is, from both Europe and the Indigenous people. I love Mexico, and it’s our duty to embrace it just as it is. Embrace Europe. Embrace the Indigenous people. Embrace Mexico. Embrce yourself. Love Mexico. Love yourself.
Last edited:
