The Spaniards weren’t as bad as “The Black Legend” would have it.
Of course not-propaganda put out by enemies is always worse than the real events-The Black Legend was mixed up and baked by Spain’s European enemies because they were the premier power in Europe at the time-and everyone else wanted to grab off some of their territory in the New World-complete with gold and silver mines, captured Native American tribal treasure, slaves, etc-but even without all the sensational propaganda, the Spanish were still more brutal than most-both they and the Italians-they learned centuries before from the Romans who conquered them- when I think of a brutal conqueror, it is a tie between Attila the Hun and Hernan Cortez-with Julius Caesar a close 3d...