Tema: Necesito ayuda. (Leyenda negra)

Para empezar podrías recomendarle que se dé una vuelta al sur del Río Grande hasta la Tierra del Fuego. Se encontrará con millones de indios y muchos más millones de mestizos. En EE.UU. y Canadá los indios están casi extinguidos, lo mismo que sus lenguas, mientras todavía quedan millones de hablantes de náuatl, maya, quechua, aymara, guaraní y mapudungún. Y si EE.UU. no se hubiera comido más de medio México habría muchos menos indios todavía, claro. Eso sí, los desplazaron repartiéndolos por el territorio estadounidenses para quitarles las mejores tierras. ¿Dónde están los indios evangelizados? ¿Qué escuelas o universidades fundaron para ellos? ¿Con qué libros los evangelizaron? La primera imprenta al norte del Río Grande no se instaló hasta 1639, exactamente un siglo después de que los primeros impresores llegados de Sevilla pusieran sus talleres en México y en Lima, publicando catecismos y libros de texto para los indios. Los gringos solo imprimían para ellos. Dile también que te muestre las leyes anglosajonas de Indias. España es el único país que tiene todo un cuerpo de leyes, de muchos tomos, para regular el gobierno de Indias y evitar y castigar abusos. Incluso con el juicio de residencia al que se sometían obligadamente los virreyes y otros cargos antes de volver a la Península para ver si habían cumplido bien de su cargo y no habían cometido abusos. Cuéntale también que (¡a petición del propio Cortés!) el emperador Carlos I de España y V de Alemania otorgó títulos nobiliarios a los jefes de las tribus que habían ayudado a Cortés a librarlos de los aztecas que los esclavizaban, los sacrificaban y se los comían. Y que a las hijas de Atahualpa, después de bautizadas, se les concedió el título de princesas. Háblale del Inca Garcilaso, mestizo de sangre real y cronista de Indias. En fin, esto por ahora. Voy a ver qué encuentro por ahí. Suerte.

Sixteenth Century Spanish Grants of Armorial Bearings to Indigenous Mexican Indians

The Legacy of Spain in America

By: Jesus J. Chao

PROLOGUE

This essay is a simple gathering of the historical research made by several prestigious scholars who dedicated their efforts to find the truth behind the records of Spain’s discovery, conquest, colonization, and evangelization of America. The history of this transcendental historical period was hidden under a thick layer of soot, the infamous “Black Legend”. For the last 500 years, envy, ignorance, resentment, and religious and racial bigotry, have concealed from the public eye the achievements of this monumental enterprise. In this essay I have tried to shed some light on the historical truth by analyzing the five milestones that gave a unique humanistic seal to the Spanish colonization that distinguished it from similar enterprises throughout the history of mankind:

1)The attitude of the Crown of Spain towards the slavery and the human rights of the Indians.

2)The universal and egalitarian education found throughout the Spanish’ dominions.

3)The commitment to the evangelization, and social and medical welfare of the Indians.

4)The slavery of the Blacks and their treatment under the Crown of Spain.

5)The Church and its pursuit in the education and human rights in America.

The historians quoted in this essay are scholars well kwon for their serious research. Their only aim was not to compromise the truth in favor of special interests or prejudices. I would feel extremely satisfied if this essay contributes to the awakening of public interest to further knowledge of this matter.

This essay was presented on February 12, 1992 at the Institute of Hispanic Culture of Houston as part of the Commemoration of the 500 Anniversary of the Encounter of Two Worlds. This work can be freely reproduced in total or in part.

Myth and Reality:

“The Legacy of Spain in America”

There is a deep discrepancy and polarization regarding the evaluation of the historical legacy of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to America; an event which is probably one of the most important in the history of mankind. On the 500th Anniversary of the encounter of the Old and the New Worlds we must distinguish between what is myth and what is reality. Historical events as complex as the discovery and conquest of America must not be judged through the ethical and moral standards of our times, but rather they should be analyzed in accordance with the prevailing norms of the times in which they occurred. These events should be approached with an auto-critical attitude, leaving preconceived ideas behind.

For almost 500 years there has been a campaign of defamation against the legacy of Spain in America. It is sad to find that this lack of historical perspective, along with an entrenched Hispanophobia, has been going on for centuries in the Anglo-Saxon countries and consequently has brought about a subconscious, almost automatic, rejection of Hispanic values. According to historian Dr. Powell: “Jaundiced views of the Hispanic world are taught very early in our schools and they are thoroughly inculcated by the time we enter college and university...The standard simplistic version of Spanish rule in America as a slavocracy, filled with tyranny, looting, bleeding taxation, and suffocating obscurantism, does not conform to the facts.” (1) (*) This attitude, based upon prejudices and ignorance, is damaging the image of the Hispanics in this country. Sometimes the Hispanics themselves, either by action or omission or simply because they were not aware of the truth of their history, have contributed to demean their own heritage.

Dr. Philip Wayne Powell, Emeritus Professor of history at the University of California, in his research on the "Black Legend" titled the “Tree of Hate” , (a book that every Hispanist should read) asserts that the study of 16th century Europe clearly reveals the universal pattern of cruelty, intolerance, and inhumanity which characterized the social, religious, and economic life throughout the continent...Examples of this were the reigns of Elizabeth I of England and her successor James I which were known for their most barbarous cruelty. However, Dr. Powell affirms "that the Spain of the conquest period was a deeply civilized nation by all discernible European standards of that day, ...In jurisprudence, diplomacy, monarchical, religious and imperial concepts, and total culture, Spain was a European leader throughout the sixteen century and in much of the next.” (2) (*)

It is a well-known fact that throughout history great civilizations have flourished and later disappeared. American civilizations such as the Olmecs, Nascas and Mayas disappeared long before the arrival of Columbus. The Iberian peninsula is nothing more than a melting pot of different civilizations that have disappeared leaving behind a mosaic of new and rich cultures. Hispanic Americans, consequently, need to gain a better understanding and knowledge of their own European, African and Indian heritage in order to assert their cultures and multi-ethnic identity with justified pride.

Immediately following the arrival of the first Spaniards in America, the Spanish Crown questioned itself about the moral, ethical and religious implications of such an extraordinary enterprise. The Crown based its behavior upon a document that began by proclaiming all men brothers since they were all descendants of Adam and Eve. Consequently, there was always a deep feeling of justice rooted in the laws proclaimed by Spain to protect the American Indians. This is a transcendental fact that brought about a radical change in the European juridical system and would place the Spanish Crown at a much higher level than the other nations of the time.

Queen Isabella the Catholic took the Indians under her protection considering them as subjects of the Spanish Crown.

In 1494, shortly after the discovery of America, Queen Isabella named a committee of jurists and theologians in order to resolve the moral dilemma of whether the Indians should be subjected to slavery. The committee declared that the Indians had the right to be free. Later, at the request of King Ferdinand, the chief crown jurist, Palacios Rubio, examined the rights of Spaniards in the Indies, and he restated that the Indians were free by natural law and therefore the Spaniards did not have the right to take away their freedom or their properties. (3)

As a matter of fact, upon his return to Spain after his second trip to America, Columbus offered the Spanish Monarchs a group of Indian slaves, against the explicit prohibition from the Queen in regard to their enslavement. Queen Isabella, showing great displeasure, ordered their freedom and their return to Hispaniola admonishing Columbus by saying: "Who gave you the authority to make slaves of my subjects?" It is only fair to acknowledge that the first voice raised in the world against the slavery of Indians, was to the glory of Spain that of Queen Isabella the Catholic. The Queen had such an interest in the well being of the Indians that in "the codicil or appendix to her last will and testament, drawn shortly before her death, she earnestly asked her husband King Ferdinand, her daughter Juana and her son- in- law not to consent in, nor to permit that the Indians, residents of said Indies, whether already conquered or still to be conquered, be aggrieved at all, whether in their persons or their property, but rather that they be well and fairly treated and that, if wronged, you set right any such wrongs...” (4) (*)

Many Spanish voices were raised in defense of the Indians. In 1510 the first Dominican friar, Fray Pedro de Cordoba, vicar of the Order, and Fray Antonio de Montesinos, arrived in Hispaniola. They immediately began their struggle for the well being of the Indians. On the Sunday before Christmas 1511, Fray Montesinos gave a homily that became the first proclamation of human rights of the Indians in America. In 1502 Bartolomé de Las Casas arrived in Hispaniola and there, in 1510, he became the first priest ordained in the New World. In 1513 he traveled to Cuba and was given some lands and a group of Indians in encomienda near the town of Cienfuegos in partnership with another very kind man, Pedro Rentería. Shortly after, seeing the ruthless exploitation of the Indians, Las Casas' conscience began to bother him. Consequently, the preaching of Montesinos and Cordoba along with the burning at the stake of the Indian chief Hatuey and the slaughter of Indians by Pánfilo de Narváez in Caonao, brought about in Las Casas a profound spiritual change.

Father Bartolome de Las Casas, "The Protector of the Indians" and first prophet for the human rights in America.

In the words of the American historian Lewis Hanke: "...It was on Cuban soil that Las Casas underwent his great spiritual renaissance in 1514...It was there that he decided to work for the cause of Indian freedom." (5) The homily given by Las Casas in the presence of governor Diego Velázquez on the 15th of August 1514 in the city of Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, became a milestone in the history of human rights, that homily condemned the "encomiendas" and he proceeded to give freedom to the Indians that had been under his guardianship. This was the beginning of a life totally dedicated to the struggle for the human rights of the natives. Las Casas thus became "The Protector of the Indians" and first prophet for the human rights in America.

Pope Paul III declared that the Indians should not be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though when they were outside the faith of Jesus Christ

Las Casas was made bishop of Chiapas and found the backing of another two great bishops of the Kingdom of New Spain, (Mexico) Juan de Zumárraga and Julián Garcés. Zumárraga and Garcés decided to send the Dominican friar Bernardino de Minaya to Rome so that he could intercede with the Pope for the cause of freedom for the Indians. These activities resulted in the famous bull Sublimis Deus, published in June 1537, by Pope Paul III, in which the Pontiff condemned all those who asserted that the Indians were bereft of the intelligence necessary to embrace the faith. The Pope also solemnly declared that “the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ.” (6) (*)

In 1571 another very important figure arrived in Peru, the Jesuit missionary José de Acosta. He was a scientist, cosmographer and a government specialist and became a professor at the University of Lima. He lived in Peru for a period of 15 years and for 2 years in Mexico and the Caribbean islands; acquiring tremendous knowledge of the indigenous cultures. Acosta also denounced the abuse, exploitation, wantonness and greed of the conquistadors. He searched for and proposed solutions to the critical situation basing his stand upon the humanistic teachings of Father Vitoria. Thus he became one of the first sources of Iberian American thought and one of the principal precursors of its democratic ideals. According to him, human will, social tolerance and political freedom were fundamental values of the human being without distinction of origin or race. There were many missionaries who dedicated their lives to the betterment of the Indians, sacrificing themselves even to the extreme of reaching martyrdom, like father Montesinos, in order to accomplish their labor of love in America.

The University of Salamanca and the College of San Gregorio of Valladolid, recognized the Indian’s rights to keep their own laws and territories.

In Spain, well-respected people like Cardinal Cisneros, and a group of professors of the University of Salamanca also fought for the rights of the Indians, among them was the famous theologian Melchor Cano. Another group of professors from "Colegio de San Gregorio" in Valladolid also played and important role in this struggle. However, in the history of the human rights the works of the Dominican priest, Francisco Vitoria, are paramount. Considered the founder of modern international law, Vitoria published in 1532 his famous treatise De Indis in which he “established the right of the Indians to their territories and laws and denied to the Spaniards any right to be in the Indies at all, other than that of every man peacefully to go and trade everywhere and the duty of every Christian to convert the heathen.” (7) (*) This document would have transcendental repercussions not only in America but also throughout the whole European jurisprudence.

Spain showed the world a humanistic vision unequaled at that point in time. American historian Lewis Hanke corroborates this when he attests that: “ ...The clash of arms was not the only struggle during the conquest. The clash of ideas that accompanied the discovery of America and the establishment of Spanish rule there is a story that must be told as an integral part of the conquest, and endows it with a unique character worthy of note... The widespread criticism permitted, and even stimulated, by the crown really constitutes one of the glories of Spanish civilization... It is to Spain's everlasting credit that she allowed men to insist that all her actions in America be just...” (8) (*)

Emperor Charles V reaffirmed the prohibition of the Indian’s slavery.

Emperor Carlos V, grandson of Queen Isabel, who had the same commitment toward the ethics of the conquest of America, took the matter in dead earnest and called together a Congregation of jurists and theologians in Valladolid to decide whether it was legitimate for the Spaniards to wage wars known as conquest against the Indians without their having committed fresh guilty acts other than those of their infidelity. (9) The congregation decided in favor of the freedom of the Indians and this became the “New Laws for the good treatment and preservation of the Indians.” The law was adamant: the Indians were free. A Cédula (Royal Order) passed in 1542 proclaims: "We order and command that henceforth, for no reason of war or any other, not even rebellion, or purchase, no Indian whatever is to be made slave. And we wish and command that they be treated as our vassals of the Crown of Castile, for so they are...since being our vassals they are free, they possess a presumption of freedom in their favor.” (10) (*)

There was a saying in the colonies that asserted “the laws are observed but not fulfilled.” In order to make the people obey the laws, Carlos V proclaimed as aforementioned the New Laws of the Indies. Therefore it was a shameful violation of the law the use of Indian slaves in the mines. To put an end to this situation, “the Viceroy of New Spain, Luis de Velasco, issued an order in 1551 calling for the liberation of all the slaves. When the mine owners complained, he answered: 'that the liberty of the Indians was more important than all the mines in the world, and that the revenues which the Crown might receive from them was not of such a nature as to require the violation of laws, both human and divine.' One hundred and fifty thousand slaves were liberated, not counting their women and children.” (11) (*) That ended once and for all the slavery of the Indians fulfilling at last, the will of Queen Isabel who had declared it illegal from the very beginning of the conquest.

It is no wonder that by the end of the 18th century Humboldt declared: “The work of the mines” -he pointed out- “is absolutely free in the whole kingdom of New Spain; no Indian, no Mestizo, can be forced to work in the mines. It is absolutely untrue that the Court of Madrid sent convicts to America to make them work in the gold and silver mines...This policy was in striking contrast with that of England in her North American colonies. The transportation of English felons to America was also a practice of the British Government... in some instances felons were not the only involuntary emigrants from England whose labor was appropriated. Towards the end of the 18th century it became common practice for captains of English and Dutch vessels to entice ignorant peasants from England, Ireland and Germany, by flattering promises of wealth, to accompany them to America, where they had no sooner arrived than they were sold as bondsmen to defray the cost of their passage and entertainment.” (12)

At the beginning of the 19th century, the great German scholar and naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt, after traveling throughout the American Continent wrote a four volume treatise titled Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain published in London in 1811. “In this work he attested to the riches of the Indians which they preserved throughout the 300 years of Spanish rule.” (13) “In the Kingdom of New Spain,” affirmed Humboldt, “at any rate for the last thirty years work in the mines is free. Nowhere are the people allowed to enjoy more completely the fruit of their labors than in the mines of Mexico; no law can force the Indian to choose this kind of work or to prefer this or that mine; if he is displeased with the owner of the mine, the Indian forsakes it to offer his work to another one who pays him more regularly or in cash. These facts are correct and comforting and should be known in Europe...the Mexican miners are the best paid of all the miners. He receives six to seven times more for his labor that a Saxon miner. A carpenter in New Andalucía is paid per day more than a Saxon miner per week.” (14)

Contrast between the Spanish and the English colonization.

In Hispanic America there was a great degree of equality among men which unfortunately was not the case in the English, Dutch and French colonies, although their colonial period occurred during a century when the ethical and moral standards were supposedly much higher. It is therefore an incontrovertible fact that during the European colonization of the 17th throughout the 20th centuries we can not find a body of laws to protect the human rights of the natives that encompasses and is as generous as those found in the Spanish dominions from the very beginning of the colonization in the XVI century. While on the other hand, attested Dr. Powell: “the English government and people, and their New World progeny, exhibited for the most part, a supreme unconcern for the protection and welfare of the American Indian.” (15) It is reprehensible that “Settlers in South Carolina put a price on Indian prisoners caught alive and made handsome profits by selling them as slaves to the West Indies.” The contempt towards the human dignity was such that: “ Bristol businessmen throve in kidnapped English labour which they mercilessly shipped to the West Indies.” (16)

On December 29th, 1593, King Felipe II signed a Royal Order urging the Audiencia of Lima “henceforth to punish the Spaniards who insult, offend or ill-treat the Indians, with more severity than if the same offences were committed against the Spaniards.” Gabriel de Paniagua, knight of the Order de Calatrava, when he was Governor of the city of Cuzco, in Peru, “ordered a Spaniard's hand to be cut off because in his presence and without sufficient cause, the Spaniard gave a slap in the face to a cacique.” (17) It is important to point out that there was a law enacted by Felipe II "limiting the day's work to eight hours, Sunday free, for those workers engaged by or for military engineers, for fortresses, ports and other defense constructions. In case of accident, the workers while in the hospital (which, of course, was free) were paid half their wages.” (18) This protection was not given to the North American workers, or to most of the world, until the 20th century.

Unfortunately the sad truth is that, although the laws were the same for everyone throughout their overseas colonies, they were applied very differently among the private enterprises. The Indian mine workers in Peru were cruelly exploited under the work system called the “mita”. This was an Inca tradition under which all subjects would work for a time in public works under conditions that were close to slavery. This system was used by the Spaniards in the silver mines of Potosí even though a royal decree in 1601 asked them to abandon such forced labor in favor of better treatment and salary in order to attract free Indians to do such work. (19)

The way Indians were treated varied according to the place, but generally they were treated better in the Kingdom of New Spain than in Peru. With great vision, Hernán Cortés, who had studied law at the University de Salamanca, tried to save the Indian monuments and with his own money paid for the construction of schools and hospitals providing for them in his will. On the other hand, Francisco Pizarro, an illiterate adventurer without an education, was not as capable handling the extraordinary enterprise that had been provided by his fate. According to Lesley Byrd Simpson, renown North American scholar in Latin America: “It seems to me that the average stature of the viceroys of New Spain was so great that no country to my knowledge was ever more fortunate in its rulers...(Mexico) enjoyed a long life (three hundred years!) of relative peace, stability, and prosperity, in marked contrast to the squabbling nations of Europe. Some of the men who made this possible are worth our knowing.” (20) (*)

Under the Spanish rule, the Indian peasants fared better than the Russians or the German peasants

According to Humboldt, “the Indian farmer was poor but he was free. His state was far preferable to that of the peasants in a great part of northern Europe. The number of slaves was practically zero.” Humboldt "was very emphatic about the superiority of the standard of living of the Indians under the Spaniards compared to that of many European peasants, specially those in Russia and a great part of Northern Germany.” Humboldt published parallel tables of bread and meat consumption. Mexico City consumed 189 pounds of meat per person per year, compared to 163 in Paris and almost as much bread as any other city in Europe, 363 pounds of bread per person per year, as compared to 377 for Paris. Caracas consumed 7 times more meat per person than Paris. According to Mexican writer Esquivel Obregón in his book The Influence of Spain and United States over Mexico, published in 1918, the purchasing power of the Mexican worker in 1792, during colonial times, compared with the years 1891 and 1908 (after the Mexican independence) sharply declined and he follows “our wage earner in colonial days could purchase as much wheat as the French earner of 1918...” in other words, affirms Obregón, “we have gone backwards on the road of progress.” (21)

According to historian Francis C. Kelly: “It is only justice to say that the Spanish Crown did all it could under difficult circumstances to favor and assist the solid growth and development of its American territories.” (22) The Spaniards tried to develop the production of wheat, olive, sugar cane, citrus and fruit trees and many other forms of land cultivation. The breeding of animals was introduced and developed, the cow, horse, pig, sheep, goat, and poultry enriched the food supply of the American inhabitants. Silk and cotton production and weaving as well as metal industries were also introduced. “Arts and crafts were taught to the natives. Together with catechism, morals and good behavior, and by way of enjoyment, play and pastime, gardening and farming were taught to Indian children” (23)

We all know that among the different Indian cultures there was a great disparity regarding the development and degree of civilization, while some were still in the stone age, others like the Inca and Aztec empires had reached great splendor and development. The Incas had a highly efficient system of social organization. However, in both Inca and Aztec empires there were a great deal of internal squabbling, despotic regimes and bloody religious rites which made many of the downtrodden tribes turn to the Spaniards in hope of deliverance. Cannibalism and human sacrifices were common practice among most of the Indian tribes. Besides that, we find that slavery was prevalent in America before Columbus' arrival, just as it was the case throughout most of Europe, Africa and Asia from ancient times, although with the arrival of Christianity, slavery had begun to disappear in Europe. Prisoners of war among Christians could not be enslaved. Spain extended this principle to the Indians even for those who would not accept Christianity; however, there were a few exceptions like the valiant Araucans Indians from Chile. In reality we find that it was the Spanish Crown which first introduced laws abolishing Indian slavery in America. Although these laws were frequently violated in the end they nevertheless prevailed.

First steps towards a democratic system in America

As much as possible the Spanish Crown and its agents tried to preserve the laws and the political structures of the Aztec and Inca empires so that the Indians would be ruled by their own laws. The Crown even went so far as to recognize the hereditary rights of the Indian chiefs. In those tribes that did not already have a juridical tradition the laws of Castile applied. In the Indian townships they functioned the same way as in the other kingdoms of Spain. The Indians would choose among themselves the mayor, bailiffs, court clerks, and councilmen, and the royal authorities were strictly forbidden from interfering in any way with the freedom of elections. Not even the “Audiencia”, (tribunal of justice) which was responsible for the education and good treatment of the Indians in spiritual and temporal matters, nor any other law-authorities had the right to ask the members of the “cabildo” (councilmen) to reveal what had been discussed at its meetings. (24) This was the seed of a democratic system.

Spain establishes public education in America 300 years before the English did it in its territories. The Church, protector of the Indians, educator and messenger of the Gospel.

Another legacy that certainly deserves recognition is the educational labor of the Catholic Church, which had the generous financial support of the Spanish Crown. From the start of the colonization they would build a school next to every church and monastery in order to teach the Indians to read and write in Latin, also in their own tongues, and later in Spanish. The missionaries promoted as a common language Nahuatl for the Indians of New Spain, Quechua for those from Peru, and Latin as means of communication among the natives and the Spaniards.

On January 6, 1534, barely 3 years after the conquest of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) by Hernán Cortés, the first institution for the higher education of the Indians was founded, the Holy Cross College in Tlatelolco. This college turned out Indian scholars as finished as the Spanish who gave great service as translators among both cultures. In Hispanic America, three hundred years before public education would reach the United States; a system of schools, colleges, and universities was founded in what would become the first public educational system in the New World wholly supported by the Crown of Spain. Some of these schools had as many as 800 to 1000 students and there one would find the children of the Spaniards and the Indians in the same classrooms. In 1531 there were more than 10,000 Indians students in the schools of New Spain. The first school for girls in the New World was founded in 1548 by the first archbishop of Mexico City, Juan de Zumárraga. Bishop Zumárraga was described as “an apostle, poor, humble, wise, prudent, educated, charitable, a mortal enemy of superstition and tyranny, an indefatigable propagator of the true doctrine of Jesus Christ, a protector of the helpless, a benefactor of the people, materially as well as morally...he founded hospitals, established schools for native boys and girls, and as the editor of many important works for the education of the Indians, he was very liberal minded.” (25)

In contrast, it is necessary to point out that not until 1789 was the first system of public education in United States founded in Boston, and not until 1825 were girls permitted to attend and only up to elementary school level (277 years after Mexico). According to the United States Bureau of Education “in 1800 the average American was receiving no more than 82 days of schooling in his lifetime. Many communities had no schools...The educational situation during the first decades of American national life was wholly chaotic.” (26) In 1865, after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson, a man who had never attended school, became President of United States.

In 1551, Spain founded in Lima, Peru, the first University in America.

The University of San Marcos in Lima was founded in 1551. In 1553, thirty-two years after the conquest, the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico was founded, along with the University of Santo Domingo (one hundred years before Harvard.) The language of the natives had an honored place in its curriculum and Indian professors went on to teach in European universities. (27)

Although we all know that many of the poor and ignorant peasants came from Spain during the conquest, according to American historian Francis C. Kelly: “A surprisingly large proportion of the (Spanish) pioneers of America were college men; and intelligence went hand in hand with heroism in the early settlements of the New World.” (28) (*) Along with the first missionaries many historians arrived, like the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and Toribio de Benavente ("Motilínea) who learned the native languages and tried to chronicle their history, traditions and legends, which until then had been handed down by word of mouth among the Indians for generations. With the exception of the Aztecs who left behind pictographic codicils, and the Mayas who had a hieroglyphic system, most of the Indians had no written language. Nothing escaped the inquisitive and sharp eye of these wise men; the flora, the fauna, the mineralogy and the geography of America broadened their intellectual horizons. Many, upon learning in depth about the native cultures, showed great admiration by leaving behind objective records of their experiences. More than 4 million documents and publications of great historical and scientific value from the 16th to the 19th centuries can be presently found at the “Archives of the Indies in Seville.

Before the middle of the 16th century, bishop Zumárraga brought the first printing press to Mexico, almost at the same time that printing was introduced in Madrid (100 years prior to Boston.) In 1539 they published the “Breve y más Compendiosa Doctrina Cristiana en Lengua Mexicana y Castellana”, the first book edited in America, a catechism in two languages, Nahuatl and Castilian. By 1575 they were publishing books in 12 different native dialects, grammar books and dictionaries of several Indian languages were also published in the Universities of Mexico and Lima, whereas in United States' colonial times, John Eliot's Indian Bible stands alone. (29) In regard to the importance given to science by the Crown of Spain we must take notice of the fact that “a medical school was opened at the University of Mexico 204 years before Harvard, and began the study of anatomy and surgery, with dissection, eighty six years before William Hunter opened the first school of dissection in England.” (30) According to Kelley at the end of the Spanish rule "Mexico was so full of schools and colleges for boys and girls, for handicrafts, trades, and arts of all kinds, as to justify a sweeping statement: Up to that day there never had been a country on the face of the earth that in so short a time had done so much in an educational way. When the circumstances of time and conditions surrounding the effort and the obstacles to be overcome, are considered, history presents no finer record of educational achievement and success.” (31) (*)

Humboldt was also witness to the scientific progress of Hispanic America praising the great accomplishments in the study of Natural Sciences that had being defrayed by the Crown. After visiting Mexico in 1803, Humboldt maintained: “No city of the New Continent, not even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico. The capital and several other cities have scientific establishments, which will bear a comparison with those of Europe... Instruction is communicated gratis at the Academy of Fine Arts and hundreds of young students without consideration of rank, color, and race, were confounded; we see the Indian and the Mestizo sitting beside the white, and the son of a poor artisan in emulation with the children of the great lords of the country...No European government has sacrificed greater sums to advance the knowledge of the vegetal kingdom than the Spanish government...All these researches have not only enriched science with more than four thousand of new species of plants, but have also contributed to diffuse a taste for natural history among the inhabitants of the country.” (32) (*)

One must keep in mind that Humboldt was protestant and a liberal minded scientist. For years he traveled throughout the continent and lived among the Indians and missionaries in the Amazon forest and in the farthest corners of the hemisphere leaving behind an invaluable testimonial of the realities of this historical period. Certainly his perceptions differed greatly from the tales of intolerance, brutality, backwardness and mistreatment of the natives that are still commonly portrayed. Unfortunately, this "Black Legend" myth has deformed the historical reality for generations and although it is true that many examples of cruel and abject exploitation did exist, it is also true that it was not the norm nor was it tolerated by the laws of Spain.

Humboldt “found cannibals in the parts of South America where the missionaries had not yet arrived, whereas the Indians who lived in missions he found to be engaged in agriculture and were generally well treated. He noticed that the descendants of the ferocious Caribbeans lived in the missions as peaceable farmers. Many missionaries tried to develop the natural talents of the Indians and Humboldt tells of the surprise of many European travelers in the Orinoco region at finding the natives playing the violin, the violoncello, the triangle, the guitar and the flute. At the mission of Manoa in Rio Negro he adds that the villages were bigger and more beautiful that the ones he had seen in some parts of Europe and was impressed to find a certain air of ease and prosperity that struck him pleasantly.” (33)

The policy of the Spanish Crown and of the missionaries was to try to encourage the growth of the Indian population. It is certainly true that during the first 20 years of the colonization, in some islands of the Caribbean, the brutality of some of the conquistadors and the diseases they brought for which the Indians were not immune, brought about an almost total annihilation of the indigenous population. As a result hospitals were built in order to care for the Europeans and the Indians. They found it necessary to control those deadly diseases that were destroying the population since they did not have the natural defenses against those germs. Smallpox was the most deadly plague. A third to a half of the Amerindians died victim of that terrible disease alone. Diseases common in the New World such as the yellow fever and syphilis, on the other hand, also took a heavy toll on the Europeans who died by the thousands. The battle between the two worlds went all the way to the pathogens’ level.

Spain vaccinates the natives of America and of Philippines against the smallpox

At the beginning of the 19th century Spain set a milestone in medical history for the control of contagious diseases. At the end of the 18th century, English Physician Edward Jenner, developed a vaccine against the smallpox by using the cowpox pathogen as an agent. As Dr. Powell points out, as soon as it was available, “an enlightened Spanish government sponsored very early use of vaccination against smallpox, precisely because the disease was so dangerous to the Indian population.” (34)(*) Along with the gospel, the Spaniards brought the western medical knowledge to America. There was never any attempt of genocide of the Indians on behalf of the Crown, to the contrary. As historian Salvador de Madariaga indicates, “the Spanish Crown constantly reiterated its paramount interest in the natives, this has been a constant feature of the regime, even in its worst days and in the worst governed parts.” (35) (*)

In 1555, a council of the Church of New Spain ordered the construction of hospitals near the church in each village. The hospitals would have to admit not merely the sick but the poor as well even if in good health...No distinction was made between Indians and Spaniards. Some, however, had been founded to meet the special needs of the Indians (there was one in Mexico for Indians not living in the capital who happened to fall ill while there), others catered to certain needs of the Spaniards. Cortés founded one for venereal diseases. Most of these charitable institutions were also used for giving hospitality to travelers and they were comfortable and some even luxurious. (36)

First mental hospital in the Continent is founded in Mexico City.

In 1567 the first mental hospital was founded in Mexico, the “Hospital y Asilo de Convalescientes de San Hipólito.” In Europe there was not a mental hospital that could compare to it with the exception of Spain, which was the pioneer in founding psychiatric hospitals in Europe. France did not have its first mental hospital until 200 years after Mexico and in the United States it was not until 1751 that the first mental hospital was founded in Philadelphia. The founder of St Hipólito's hospital, Bernardino Alvarez, was from Utrera, Andalucía, and he made a great fortune in Peru. After a tumultuous life of sin, he experienced a spiritual enlightenment and turned to a religious life dedicating his fortune to the care of the poor and destitute. In his hospital Spaniards and Indians were treated alike. The building had two stories and took care of as many as 220 patients and remained in use until the beginning of the 20th century. Alvarez also founded hospitals in Puebla, Xalapa, Perote, San Juan de Ulúa, Veracruz, Queretaro, Acapulco, Antequera, Guadalajara, Havana and Guatemala. Later the religious order of San Hipólito was established with the purpose of caring for the sick. By 1690 the first mental hospital in the New World exclusively for women was founded in Mexico, its name was La Canoa. (37)

In 1597 the first hospital opened in what is now the United States in Florida, which at the time was part of the Spanish dominions. In it both Indians and Blacks were treated alike with the Spaniards. “When the nineteenth century opened, there were only three medical schools in the United States, and only two general hospitals. There were at that time at least eight hospitals in the city of Mexico alone. Two of them, the San Andrés and the Hospital Real of Indians, were large. The San Andrés had 400 beds, all endowed, while the Indian Hospital cared for 350 to 400 patients. In a severe epidemic it cared for over 8,000. Humboldt gave the number of beds available as 1,100 in 1803.” (38)

As a result of this, in New Spain, Humboldt mentions: “not only has the number of natives increased for a century, but also New Spain is now more inhabited in 1803 than before the arrival of the Europeans...between 1752 and 1802, in New Spain, the ratio of birth to death stood as 170 to 100, despite a number of torrid-zone plagues; for the cold or temperate part of New Spain the ratio of births to deaths was of 190 and even 200 to 100...The increase of population was simply due, says Humboldt, to an increase in prosperity.” (39)

England and France owned most of the black slaves in America

In regards to the inhumane slave trade of Blacks, historian Salvador de Madariaga affirms: “Words cannot describe the cruelty which stood at the basis of Black slavery in the Indies. The kidnapping of healthy men in Africa and their transportation to the Indies were operations that could only be performed by heartless men. The Spaniards never undertook them. But insofar as they purchased the human goods obtained by such criminal methods, they cannot elude some historical responsibility in the heavy deeds that the English, French, Dutch and Portuguese committed to supply them, as well as themselves, with human beast of burden.

This fact, however, once on record, there is overwhelming evidence, according to Humboldt, to establish another no less important, “that the parts of the New World where the slaves were best treated were precisely those under Spanish's sway. Humboldt bears constant witness to this. His figures show the huge consumption of slaves in the French and English colonies, although they were by far the smallest in territory. Of the 70,000 slaves supplied yearly by the trade, 38,800 went to the British colonies and 20,000 to the French, leaving 11,200 for the much larger Spanish and Portuguese lands. Humboldt points out that all the Spanish colonies, not excluding the Isles of Cuba and Puerto Rico, have between them, over a surface bigger than the whole Europe, a smaller number of Black slaves than the single State of Virginia.” (40)

There was a great contrast between the amount of free Blacks in the Spanish colonies and all the others. “In Virginia, in 1860-1, the Negro or mulatto freemen constituted only 11% of the total population of African origin; in Cuba they constituted 35%.” The main reason for this disparity was that Spain, since Carlos V's times, tried to promote the liberation of the Black slave. According to Humboldt: “Nowhere in the world, wherever slavery is found, is manumission (liberation) as common an occurrence as in the island of Cuba because Spanish Legislation, in sharp contrast with French and English laws, is quite favorable to freedom and neither hinders it nor makes it onerous.” (41) (*)

Contrast between the Spanish laws regarding the black slavery and those of the other European colonies

Humboldt often points out that the Spanish legislation was the most humanae...These laws were always interpreted in favor of freedom. The Government desired to increase the number of freed men. A slave who, by his own industry, has managed to put together some money, can force his master to set him free under payment of the moderate sum of 1,500 to 2,000 francs. Freedom cannot be refused to a Negro under the pretext that he cost three times as much when he was bought, or that he had a special talent for a particular craft. A slave who has been cruelly ill-treated thereby acquires his freedom under the terms of the law...The Spanish law ensures four rights to the slave which all other nations refuse him: to seek a better owner, to whom his previous one is bound to let him go; to marry as he wishes; to buy back his freedom at the lowest market price, or to win it as a reward for good services; to own property and to buy the freedom of his wife and children. Humboldt contrasts this system with the legislation inflicted on the slaves in the French and English possessions.

While the laws of Spain were in every way favorable to manumission, the master, in the non-Spanish Antilles pays to the Treasury five to seven hundred dollars for every slave he frees. And he adds: “What a contrast between the humanity of the oldest Spanish laws concerning slavery and the traces of barbarism one finds at every page in the Code Noir and in some provincial laws of the English Antilles! The laws of the Barbados, laid down in 1688, and those of the Bermudas, dating from 1730, stipulate that the master who kills his slave by malice will pay ten pounds sterling to the Royal Treasury... These observations are confirmed by English travelers. J.B. Moreton published in 1793 his impressions of the English West Indies. All students of the History of the New World should read them. He attested that in Great Britain and Ireland the beasts of the field are better protected by the law than slaves in the West Indies. If a white man or woman barbarously and wantonly attacks a slave, even the property of another, and loops off the ears, nose, or testicles of the same, the only punishment by the law, though the owner of the injured slave prosecute most vigorously, is a fine, perhaps not one fourth the value of the slave.” (42) (*)

“The position of free coloreds in Havana is happier than in any of the nations which, for many centuries, have prided themselves in the advances of civilization (43)(*) Integration through the mix of Europeans, Blacks and Indians were the characteristic of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in contrast to the segregationist attitude that prevailed in the English, French and Dutch colonies.

In comparing the fate of slaves in different countries, the new Encyclopedia Britannica (Macropedia, volume 16, page. 861) points out that: “By way of generalization, it may perhaps be said that slaves fared better in colonies of Catholic and Latin nations than those of Protestant countries Nevertheless, we must point out that the first voice to condemn black slavery in America was that of Quaker William Edmunson. In 1676 Edmunson wrote stating his belief that perpetual slavery was incompatible with Christ's law...However, the history of human rights should hold a special place for the man who apparently was the first one to systematically and unequivocally condemn black slavery in a declaration made in Havana in 1681, Father Francisco José, the fiery Capuchin friar born in Jaca, Aragón. (44) (*)

Thousands of schools, hospitals, hospices, orphanages, mental asylums, and leper colonies throughout Hispanic America were founded under the initiative of the Crown of Spain, the Church and many Spaniards who came to the New World, and once they became wealthy and decided to remain, they donated great amounts of money for the maintenance and upkeep of charitable works that would benefit the people; institutions that were open to everyone, Spaniards, Indians, Mestizos and Blacks.

It is worth pointing out that the Spanish Crown requested provincials, prelates and other religious authorities to instruct the faithful in their sermons, along with advice and confessions of the duties of the citizens to see that whatever sums they bequest for pious foundations were left in the Indies. “Felipe III wrote to the Viceroy of Peru and the Archbishop of Lima asking that they lead the spirit of charity of devout persons so that instead of leaving pious legacies for new convents, they should leave their money for works of public interest, such as education and assistance to orphans and unwed mothers without means, of poor Indians, hospitals and such things. This and other Royal Orders of a similar trend show a special anxiety of the Crown to see that the wealth of the Indies remained in the Indies.” (45)

Professor Lewis Hanke affirms that "No European nation... with the possible exception of Portugal, took her Christian duty toward native people so seriously as did Spain." (46) English scholar, Ronald Syme, maintains “In spite of the handicaps of geography and of distance, Spain was able to hold her wide dominions for three centuries and set upon them indelibly the stamp of her language, thought and institutions. That achievement deserves more honour than it has commonly earned-and a more searching investigation.” (47)

We find the curious paradox that at times, taxes were more onerous in Castile than in Spain's own overseas colonies, and frequently life in America was easier and more prosperous than in the Iberian Peninsula where poverty was quite common. Even the poor in Hispanic America fared better than some of the peasants in Europe... “Lima, Peru, in colonial days had more hospitals than churches and averaged one hospital bed for every 101 persons, a considerably better average than Los Angels (California) has today.” (48)

Spain founded 23 universities in colonial America, something without parallel in the history

Culturally speaking, Spain gave the very best to America. “The Spanish record of some twenty three colleges and universities in America, graduating 150,000 (including the poor, mestizos, and some Negroes) makes, for example, the Dutch in the East Indies at a later and supposedly more enlightened times, look obscurantism indeed. The Portuguese did not establish a single university in colonial Brazil nor in any other overseas possessions. The total of universities established by Belgium, England, Germany, France and Italy during later Afro-Asian colonial periods assuredly suffers by any fair comparison with the pioneering record of Spain.” (49)

The task undertaken by Spain in America was not solely motivated by greed and thirst of power or glory. There were adventurers, conquistadors, exploiters, saints and criminals, but in the most part, the Spaniards who arrived in America, which was then the promised land, were looking for a better life just as it is today for those who want to improve their standard of living and arrive in the United States dreaming of starting a new and better life. Others were moved by religious ideals, for the Crown and many missionaries their main concern was the evangelization of the Indians, and the proof of this is the large quantity of churches, convents, hospitals and schools they left behind. They tried to give the natives the one thing they treasured most, eternal salvation through the teachings of Jesus Christ without forgetting their temporal needs. In doing so many gave their life into martyrdom.

Carlos Fuentes, the celebrated Mexican author lamented in a recent trip to Houston, that after the independence we have not been able to find voices raised in favor of the Indian cause that would match the fervor of Father Bartolomé de Las Casas. Amazingly, even today, 500 years later and almost at the beginning of the XXI century, the North American Indians find in the teaching of Las Casas the moral support they need for their just claims. Such is the legacy left behind by this courageous priest from Seville!

In Hispanic America flourished a sophisticated European culture since the very beginning of the conquest.

According to Dr. Powell, “the American students find it disconcerting when they learn that in the Spanish American lands of Catholicism and Inquisition, a sophisticated European culture flourished, almost from the moment of the Conquest itself. This included everything from complex municipal and regional government, vast projects for Christianizing (i.e. Europeanization), and protection of even the most savage aborigines, to encouragement and successful establishment of all kinds of schools and universities, hospitals, and the production of scholars and a very respectable literature-a far more exciting and plentiful literature, by the way, than colonial English-America produced. This is to say nothing of economic and commercial activities on the grand scale. Students are invariable surprised to learn that, for all its weakness, the general system and aim was that of ‘ennoblement’ (ennoblecer) rather than destruction.” (50) (*)

In 1944 the “Black Legend” and related errors in our educational system, were exposed in a Report of the American Council on Education. It denounced the racial prejudices, bigotry and ignorance that characterizes the way the Spanish conquest and colonization of America is treated in most of the history books used in our schools. The ACE's report ends its discussion of high school texts with this warning: “The usual and vicious misapprehensions concerning the heinous character of the Spanish conquest should be diligently guarded against... Guard against the effects of the ‘Black Legend’.” (51)

More than five decades have gone by and nothing or little had been done to correct it. It is about time to give justice and put an end to the distortions and historical manipulations that, in the words of historian Julían Juderías, “systematically ignore of whatever is favorable and worthy of honor in the various manifestations of culture and art; the accusations which are always being launched against Spain, based upon happenings which are exaggerated, badly interpreted, or false in entirety.” (52) (*) It is of foremost fairness to recognize the value of Spain's legacy in America. Dr. Powell “rightfully urges our acknowledged experts and scholars in all matters Hispanic should conduct a much more thorough assessment than heretofore of our errors or, perhaps worse yet, the partial truths, in our education about Hispanic peoples and countries. All that is required, and all that should be demanded, is accuracy of facts, elimination of invidiously erroneous comparisons, and sophisticated historical perspectives.” (53) (*)

The legacy of Spain in America should be commemorated with pride. As a result of this encounter a new race was born along with a totally new world. There were great accomplishments in art and architecture in America before the European arrival. To the trunk of these great indigenous cultures Spain grafted the western civilization, which was already the fruit of multiple grafts. From the artistic hands of Spaniards, Indians, Mestizos and Blacks, great achievements were made like the Cuzco School of Painters, and all the rich indo-baroque art that bedecks churches and cathedrals throughout the American Continent.

The Spaniards, astonished by the paradisiacal beauty of America had to learn an infinite amount of new things that were unknown to them before and, as Adam, they had to put name to everything. Hundreds of indigenous words came to form part of the Spanish language. There was a cultural renaissance that was influential in what would come to be known as the "Golden Century of Spanish Literature." Many great Mestizo writers enriched the language, among them the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who was a precursor of the human rights for women in America. There were scientists like Celestino Mutis who came to America as a physician and was so fascinated by the flora that he became the most famous botanist of his century. In conclusion, as a result of the encounters of these cultures there remains in Hispanic America a legacy which encompasses architecture, literature, linguistics, music, art and science that has no paragon in the history of non Hispanic America.

The Hispanic world should commemorate the year 1992 full of pride of their heritage since they are heirs to a rich bi-millennium humanistic and cultural legacy. They can show the world the transcendental contribution made by the Iberian-Indian-African-American people to universal culture.

Houston, February, 1992 On the 500th Anniversary of the Encounter of Two Worlds

REFERENCES:

Fr. José de Acosta, S.J.: “The Procuranda Indorum Salute, Pacificación y Colonización.” Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, (CSIC) Madrid 1984

Lewis Hanke: “The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America.” University of Philadelphia Press, 1949.

Institute of Hispanic Culture: “A Hispanic Look at the Bicentennial,”
Most Rev. Francis C. Kelly: “Blood Drenched Altars,” TAN Books, 1935, Rockford, IL.

José Ignacio Lasaga: “Vidas Cubanas” volume I, Editorial Revista Ideal, II volumes Miami, 1984. Edición bilingüe.

Bartolomé de Las Casas: “De Regia Potestae”, CSIC, Madrid 1984

Salvador de Madariaga: “The Rise of the Spanish American Empire.” The Free Press, N.Y. 1947

Philip Wayne Powell: “The Tree of Hate.” Books, Vallecito, CA, 1985

William H. Prescott: “The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic.” Hooper Clarke, Chicago

“Francisco de Vitoria y la Escuela de Salamanca”, CSIC, Madrid, 1984

William T. Walsh: “Isabella of Spain”, TAN Books, Rockford, Illinois

NOTES:

(*) (Emphasis added)
(1) Philip W. Powell, “The Tree of Hate p. 23
(2) Ibid., p.p. 16, 17
(3) Salvador de Madariaga, “The Rise of the Spanish America Empire” p.12
(4) José I. Lasaga, “Vidas Cubanas” p.18
(5) Ibid., p.p. 21, 24
(6) Lasaga, p.p. 24, 25
(7) Madariaga, p.p. 13, 14
(8) Powell, p. 30
(9) Madariaga, p. 13
(10) Ibid., p.19
(11) Francis C. Kelly, Bishop of Tulsa, “Blood Drenched Altars” p.p. 62, 63
(12) Madariaga, p.p. 259,260
(13) Ibid., p.23
(14) Ibid., p.p. 261, 262
(15) Powell, p.16
(16) Madariaga, p.98
(17) Ibid., p. 26
(18) Ibid., p. 102
(19) Ibid., p.p. 89, 90
(20) Powell, p. 23
(21) Madariaga, p.p. 262-264
(22) Kelly, p.60
(23) Madariaga, p.60
(24) Madariaga, p.p. 46, 47, 49
(25) Kelly, p. p. 80-90
(26) Ibid. p. 95
(27) Ibid., p.p. 86, 87
(28) Ibid., p. 394
(29) Madariaga, p. 39
(30) Ibid., p.p. 100, 101
(32) Ibid., p.p. 93, 94
(33) Madariaga, p.p. 249, 252
(34) Powell, p. 143
(35) Madariaga, p.92
(36) Ibid., p. 52
(37) Ruben D. Rumbaut, M.D.,“Bernardino Alvarez, New World Psychiatric Pioneer,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 127 (March 9, 1971), p. 1219
(38) Kelly, p.p. 394-398
(39) Madariaga, p.p. 258, 259
(40) Ibid., p.241
(41) Lasaga, p. 82
(42) Madariaga, p.p. 243, 246
(43) Lasaga, p.82
(44) Ibid., p.p. 92, 93
(45) Madariaga, p. 59
(46) Powell, p. 17
(47) Ibid., p.p. 23, 24
(48) Ibid., p.p. 24, 25
(49) Ibid., p. 25
(50) Ibid., p. 132
(51) Ibid., p.p. 133-136
(52) Ibid., p. 11
(53) Ibid., p.p. 163, 165



Source: Myth and Reality: The Legacy of Spain in America [Free Republic]

Muy buena la respuesta de Hyeronimus.

La Leyenda Negra fue creada por los ingleses para denigrar al Imperio Español en su época de mayor auge. Seguramente sentían envidia de su extensión territorial y de sus grandes avances en las artes, las ciencias y en el terreno económico (pese a que hasta hoy pinten a Inglaterra como paradigma histórico de crecimiento económico y a España como símbolo de atraso y "tercermundismo" en Europa).

Ya desearían ellos tener aunque fuera la mitad de esto:



El siguiente enlace puede resultarte útil: La Leyenda Negra antiespañola.

La leyenda negra

Oliver Cromwell era una pieza de cuidado. Era comandante del invencible Nuevo Ejército Modelo, vencedor de la Guerra Civil, azote de Irlanda, Lord Protector de la «Commonwealth», terror de tiranos, defensor de la fe; en resumen, una de las peores personas que han vivido en Inglaterra. Pero él no lo hubiera creído así, ni tampoco aquellos que le escuchaban mientras hablaba al Parlamento inglés el 17 de septiembre de 1656. No, el «gran enemigo», el enemigo «de todo lo divino que cada uno de vosotros tiene» eran «los españoles».

Pocos de los puritanos de cabezas redondas que le escuchaban en el Parlamento aquel día habrían estado en desacuerdo con él: España era el imperio malvado, una cruel, codiciosa, intolerante raza de semi-bárbaros que imponía su dominio con la prisión, la hoguera y el potro de tormento de la Inquisición. No estaban contentos con suprimir a sus propios pobres ciudadanos con el yugo de la superstición e idolatría sino que también querían esclavizar al mundo entero. «En verdad» —Cronwell dijo a su audiencia— «los españoles están interesados en vuestras entrañas».

Esa ha sido la opinión de muchos durante los últimos cuatrocientos años. La Leyenda Negra —la imagen de España como una nación intolerante y cruel y la Inquisición como el colmo de la intolerancia— ha sido tan verdadera como el evangelio en muchas partes del mundo y la palabra Inquisición se ha convertido en sinónimo de caza de brujas, juicios-farsa, regímenes opresivos e intolerancia supersticiosa. ¿Cómo comenzó la Leyenda Negra? ¿Cuánto hay de verdad en sus acusaciones?

La Inquisición española fue fundada por los reyes Isabel de Castilla y Fernando de Aragón en 1480 para probar la buena fe de los conversos, los judíos convertidos al cristianismo. En el reino de los reyes católicos, la ortodoxia equivalía a lealtad política y, por tanto, usaron la Inquisición como un instrumento de la monarquía para asegurarse de ella. Bajo Tomás de Torquemada, la Inquisición cometió serios errores y en ocasiones fue más allá de lo justo en perseguir a los conversos, algunos de los cuales fueron entregados a la Inquisición por vecinos envidiosos de su riqueza o de su posición social. Durante los 15 primeros años de la Inquisición fueron ejecutados alrededor de 2,000 personas, pero hacia 1500, bajo un nuevo jefe, la Inquisición fue reformada considerablemente.

Desde aquel momento se convirtió en el más benévolo tribunal de toda Europa. A lo mucho, sentenció a muerte a 60 personas durante todo el siglo XVI, algo admirable en una época en que la gente podía ser condenada a muerte por crímenes triviales y cuando otras naciones quemaban en la hoguera a decenas de miles de mujeres inocentes acusadas de practicar la brujería. Inglaterra, bajo las reinas María e Isabel I, ejecutaron a más de 400 herejes de la forma más cruel imaginable, y excesos semejantes tuvieron lugar a lo largo y ancho de la Europa católica y protestante. Los extensos archivos de la Inquisición muestran que de las más de 7000 personas que fueron llevadas ante su tribunal en Valencia, sólo 2% fueron torturadas y sólo durante 15 minutos cada uno. Esto era una nonada en comparación con las doncellas de hiero, el potro de tortura, los azotes y la rueda aplastadora usada por los sistemas judiciales usados en los primeros años en la mayoría de las naciones modernas. Sin embargo la imaginación popular asocia irrevocablemente a la Inquisición española con verdugos encapuchados, torturas sádicas y malolientes calabozos. ¿Por qué ha sido España tan maltratada por la historia cuando otras naciones han sido mucho peores?

La respuesta está en la Reforma protestante, en el poder bélico de España y en la imprenta, que acababa de ser inventada. En 1517 Lutero prendió el fuego de la revuelta protestante a lo ancho del norte de Europa. La guerra inicial de palabras se convirtió en guerra sangrienta, pero el ejército de los príncipes protestantes no fue un enemigo suficientemente poderoso para las tropas de Carlos V, emperador de Alemania y rey de España. Derrotados en el campo de batalla, los protestantes recurrieron a la guerra de palabras a través de la imprenta. En 1567 publicaron un folleto, traducido del inglés, al alemán, francés y flamenco, titulado Descubrimiento y simple declaración de las acendradas y sutiles prácticas de la santa Inquisición española. El autor, que escribe con el pseudónimo de Montanus, pretendía haber sido él mismo víctima de la Inquisición. Este folleto es considerado como el inicio de la Leyenda negra y fue el golpe de propaganda más sensacional del milenio. La mayoría de las tan conocidas patrañas tuvieron origen en él. Se esparció con rapidez por la Europa protestante, terreno fértil pare recibir la semilla de la mala propaganda contra un enemigo al que odiaban y temían por razones tanto políticas como religiosas. Felipe II, hijo de Carlos V, gobernó en un imperio en el «que no se ponía el sol» y las décadas siguientes fueron testigo de un choque espectacular entre la Inglaterra protestante y la España católica, que culminó con la derrota de la Armada Invencible de España en 1588.

Mientras tanto, los propagandistas anti-españoles estaban atareados tejiendo otros dos hilos de la Leyenda Negra: que la Inquisición tenía un inmenso poder político y que la Inquisición había matado a cientos de miles de personas. En 1569, don Carlos, hijo de Felipe II, murió en un misterioso accidente y los enemigos de Felipe atacaron inventando una historia, repetida docenas de veces, hasta que adquirió carácter lapidario en el siglo XIX a golpe de pluma y batuta de Schiller y Verdi. La trama presentaba a don Carlos como mártir heroico de la libertad de conciencia. Por el contrario, Felipe II era un monstruo moral, empujado por el Gran Inquisidor a matar a su propio hijo para «salvar a la nación». Esta imagen de la Inquisición como la eminencia gris detrás del trono y de su poder policíaco que oprimía a la entera nación, ha tenido una larga vida.

Nada está más lejos de la verdad. La Inquisición nunca fue numerosa pues constaba solamente de dos o tres inquisidores y de un grupo de empleados en cada uno de los 20 tribunales que se encargaban de toda España. Tenían poder en los pueblos y ciudades, es verdad, pero su poder era limitado, con frecuencia controlado por asociaciones civiles, otras autoridades eclesiásticas y magistrados locales. En el campo, en el que vivían cuatro de cada cinco españoles, tenía poco poder. Los historiadores aseguran que la gran mayoría de los campesinos de las áreas rurales nunca habrían visto a un inquisidor en su vida.

El segundo hilo tiene origen en un folleto publicado en 1570. Era presentado como una carta a los inquisidores dándoles instrucciones para acabar con poblaciones enteras sospechosas de herejía. Hace tiempo ya se ha demostrado que es un documento falso, pero la leyenda sigue viva: la odiada Inquisición torturaba y mataba a miles, no, millones, de víctimas inocentes. La verdad es que la Inquisición sentenció aproximadamente a 4,000 personas durante sus 350 años de existencia, con lo cual es, con mucho, el tribunal nacional más benigno de Europa durante el mismo período.

«Todo se vale en el amor y en la guerra», escribió Shakespeare en aquella época, pero después de 400 años ya es tiempo de gritar: «¡Ya basta!» Sin embargo, el daño ya está hecho y la mayor lección de la Leyenda negra es el poder de la prensa. El norte de Europa, especialmente Inglaterra, usó la imprenta con mucha más frecuencia y eficacia que España. Sirva como ejemplo que entre los cuarenta autores más traducidos a lo largo de 25 años de historia, veinticinco con de lengua inglesa y ni uno solo es español. Los grandes de España consideraban indigno de un caballero responder a las acusaciones contra su país tramadas por la máquina protestante de propaganda. De ser posible, preferían decidir la contienda en un duelo. Está muy bien, pero tales caballeros murieron hace cuatro siglos, mientras la imagen pintada por sus enemigos sigue adornando los salones de la cultura popular en todo el mundo. La historia la escriben los vencedores y el vencedor ha sido la pluma, no la espada.

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Fuente: conoZe.com | La leyenda negra

Esto lo he tomado de un sitio de Internet indigenista de los indios norteamericanos que saca muchos trapos sucios de los colonizadores anglosajones. Aquí vemos como cae por tierra uno de los grandes mitos gringos, el de los peregrinos calvinistas de Plymouth que, según cuentan ellos, fueron tan buenos y tan cristianos con los indios y ese Día de Acción de Gracias que celebran en Yanquilandia desde entonces. Pues nada de eso.






The words on the monument speak for themselves
Treachery Commemorated

After posting this, I received the following Email from a descendent of Standish:
May 31, 2008
Dear Dr. Paul:
Thank you for posting that article about the Real Thanksgiving, and the role of Myles Standish in early Plymouth. I am a descendent of Standish and it has been my goal to understand him and the events concerning him in a deeper way. I want to know ALL the history. I’ve read the WASP approved version and it’s good to see the other versions coming to light.
I work very closely with my ancestors and live my life to redeem their blood. A better knowing of the results of their actions helps in two ways; it clears the propaganda and glamour from my eyes and it inspires me to be a better person in my daily decisions and living. It also teaches me history. Which I wasn’t very good at in high school. Now it has a whole new meaning as I think about my ancestors living in those times and places. My nieces and nephews will learn the truth from me. And their children too.
For what its worth, I apologise for my grandfathers actions. Indeed all my ancestors.
Respectfully and sincerely,
Clarence Standish, IV
The Real Thanksgiving

Quoted from: The Hidden History of Massachusetts
Much of America's understanding of the early relationship between the Indian and the European is conveyed through the story of Thanksgiving. Proclaimed a holiday in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, this fairy tale of a feast was allowed to exist in the American imagination pretty much untouched until 1970, the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. That is when Frank B. James, president of the Federated Eastern Indian League, prepared a speech for a Plymouth banquet that exposed the Pilgrims for having committed, among other crimes, the robbery of the graves of the Wampanoags. He wrote:
"We welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people."
But white Massachusetts officials told him he could not deliver such a speech and offered to write him another. Instead, James declined to speak, and on Thanksgiving Day hundreds of Indians from around the country came to protest. It was the first National Day of Mourning, a day to mark the losses Native Americans suffered as the early settlers prospered. This true story of "Thanksgiving" is what whites did not want Mr. James to tell.
What Really Happened in Plymouth in 1621?
According to a single-paragraph account in the writings of one Pilgrim, a harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in mid-October, but the Indians who attended were not even invited. Though it later became known as "Thanksgiving," the Pilgrims never called it that. And amidst the imagery of a picnic of interracial harmony is some of the most terrifying bloodshed in New World history.
The Pilgrim crop had failed miserably that year, but the agricultural expertise of the Indians had produced twenty acres of corn, without which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. The Indians often brought food to the Pilgrims, who came from England ridiculously unprepared to survive and hence relied almost exclusively on handouts from the overly generous Indians-thus making the Pilgrims the western hemisphere's first class of welfare recipients. The Pilgrims invited the Indian sachem Massasoit to their feast, and it was Massasoit, engaging in the tribal tradition of equal sharing, who then invited ninety or more of his Indian brothers and sisters-to the annoyance of the 50 or so ungrateful Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served; they likely ate duck or geese and the venison from the 5 deer brought by Massasoit. In fact, most, if notall, of the food was most likely brought and prepared by the Indians, whose 10,000-year familiarity with the cuisine of the region had kept the whites alive up to that point.
The Pilgrims wore no black hats or buckled shoes-these were the silly inventions of artists hundreds of years since that time. These lower-class Englishmen wore brightly colored clothing, with one of their church leaders recording among his possessions "1 paire of greene drawers." Contrary to the fabricated lore of storytellers generations since, no Pilgrims prayed at the meal, and the supposed good cheer and fellowship must have dissipated quickly once the Pilgrims brandished their weaponry in a primitive display of intimidation. What's more, the Pilgrims consumed a good deal of home brew. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to comment on his people's "notorious sin," which included their "drunkenness and uncleanliness" and rampant "sodomy"...
The Pilgrims of Plymouth, The Original Scalpers
Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local Indians. They were engaged in a ruthless war of extermination against their hosts, even as they falsely posed as friends. Just days before the alleged Thanksgiving love-fest, a company of Pilgrims led by Myles Standish actively sought to chop off the head of a local chief. They deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly Indians, pitting one against the other in an attempt to obtain "better intelligence and make them both more diligent." An 11-foot-high wall was erected around the entire settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out.
Any Indian who came within the vicinity of the Pilgrim settlement was subject to robbery, enslavement, or even murder. The Pilgrims further advertised their evil intentions and white racial hostility, when they mounted five cannons on a hill around their settlement, constructed a platform for artillery, and then organized their soldiers into four companies-all in preparation for the military destruction of their friends the Indians.
Pilgrim Myles Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He went to the Indians, pretended to be a trader, then beheaded an Indian man named Wituwamat. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years, according to Gary B. Nash, "as a symbol of white power." Standish had the Indian man's young brother hanged from the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name "Wotowquenange," which in their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers.
Who Were the "Savages"?
The myth of the fierce, ruthless Indian savage lusting after the blood of innocent Europeans must be vigorously dispelled at this point. In actuality, the historical record shows that the very opposite was true.
Once the European settlements stabilized, the whites turned on their hosts in a brutal way. The once amicable relationship was breeched again and again by the whites, who lusted over the riches of Indian land. A combination of the Pilgrims' demonization of the Indians, the concocted mythology of Eurocentric historians, and standard Hollywood propaganda has served to paint the gentle Indian as a tomahawk-swinging savage endlessly on the warpath, lusting for the blood of the God-fearing whites.
But the Pilgrims' own testimony obliterates that fallacy. The Indians engaged each other in military contests from time to time, but the causes of "war," the methods, and the resulting damage differed profoundly from the European variety:
o Indian "wars" were largely symbolic and were about honor, not about territory or extermination.
o "Wars" were fought as domestic correction for a specific act and were ended when correction was achieved. Such action might better be described as internal policing. The conquest or destruction of whole territories was a European concept.
o Indian "wars" were often engaged in by family groups, not by whole tribal groups, and would involve only the family members.
o A lengthy negotiation was engaged in between the aggrieved parties before escalation to physical confrontation would be sanctioned. Surprise attacks were unknown to the Indians.
o It was regarded as evidence of bravery for a man to go into "battle" carrying no weapon that would do any harm at a distance-not even bows and arrows. The bravest act in war in some Indian cultures was to touch their adversary and escape before he could do physical harm.
o The targeting of non-combatants like women, children, and the elderly was never contemplated. Indians expressed shock and repugnance when the Europeans told, and then showed, them that they considered women and children fair game in their style of warfare.
o A major Indian "war" might end with less than a dozen casualties on both sides. Often, when the arrows had been expended the "war" would be halted. The European practice of wiping out whole nations in bloody massacres was incomprehensible to the Indian.
According to one scholar, "The most notable feature of Indian warfare was its relative innocuity." European observers of Indian wars often expressed surprise at how little harm they actually inflicted. "Their wars are far less bloody and devouring than the cruel wars of Europe," commented settler Roger Williams in 1643. Even Puritan warmonger and professional soldier Capt. John Mason scoffed at Indian warfare: "[Their] feeble manner...did hardly deserve the name of fighting." Fellow warmonger John Underhill spoke of the Narragansetts, after having spent a day "burning and spoiling" their country: "no Indians would come near us, but run from us, as the deer from the dogs." He concluded that the Indians might fight seven years and not kill seven men. Their fighting style, he wrote, "is more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies."
All this describes a people for whom war is a deeply regrettable last resort. An agrarian people, the American Indians had devised a civilization that provided dozens of options all designed to avoid conflict--the very opposite of Europeans, for whom all-out war, a ferocious bloodlust, and systematic genocide are their apparent life force. Thomas Jefferson--who himself advocated the physical extermination of the American Indian--said of Europe, "They [Europeans] are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of labor, property and lives of their people."
Puritan Holocaust
By the mid 1630s, a new group of 700 even holier Europeans calling themselves Puritans had arrived on 11 ships and settled in Boston-which only served to accelerate the brutality against the Indians.
In one incident around 1637, a force of whites trapped some seven hundred Pequot Indians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, near the mouth of the Mystic River. Englishman John Mason attacked the Indian camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful escaped and few prisoners were taken-to the apparent delight of the Europeans:
To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood quenching the same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God.
This event marked the first actual Thanksgiving. In just 10 years 12,000 whites had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they pressed for all-out extermination of the Indian. Euro-diseases had reduced the population of the Massachusett nation from over 24,000 to less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646.
By 1675, the Massachusetts Englishmen were in a full-scale war with the great Indian chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Philip" by the white man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle and culture of his people as European-imposed laws and values engulfed them.
In 1671, the white man had ordered Metacomet to come to Plymouth to enforce upon him a new treaty, which included the humiliating rule that he could no longer sell his own land without prior approval from whites. They also demanded that he turn in his community's firearms. Marked for extermination by the merciless power of a distant king and his ruthless subjects, Metacomet retaliated in 1675 with raids on several isolated frontier towns. Eventually, the Indians attacked 52 of the 90 New England towns, destroying 13 of them. The Englishmen ultimately regrouped, and after much bloodletting defeated the great Indian nation, just half a century after their arrival on Massachusetts soil. Historian Douglas Edward Leach describes the bitter end:
The ruthless executions, the cruel sentences...were all aimed at the same goal-unchallengeable white supremacy in southern New England. That the program succeeded is convincingly demonstrated by the almost complete docility of the local native ever since.
When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and murdered Metacomet in 1676, his body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." The great Indian chief's hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole on the real first "day of public Thanksgiving for the beginning of revenge upon the enemy." Metacomet's nine-year-old son was destined for execution because, the whites reasoned, the offspring of the devil must pay for the sins of their father. The child was instead shipped to the Caribbean to spend his life in slavery.
As the Holocaust continued, several official Thanksgiving Days were proclaimed. Governor Joseph Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving"-not in celebration of the brotherhood of man-but for [God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors...In defeating and disappointing... the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands...
Just two years later one could reap a ££50 reward in Massachusetts for the scalp of an Indian-demonstrating that the practice of scalping was a European tradition. According to one scholar, "Hunting redskins became...a popular sport in New England, especially since prisoners were worth good money..."
References in The Hidden History of Massachusetts: A Guide for Black Folks ©© DR. TINGBA APIDTA, ; ISBN 0-9714462-0-2
For purchase details Email A. Muhammad "mghemlf@att.net"

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During March 1623 Myles Standish lured two Chiefs to a meeting then murdered them. The picture of the monument, erected by the Weymouth Historical Commission, depicts how the town of Weymouth, Mass, takes pride in his barbaric deed.

What Hellish Pride and Prejudice

What in hell is a hearth built on blood of a brother’s harvest you absconded, along with a curve of land kissed by ocean for first people given this fine land, who were sickened on your flu-filled flannel gifts until they were too weak to wise on to your malicious plans?
You merchant-adventurers of Weymouth, mount your monument of treason against corn-fed Wessagusset, as you celebrate 300 years of your encroachment on eternity’s placement of a people who had heroes like Pecksuot who, even thirty years ago, still, is said, tucked a child into her covers at Bricknell house so she did not have to see your scurrilous skirmishes.
You promote your pestilent importance on this land, as if you thought you would be allowed to stay forever. You hold a fatal flaw in this grasp to make it seem you made something worthy.
What is worthier than Wampanoag in first light, who had their blood spilled by you, on the very ground you grind against?
Listen, they speak, and trace truthful steps through and around this place you think you own: Such pride and prejudice in this piece of cement that will not outlast us, the true people of the East, or sun that burns red on mornings it remembers.
Carol Desjarlais

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New York Times
November 25, 2004
Banned in Boston: American Indians, but Only for 329 Years
By KATIE ZEZIMA
BOSTON, Nov. 24 - It is a prejudicial, archaic concept that prohibited Native Americans from entering a city for fear members of their "barbarous crew" would cause residents to be "exposed to mischief."
But it is more than notions and phrases in Boston. A ban on Indians entering Boston has been the law since 1675.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino took a step toward repealing the ban on Wednesday, filing a home rule petition. Mr. Menino said a repeal would remove the last vestiges of discrimination from a vibrant, diverse city that is looking past old racial conflicts.
"This law has no place in Boston," Mr. Menino said. "Fortunately this act is no longer enforced. But as long as it remains on the books, this law will tarnish our image. Hatred and discrimination have no place in Boston. Tolerance, equality and respect - these are the attributes of our city."
Joanne Dunn, executive director of the Boston Native American Center, said she laughed a bit as she drove into Boston on Wednesday, realizing that she was, technically, breaking the law (being without benefit of the "two musketeers" required to escort American Indians with business in the city). "For us indigenous people it brings some closure," Ms. Dunn said. "You come into the City of Boston and it crosses your mind that you're not welcome here."
The Boston City Council, which in April 2003 unanimously passed a resolution calling for repeal, must now approve the petition to remove the ban. The repeal must then pass the legislature and be signed by Gov. Mitt Romney.
A spokeswoman for Robert E. Travaglini, the president of the State Senate, said Mr. Travaglini had not seen the petition and would allow the City Council to act before considering action. A spokeswoman for Mr. Romney, a Republican, said he had not seen the petition either and would be "happy to take a look at it" when it crossed his desk.
Felix Arroyo, a city councilman, said he expected the measure to pass unanimously at a council meeting on Dec. 1. "I think all of us will look forward to voting yes on this," Mr. Arroyo said.
The Massachusetts General Court enacted the law, called the Indian Imprisonment Act, in 1675. The legislation came at the height of King Philip's War, a conflict between the Wampanoag tribe, led by Metacom, known as Philip, and settlers near Plymouth, Mass. The war began in 1675 with a raid on the town of Swansea and spread across Massachusetts, spilling north to New Hampshire and south to Connecticut. The war, one of the bloodiest on American soil, ended the next year.
The law rolled over when the state's Constitution was enacted in 1780 and has lingered for centuries, with no one taking the steps to repeal it. The Muhheconnew National Confederacy, a lobbying group based in Falmouth, Mass., started pushing for repeal in 1996 after working with the city to protect Indian burial grounds on the Boston Harbor islands. The group petitioned the legislature, then the city, and received the necessary resolution last year. It renewed the push in July, before the Democratic National Convention.
"It means a great thing," said Sam Sapiel, 73, a member of the Penobscot Nation of Maine who lives in Falmouth and worked with the Muhheconnew Confederacy on the repeal. "It's what we've been striving for."
It was little coincidence that Mr. Menino signed the petition the day before Thanksgiving. The podium at the news conference was decorated with a splash of crimson chrysanthemums, and the desk Mr. Menino used to sign the petition was festooned with a pumpkin and other gourds. An Indian leader also invoked the holiday.
"Being so close to Thanksgiving, this is a good day for native people," said Beverly Wright, a member of the Wampanoag tribe of Martha's Vineyard, the state's only federally recognized tribe. "It's been on the books for a long time."
Ms. Wright believes there might be other, similarly discriminatory laws. Mr. Menino said he would look into the possibility of repealing them.

The Real Thanksgiving

Otra leyenda. No eran exactamente los indios de Norteamérica los que arrancaban el cuero cabelludo. Vean, señores, vean lo que hacían estos ingleses...



Bounty Hunters

Governor William Shirley (1694-1771)
Click for Bio Information
"http://www.blupete.com/Hist/BiosNS/1700-63/Shirley.htm

BRITISH SCALP PROCLAMATION - 1744

In the face of a resumption of full scale war on October 19, 1744, the government of Massachusetts, responding to a request from Nova Scotia's Governor Jean Paul Mascarene, declared war upon the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet Nations. It states:
"By His Excellency Wm. Shirley, Captain General and Commander in Chief in and over His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. A Proclamation for encouragement of volunteers to prosecute War against the St. John's and Cape Sable Indians....
"Whereas, the Indians of the Cape Sables & St. John's Tribes have by their violation of their solemn Treaties with His Majesty's Governors, & their open hostilities committed against His Majesty's Subjects of this Province & the Province of Nova Scotia, obliged me with the unanimous advice of His Majesty's Council to declare war against them,
"In consequence of which the General Assembly of this Province have voted, that there be granted to be paid out of the Public Treasury to any Company, Party or Person belonging to and residing within this Province who shall voluntarily & at their own proper cost and charge go out and kill a male Indian of the age of twelve years or upwards, of the Tribe of St. John or Cape Sables...
"....and produce his scalp in evidence of his death, the sum of one hundred pounds in bills of credit of this Province of New England, and the sum of one hundred and five pounds for any male of the like age who shall be taken captive.
"And the sum of fifty pounds in said bills for women, and for children under the age of twelve years killed in fight, and fifty-five pounds for such of them as shall be taken prisoners together with the plunder. No payment shall be made for killing or taking captive any of the said Indians, until proof thereof be made to the acceptance of the Government and Council. November 2, 1744."
By no measure can such horrendous documents be called products of a civilized people. The horror of their intent is reprehensible. Only a sick and barbaric mind could conceive of and implement such unspeakable crimes against humanity. Hitler would have admired the genius of the men who introduced this horrible method of bringing people he considered inferior to extinction.
That the scalp harvest was carried out enthusiastically there is no doubt, the records are full of references to successful "hunts." In her book "The Old Man Told Us So," page 102, Ruth Whitehead relates an incident that is horrific. It happened in late October 1744, near Annapolis Royal, where Gorham and his bounty hunters encountered a group of Mi'kmaq:
"...five women and three children, two of the women were big with child..." Gorham's Rangers "ransacked, pillaged, and burnt the two huts, and massacred the five women and three children."
"...It is observed that the two pregnant women were found with their bellies ripped open. An act which the Micmac cannot forget, especially as at that time they made fair war with the English. They have always looked on this deed as a singular mark of the most unheard-of-cruelty."

GOVERNOR WILLIAM SHIRLEY: BRITISH GENOCIDE - SCALP PROCLAMATION, 1744

Este texto fue pubicado en el foro hace bastante tiempo: Contraste entre la colonización española, la anglosajona y francesa en América

Leyes de Indias o, mejor dicho, leyes antiindias del Canadá:

INDIAN ACT: 1876
If I were an uninformed person, needing more hard evidence to cement views that Canada had careless indifference towards managing judiciously its trust responsibilities, for First Nations and their lands, this would do it; it took the government almost a decade to enact the legislation it needed to manage Indian affairs.
Finally, in 1876, nine years after Confederation Canada devised and legislated the legal code it required to manage and fulfil the requirements of its Constitutional obligations! But the government of 1876, in direct contradiction of its trust position, was true to form. It included a section in the Indian Act which made it illegal for an Indian Agent not to make every effort to sell off First Nation lands:
138. Every Agent who knowingly and falsely informs, or causes to be informed, any person applying to him to purchase any land within his division and agency, that the same has already been purchased, or who refuses to permit the person so applying to purchase the same according to existing regulations, shall be liable therefore to the person so applying, in the sum of five dollars for each acre of land which the person so applying offered to purchase, recoverable by action of debt in any court of competent jurisdiction.
This section of the 1927 Indian Act placed an impossible burden upon Bands that wished to take legal action against the Crown or file a claim:
RECEIVING MONEY FOR THE PROSECUTION OF A CLAIM
141. Every person who, without the consent of the Superintendent General expressed in writing, receives, obtains, solicits or requests from any Indian any payment or contribution or promise of any payment or contribution for the purpose of raising a fund or providing money for the prosecution of any claim which the Tribe or Band of Indians to which such Indian belongs, or of which he is a Member, has or is represented to have for the recovery of any claim or money for the said Tribe or Band, shall be guilty of an offense and liable upon summary conviction for each such offence to a penalty not exceeding two hundred dollars and not less than fifty dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two months.38
ENFRANCHISEMENT
Some of the most insidious provisions the government included in the Indian Act, and added to with future amendments, were the enfranchising sections. These provisions were enacted for the express purpose of hastening extinction of Registered Indians by assimilation. Under these sections, individuals and entire Bands were enfranchised. They were hoodwinked into believing that somehow or other, by giving up their rights as Indians, they would reap all the benefits of Canadian citizenship. But, most of those who gave up their "Indian" rights were rewarded by becoming destitute wanderers that nobody in Canada wanted. Fortunately, despite the best efforts of succeeding governments to entice them to do so, the vast majority of First Nations' Peoples refused the bait.
Section 86 was the 1876 enfranchisement section:
Whenever any Indian man, or unmarried woman, of the full age of twenty-one years obtains the consent of the Band of which he or she is a member to become enfranchised, and whenever such Indian has been assigned by the Band a suitable allotment of land for that purpose, the local Agent shall report such action of the Band and the name of the applicant to the Superintendent General.
Whereupon the said Superintendent General, if satisfied that the proposed allotment of land is equitable, shall authorize some competent person to report whether the applicant is an Indian, who from the degree of civilization to which he or she has attained, and the character for integrity, morality and sobriety which he or she bears, appears to be qualified to become a proprietor of land in fee simple; and upon the favourable report of such person, the Superintendent General may grant such Indian a location ticket as a probationary Indian for the land allotted to him or her by the Band.
(1) Any Indian who may be admitted to the degree of Doctor of Medicine, or to any other degree by any University of Learning, or who may be admitted in any Province of the Dominion to practice law, either as an Advocate or as a Barrister, or Counsellor, or Solicitor, or Attorney, or to be a Notary Public, or who may enter Holy Orders, or who may be licensed by any denomination of Christians as a Minister of the Gospel, shall ipso facto become and be enfranchised under this Act.
A few others:
Indian Act, Section 140, 1927, Dances and Festivals (forbid such activities)
Indian Act, Section 140A, 1930, poolrooms (barred poolroom usage)
Indian Act, Section 120, 1930, Prevention of Trade (could not sell their goods without permission)
Indian Act, Section 46, 1911, removal of Indians, (This was used in Nova Scotia)
Biased Indian Act Sections such as these were not unusual. Its another piece of irony that prior to Confederation the First Nations Peoples had suffered unremitting racist persecution, most of which was dished out in an ad hoc fashion. After Confederation, when more enlightened thought was supposed to be afoot, persecution was codified in federal and provincial laws.
I want to clarify this before we go further: For any who might be inclined to think that the Indian Act was designed to preserve First Nations' cultures it wasn't. In fact, it was designed to deliver the final blow to them, but fittingly, in the end it was their salvation. The men who sought to destroy these cultures, motivated by racist perceptions of themselves as products of superior civilizations, would roll over in their graves today if they knew that the actions they took to facilitate the demise of First Nation civilizations were the very actions that ultimately saved them.

INDIAN ACT: 1876

Más leyes abusivas contra los indios del Canadá:

INDIAN ACT SECTION 46
REMOVAL OF INDIANS
To assure that Whites could improve the "amenities" of their communities by having Indians removed from close proximity, the government included this section in the Indian Act:
Removal of Indians
46. (1) In the case of an Indian reserve which adjoins or is situated wholly or partly within an incorporated town or city having a population of not less than eight thousand ... the Governor in Council may, upon the recommendation of the Superintendent General, refer to the judge of the Exchequer Court of Canada for inquiry and report the question as to whether it is expedient, having regard to the interest of the public and of the Indians of the band for whose use the reserve is held, that the Indians should be removed from the reserve or any part of it....
If the judge finds that it is expedient that the band of Indians should be removed from the reserve or any part of it, he shall proceed, before making his report, to ascertain the amounts of compensation, if any, which should be paid respectively to individual Indians of the band for the special loss or damages which they will sustain in respect of the buildings or improvements to which they are entitled upon the lands of the reserve for which they are located.....
The judge shall transmit his findings, with the evidence and a report of the proceedings, to the Governor in Council, who shall lay a full report of the proceedings ... before Parliament ... and upon such findings being approved by resolution of Parliament the Governor in Council may thereupon give effect to the said findings and cause the reserve, or any part thereof from which it is found expedient to remove the Indians, to be sold or leased by public auction after three months advertisement in the public press, upon the best terms which in the opinion of the Governor in Council, may be obtained therefor.
The proceeds of the sale or lease, after deducting the usual percentage for management fund, shall be applied in compensating individual Indians for their buildings or improvements as found by the judge, in purchasing a new reserve for the Indians removed, in transferring the said Indians with their effects thereto, in erecting buildings upon the new reserve, and in providing the Indians with such other assistance as the Superintendent General may consider advisable....
For the purpose of selecting [a] new reserve to be acquired for the Indians ... the Superintendent General shall have all the powers conferred upon the Minister by the Expropriation Act.39
Shortly after the turn of the century this provision was used in Nova Scotia. The victims were the Mi'kmaq residing near Kings Road in Sydney (about where the Holiday Inn is now located). Whites, residing close to the area, went to court and used the provision to force the Band members to move to Membertou Reserve.
No attempt has ever been made by the federal Crown to right this historic wrong. However, on March 21, 1999, at a dinner in Membertou the Mayor of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, David Muise, officially apologized on behalf of the municipality to the descendants of the Mi'kmaq removed from their Kings Road Reserve starting in 1915. He told the gathering: "There's nothing we can do to undo the move.... What I'm here to do is start the healing process for wrongs of the past." Right on, Mr. Mayor!
Section 46, in addition to being contrary to the laws of a civilized Nation, was contrary to human decency! Until it was repealed in 1951, this obnoxious section gave the bureaucrats an enormous club to wield in their efforts to force the First Nations peoples to do their bidding. The threat of removal caused the Mi'kmaq to think twice before opposing the Department. Adding to the obnoxiousness of the legislation was the fact that the Department could force the People to pay for their own expulsion, as was done in the case of the Sydney Mi'kmaq.

INDIAN ACT SECTION 46: REMOVAL OF INDIANS

Y todavía en tiempos muy recientes trataban a los indios como a putas. Y tu profesora canadiense tiene el descaro de acusarnos a los españoles.


MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION:
USING FIRST NATIONS STUDENTS AS TEST SUBJECTS
Medical experimentation also took place at Indian Residential and Indian Day schools. This example, reported in the May 8, 2000, issue of Maclean's magazine makes one wonder whether this is modern Canada or a throwback to the Dark Ages:
Natives denied dental care Federal government doctors withheld specialized dental care, such as professional cleaning and treatment of decay, for aboriginal children living in eight residential schools in the 1940s and 1950s to see what the effect would be on their health. The director of the study, Dr. L.B. Pett, said last week that students' teeth and gums were in terrible condition to begin with, and that delaying treatment did not create more decay, but helped keep the study's results accurate.
Such views about experiments, using people deemed "inferior" as guinea pigs, were expressed by another majority group, the Nazis. As might be expected from a systemically racist society, to my knowledge, not one word of condemnation has been uttered about this revelation from any level of government, or human rights commission in Canada.

CANADIAN MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION: USING FIRST NATIONS STUDENTS AS TEST SUBJECTS

Y hasta 1960 no dejaron votar a los indios. No tenían voz ni voto, ni cabildos ni podían escribir una carta al rey. Hay que enseñarles unas cuantas cosas a estos canadienses.

CANADA'S FIRST NATIONS PEOPLES
GIVEN VOTING RIGHTS: MARCH 31, 1960

In 1960, under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's enlightened thinking, the government made a decision that would prove to be most beneficial in promoting the eventual recognition of the civil and human rights of First Nations citizens. It decided to permit all Registered Indians to vote in federal elections. Registered Indians living on-Reserve had previously been prevented from doing so by this section of the Canada Elections Act:
14. (2) The following persons are disqualified from voting in an election and incapable of being registered as electors and shall not vote nor be so registered, that is to say, ...
(e) every Indian, as defined in the Indian Act, ordinarily resident on a reserve, unless
(i) he was a member of His Majesty's Forces during World War I or World War II, or was a member of the Canadian Forces who served on active service subsequent to the 9th day of September, 1950, or
(ii) he executed a waiver, in a form prescribed by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, of exemptions under the Indian Act from taxation on and in respect of personal property, and subsequent to the execution of such waiver a writ has issued ordering an election in any electoral district.
An "Act to Amend the Canada Elections Act," repealing the discriminatory parts of Section 14, was given royal assent on March 31, 1960.
By acquiring the right to vote ninety-three unjustifiable years after Confederation, the First Nations peoples of Canada had acquired a useful tool in their future struggles for freedom and justice. Politicians now had to address their problems or suffer at the polls. After this, things began to slowly change for the better for First Nations peoples.
Why the change wasn't more rapid is explained by the following example of the racist attitudes that still prevailed among the bureaucrats: When I returned from the States in 1960 with the intention of going back to school, I went to see the Indian Agent with a request for financial assistance to do so. His response was: "Why don't you go get a pick and shovel and go do what you're best qualified for? " With the angry intervention of my Member of Parliament, Mr. Cyril Kennedy, who was a war veteran and a fine gentleman, the Agent changed his attitude and I started business college in September of that year.
Another thing that changed after the vote was granted was that departmental bureaucrats became more adept at concealing their misdeeds and failings from Members of Parliament, who were now answerable to the people making complaints about bureaucratic job performance. The bureaucrats came up with the ideal solution, amazingly never challenged by any politician. To this day they assign themselves to investigate their own misdeeds and failings and, of course, almost always exonerate themselves. The worst result is that First Nations citizens are left with no effective legal recourse for their complaints about the actions of Indian Affairs bureaucrats and Band Councils. As this situation demonstrates, full protection of our People's civil rights is still hard to come by.
NOTE: Probably related to white supremacist thinking that was implanted in them through the social development of the mother country, England, all the white overseas countries founded by it were extremely barbaric in their treatment of the indigenous inhabitants they displaced. In one form or other, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States have subjected them to genocidal treatment.
Austrailia took even longer than Canada to grant it's indigenous people the right to vote in the country's elections: November 24, 1973!

CANADA'S FIRST NATION CITIZENS GRANTED VOTING RIGHTS: MARCH 31, 1960

Y como buena canadiense, seguro que tu profesora conoce bien el francés, así que también le puedes dar este artículo:

http://hispanismo.org/francais/9074-...kingechee.html

Gracias por vuestra ayuda.. Sólo con el primer mensaje, Hyeronimus, tengo para darle caña un buen rato.

Lo de los indios (que no no hindues), se lo dije hace mucho, cuando, precisamente, nos estaba vilipendiando. Tenía una compañera de Colombia con rasgos nativos muy marcados, cuando esta profesora empezó su retalía de mentiras contra nosotros y nuestra crueldad (no eran sino los usos de aquella época)me referí a esta compañera, y acto seguido la pregunté que dónde estaban los indios canadienses y me dijo que en las reservas, le contesté: aun no he visto ninguno y que me parecen una mentira.
Trás un parrafada(suya) le dije que si en realidad no estarían en zoos. Ya que la gente paga por verlos y no pueden salir de sus reservas. No dijo nada en contra nuestro en un tiempo.

Ella es de antepasados hindues, con algo de sangre judia y del el Salvador.

Iniciado por mazadelizana

Ella es de antepasados hindues, con algo de sangre judia y del el Salvador.

Ahora que mencionas eso, también vale recordar que los judíos expulsados de España se aliaron a los ingleses y a todos los enemigos de España para destruir los cimientos del Imperio. Detrás de todo el proceso de descomposición del Imperio Español estuvo la masonería, que de hecho fomentó el crecimiento movimientos independentistas en territorio americano.

Espero que te sirvan de algo las oportaciones de tan cultivados hermanos, pero me temo que aun teniendo una maquina del tiempo que os teletransporte a ti y a tu profesora a los iglos XV, XVI, XVII e incluso el XVIII, no la haras entrar en razón.
para eso deveria vaciar sus pensamientos de años de mentiras y prejuicios, y siend como supongo inteligente, su mente negara los hechos.

Suscribo lo dicho por Tercio, por mucho que se diga al final sale siempre el prejuicio anti español a la superficie, son varios siglos machacando sobre lo mismo para que se cambie la cosa así como así.

Lo que tiene bemoles es que sea una anglosajona, lo digo porque presumo que sigues en Ottawa y supongo que tu profesora lo será, te hable de "genocidios contra los indígenas americanos". Pues anda que hay muchos indígenas en Canadá y USA, del Atlántico hasta el Pacifico hicieron una buena "impia" sus antepasados, se cargaron varios millones, no sé si los 6 millones que se dicen murieron en el llamado Holocausto judío, pero por ahí le anda la cosa, sólo mal viven algunos pocos, los que se salvaron del exterminio, en las llamadas reservas. Ah, y me apuesto un céntimo de euro que tu profe es de izquierdas.

Te diría estimado Mazzadelizana, que el debate habría que centrarlo en dos aspectos:

a.) Cronológico.
b.) Bárbaros y sanguinarios respecto de qué o mejor, respecto de quiénes.

Respeto del primer punto, pues habría que comentar que los hechos a los que se refiere respecto de la "supuesta barbarie hispánica" se centran fundamentalmente en el Siglo XVI (recién salidos de la Edad Media), mientras que las "conquistas británicas" se centran fundamentalmente el siglo XIX y hasta principios de Siglo XX en plena era industrial. Y esto tiene muchísima trascdendencia y es un agravante insoslayable.

No creo que sea comparable un esecenario posmedieval con uno de plena era industrial, en lo que a avance del derecho internacional se refiere. Por cierto, que fue España (Padre Francisco de Vitoria), quien pone los cimientos del Derecho Internacional.

Respecto del segundo punto, a sanguinarios NADIE y repito NADIE ha "ganado" a los anglosajones.

Fíjate en qué clase personajillos encumbrados con el título de SIR fundaron los cimientos del Imperio Británico:

Cecil Rhodes: A bad man in Africa

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The evil that men do lives after them - and rarely more miserably than in the case of Cecil Rhodes, who died 100 years ago this month
By Matthew Sweet

Saturday, 16 March 2002


North of the Zambezi, they have long known about the suppression of free speech, about the bloody redistribution of land along racial lines, about politicians happy to employ armed – and sometimes uniformed – mobs to kill their opponents. They are practices imported to this region, along with the railways, by the British.
Unlike the African press, the Western media rarely invoke the name of Cecil John Rhodes: nearly a century after his death – on 26 March 1902 – his name is more associated with Oxford Scholarships than with murder. It's easier to focus on the region's more recent, less Anglo white supremacists: Ian Smith, for instance, who – despite his Scottish background – seems cut from the same stuff as those Afrikaner politicians who nurtured and maintained apartheid farther south.
But it was Rhodes who originated the racist "land grabs" to which Zimbabwe's current miseries can ultimately be traced. It was Rhodes, too, who in 1887 told the House of Assembly in Cape Town that "the native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism in our relations with the barbarians of South Africa". In less oratorical moments, he put it even more bluntly: "I prefer land to niggers."
For much of the century since his death, Rhodes has been revered as a national hero. Today, however, he is closer to a national embarrassment, about whom the less said the better. Yet there are plenty of memorials to him to be found. In Bishop's Stortford, his Hertfordshire birthplace, St Michael's Church displays a plaque. The town has a Rhodes arts centre, a Rhodes junior theatre group, and a small Rhodes Museum – currently closed – which houses a collection of African art objects. In Oxford, his statue adorns Oriel College, while Rhodes House, in which the Rhodes Trust is based, is packed with memorabilia. Even Kensington Gardens boasts a statue – of a naked man on horseback – based on the central feature of his memorial in Cape Town.
But his presence is more strongly felt – and resented – in the territories that once bore his name. Delegates at the Pan Africanist Congress in January argued that "the problems which were being blamed on [President Robert] Mugabe were created by British colonialism, whose agent Cecil Rhodes used armed force to acquire land for settlers". He is the reason why, during the campaign for the presidential election in Zimbabwe, Mugabe's Zanu-PF described its enemies – white or black – as "colonialists"; why, when Zimbabwe gained full independence in 1980, Rhodes's name was wiped from the world's maps.
The prosecution case is strong. Rhodes connived his way to wealth in a lawless frontier culture, then used that fortune to fund a private invasion of East Africa. He bought newspapers in order to shape and control public opinion. He brokered secret deals, issued bribes and used gangs of mercenaries to butcher his opponents, seizing close to a million square miles of territory from its inhabitants. Although he did this in the name of the British Empire, he was regarded with some suspicion in his home country, and when it suited him to work against Britain's imperial interests – by slipping £10,000 to Parnell's Irish nationalists, for example – he did so without scruple.
Rhodes was born in the summer of 1853, the fifth son of a parson who prided himself on never having preached a sermon longer than 10 minutes. A sickly, asthmatic teenager, he was sent to the improving climate of his brother's cotton plantation in Natal. The pair soon became involved in the rush to exploit South Africa's diamond and gold deposits – and unlike many prospectors and speculators who wandered, dazed and luckless, around the continent, their claim proved fruitful.
When Rhodes began his studies at Oriel College, he returned to South Africa each vacation to attend to his mining interests – which, by his mid-thirties, had made him, in today's terms, a billionaire. By 1891, he had amalgamated the De Beers mines under his control, giving him dominion over 90 per cent of the world's diamond output. He had also secured two other important positions; Prime Minister of the British Cape Colony, and president of the British South Africa Company, an organisation that was formed – in the manner of the old East India companies – to pursue expansionist adventures for which sponsoring governments did not have the stomach or the cash. The result of his endeavours produced new British annexations: Nyasaland (now Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
Rhodes imprinted his personality on the region with monarchical energy: dams, railway engines, towns and anti-dandruff tonics were all named after him. But his expansionist zeal was not always matched at home in Britain. "Our burden is too great," Gladstone once grumbled. "We have too much, Mr Rhodes, to do. Apart from increasing our obligations in every part of the world, what advantage do you see to the English race in the acquisition of new territory?" Rhodes replied: "Great Britain is a very small island. Great Britain's position depends on her trade, and if we do not open up the dependencies of the world which are at present devoted to barbarism, we shall shut out the world's trade. It must be brought home to you that your trade is the world, and your life is the world, not England. That is why you must deal with these questions of expansion and retention of the world."
At around the same time, Henry John Heinz was outlining a comparable manifesto: "Our field," he pronounced, "is the world." By 1900, his 57 varieties were available in every continent. Global capitalism and imperial expansion developed in collaboration; shared aims, aspirations, patterns of influence. Today, most of the world's political empires have been dissolved and discredited, but the routes along which capital moves remain the same. After Rhodes came Nestlé, Coca-Cola, BP, McDonald's, Microsoft.
In 1896, Rhodes's name was linked with the Jameson Raid – a disastrous (and illegal) attempt to annex Transvaal territory held by the Boers, and a principal cause of the South African War of 1899-1902. His reputation in Britain accrued a lasting tarnish. A defence of his character, published in 1897 and co-authored by the pseudonymous "Imperialist", offers an insight into the charges against him: "Bribery and corruption", "neglect of duty", "harshness to the natives" and the allegation that "that Mr Rhodes is utterly unscrupulous". His lifelong companion Dr Leander Starr Jameson – a future premier of the Cape Colony and the leader of the ill-fated raid – added a postscript insisting that some of Rhodes's best blacks were friends: "His favourite Sunday pastime was to go into the De Beers native compound, where he had built them a fine swimming bath, and throw in shillings for the natives to dive for. He knew enough of their languages to talk to them freely, and they looked up to him – indeed, fairly worshipped the great white man."
Did anyone buy this stuff? After Rhodes's fatal heart attack on 26 March 1902, the death notices were ambivalent. News editors across the world cleared their pages for obituaries and reports of public grief in South Africa, but few wholehearted endorsements of his career emanated from London. "He has done more than any single contemporary to place before the imagination of his countrymen a clear conception of the Imperial destinies of our race," conceded The Times, "[but] we wish we could forget the other matters associated with his name." Empire-builders such as Rhodes, the paper said, attracted as much opprobrium as praise: "On the one hand they are enthusiastically admired, on the other they are stones of stumbling, they provoke a degree of repugnance, sometimes of hatred, in exact proportion to the size of their achievements." Jameson and "Imperialist", it seems, had not succeeded in rehabilitating their mentor.
But the story of Rhodes's posthumous reputation is just as complex and contentious as that of his life and career. And curiously, his sexuality was one of the main battlegrounds. In 1911, Rhodes's former private secretary Philip Jourdan wrote a biography of his late employer in order to counter "the most unjust libels with reference to his private life [which] were being disseminated throughout the length and breadth of the country". Despite the aggressive romantic attentions of a Polish adventuress and forger named Princess Catherine Radziwill, Rhodes was indifferent to women and gained a reputation for misogyny. His most intense relationships were with men – his private secretary Neville Pickering, who died in his arms; Jameson, whom he met at the diamond mines in Kimberley where, the doctor recalled, "we shared a quiet little bachelor establishment"; and Johnny Grimmer, of whom Jourdan (defeating the purpose of his memoir) said: "He liked Johnny to be near him... The two had many little quarrels. On one occasion for a couple of days they hardly exchanged a word. They were not unlike two schoolboys."
Rhodes's excuse for remaining single was the one used today by members of boy bands: "I know everybody asks why I do not marry. I cannot get married. I have too much work on my hands." Instead, he accumulated a shifting entourage of young men, known as "Rhodes's lambs". It's probable that these relationships were more homosocial than homosexual, but that didn't stop the gossips or biographical theoreticians. In 1946, Stuart Collete suggested Rhodes was "one of those who, passing beyond the ordinary heterosexuality of the common man, that the French call l'homme moyen sensual, was beyond bisexuality, beyond homosexuality and was literally asexual – beyond sex. It appears to have had no literal meaning to him except as a human weakness that he understood he could exploit in others". The same biographer wove these comments into an analysis of Rhodes's appeal to another set of posthumous acolytes: the Nazis.
As the 20th century moved on, Rhodes's memory became increasingly attractive to extreme (and eventually moderate) right-wing opinion. Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West (1918) hailed him as "the first precursor of a Western type of Caesar – in our Germanic world, the spirits of Alaric and Theodoric will come again – there is a first hint of them in Cecil Rhodes".
It's easy to see why Spengler, and later Hitler, were fans. Asked by Jameson how long he would endure in memory, Rhodes replied: "I give myself four thousand years." To the journalist WT Stead he said: "I would annex the planets, if I could. I often think of that." When, in 1877, he first made his will, he urged his executors to use his fortune to establish a secret society that would aim to redden every area of the planet. He envisioned a world in which British settlers would occupy Africa, the Middle East, South America, the Pacific and Malay islands, China and Japan, before restoring America to colonial rule and founding an imperial world government. "He was deeply impressed," Jameson recalled, "with a belief in the ultimate destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race. He dwelt repeatedly on the fact that their great want was new territory fit for the overflow population to settle in permanently, and thus provide markets for the wares of the old country – the workshop of the world." It was a dream of mercantile Lebensraum for the English: an empire of entrepreneurs, occupying African territories in order to fill them with Sheffield cutlery, Tate & Lyle's Golden Syrup and Uncle Joe's Mint Balls.
But it was Rhodes's Alma Mater that did most to brighten his prestige. In 1899, Oxford University, an institution with a long and continuing history of accepting money from morally dubious millionaires, agreed to administer a more cuddly and less clandestine version of the "Imperial Carbonari" of the 1877 will: the Rhodes Scholars. In 1903, the first names were selected. A group of men fitted for "manly outdoor sports", who would display "qualities of manhood, truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for the protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship" – men such asBill Clinton, the CIA director Stansfield Turner, the first Secretary General of the Commonwealth Sir Arnold Smith, and the Nato Supreme Commander Bernard Rogers.
By 1936, ML Andrews was praising Rhodes's "vision of world peace, to be brought about by the domination of the English-speaking nations". In the same year the Gaumont-British film company produced the hagiographic movie, Rhodes of Africa. Two years later, the little Rhodes Museum was founded in Bishop's Stortford. When it reopens next year, children will, for a fiver, be able to sign up as one of "Rhodes's Little Rhinos".
A 1956 children's book, Peter Gibbs's The True Book About Cecil Rhodes – one of a series that also profiled Marie Curie, Captain Scott and Joan of Arc – is the best example of how, in the mid-20th century, Rhodes was reclaimed as a national hero. More unalloyed in its enthusiasm for Rhodes than any comparable 19th-century text, it makes for queasy reading. Especially, perhaps, if you were voting in Zimbabwe last weekend. Southern Rhodesia, it reports, is now "tamed and civilised and cultivated, and many thousands of white people have settled there, and made it their home. Today there are beautiful modern towns; homes, gardens, parks, towering blocks of offices and flats; factories, railways and airports. It is a new and thriving country of the British Commonwealth, where but recently only savages and wild animals dwelt. And it started from the dreams of one young Englishman – Cecil Rhodes".

Cecil Rhodes: A bad man in Africa - Africa, World - The Independent