The conquests carried out by the other Western powers were not lacking in murders and acts of destruction. But when compared with others committed in following centuries, they were no more monstrous than those of the metropolitan powers that followed the Spanish imperial example, sowing death and destruction throughout the world. Of course there were crimes, and monstrous crimes at that. But even a minimal respect for historical truth shows that this is simply false. The Black Legend was apparently the product of an understandable revulsion against the monstrous crimes committed in the Americas by the Spanish conquistadors. Many Spanish Americans rejected their Hispanic heritage as a result.

But it was also encouraged by the fact that, since the 16th century, Spain and all things Spanish had come under the stigma of the 'Black Legend', which made the word 'Spanish' synonymous with purblind reactionary cruelty. It was encouraged by the pitiful state into which Spain had fallen and its iniquitous exploitation of the new nations. A readiness to accept 'Western' solutions was typical of certain Spanish-American groups who were avid supporters of modernization. As a result, many were lured into the arms of other greedy powers: as if, as the Cuban writer José Marti (1853-1895) exclaimed, changing masters amounted to to being free. It was a complex task to determine what differentiated it from the mother country, but it proved even more difficult to propose distinctively Latin American solutions. Spanish America, meanwhile, was trying to define its own identity by making a sharp distinction between the old and the new continent. Spanish America began breaking its ties with the battered and decadent Spanish Empire more than 150 years ago and Spain was to lose its last American possession, Cuba, in 1898. We Spanish Americans like to say that we descend not from those who stayed behind in Spain but from those who came to America and whose children stopped being Spanish, becoming first creóles, and later, intermingling with other ethnic groups, Latin Americans. In other respects, the situation is much more complex. The unity of the Spanish language has thus been preserved, enriched by the contributions of the various regions in which it is spoken. This obvious phonetic difference can be considered a sign of richness, and fortunately it has not endangered the unity of our language, since 'the peoples who emerged from the former Spanish Empire communicate much more with one another today than when they belonged to a single state'. Referring to the unity of the Spanish language, the Spanish historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal said, 'One can say that there are two types of educated Spanish, just as there are American and British versions of English, primarily distinguished by peculiarities of pronunciation.' Latin Americans received much more than their language from Spain, but language indicates the special way in which the Iberian heritage was transmitted. But although this Spanish influence should not be exaggerated, it should neither be minimized nor dismissed. It is obvious that much of Latin American culture comes from Spain. Emphasis has been put on the indigenous Amerindian and African heritage, while the differences or, as some would have it, the affinities which characterize Latin America's relationship with the West have been pointed up.īut there is another heritage, which one might call 'intermediate', neither indigenous nor strictly speaking Western: the Iberian heritage. In recent years, the debate about Latin American culture has become increasingly lively. UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in DangerĪ hard look at the historical role of Spain in Latin America.MGIEP - Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development.IESALC - International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean.IITE - Institute for Information Technologies in Education.IICBA - International Institute for Capacity-Building in Africa.IBE - International Bureau of Education.ICTP - International Centre for Theoretical Physics.IIEP - International Institute for Educational Planning.UNEVOC - International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training.Education for Sustainable Development Network.International Coalition of Inclusive and Sustainable Cities – ICCAR.Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.Advancing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

Black legend definition