Black Legend

The black legend was the name given to the concept of cruelty and brutality spread by the Spanish during the 14th and 15th century. It can be said to be an anti-Spanish movement, which was started due to political and religious torment done by the Spanish on the people. It was the dominance and control of the Spanish over Europe that lead to the black legend of the Spanish. It was through this particular propaganda that the people were able to understand how various European countries had fallen prey to Spanish cruelty and misconduct. They were being religiously and politically divided just because of the supreme power that the Spanish held at the time. They wanted to stand tall as a nation and wanted to develop and advance together. They were not willing to lose their heritage, cultural values and spiritual beliefs to the hands of the Spanish cruelty and nastiness.
The Spanish wanted to by any means spread Christianity all through out. No Muslim or Jew was allowed to practice his or her religion. Even men and women ware to forcefully be baptized and convert into a Catholic. “Moors and Jews were forced to convert or immigrate. In fact, in the very year of the surrender of Granada, Isabel expelled tens of thousands of people from Spain because they refused to renounce the Jewish faith. And Moors and Jews who did convert remained subject to discrimination as “New Christians” (Chasteen 33)” The black legend represents a time of horror for the English, when the Jews and Muslim were tortured by the Spanish. It reflects on the political, emotional and religious unfairness that Europe had to go through.
The Spanish did not pass on any opportunity of terrorizing and petrifying the Jews and Muslims living in Europe at the time. If any one was to be caught practicing their own religion after being baptized, then that person was highly beleaguered and tormented before being murdered in the Dominican Friars dungeons. There was racial inequality and religious discrimination