English 4371: Cultural Encounters

Householder, fall 2005

9/13/05: The Black Legend and Its Impact on the English Colonial Enterprise

 

 

 

  1. Historical backgrounds and contexts.

 

 

    1. Bartolomé de las Casas, b. 1484, d. 1576.  Basel (English traditionally: Basle [ba:l], German: Basel [ba:z@l], French Bâle [ba:l], Italian Basilea [bazilE:a]) is Switzerlands third most populous city (188,000 inhabitants in the canton of Basel-City as of 2004; the 690,000 inhabitants in the conurbation stretching across the imm

 

 

    1. Early life. 

 

 

 

    1. Religious conversion and advocacy. 

 

 

 

Figure 1.  Bartolomé de Las Casas

 

 

 

 

    1. Spanish imperial policy toward the indigenous peoples of America.

 

 

 

                                                              i.      1511 – Antonio Montesinos delivers a sermon at Santo Domingo

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      1513 - The Requerimiento 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      1513 – The Laws of Burgos

 

 

 

                                                           iv.      1542 - The “New Laws” 

 

 

 

1550-1 – The debate at Valladolid between Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda.

 

 

1.      The source of the debate, its form, and its outcome

 

 

 

 

2.      Its implications for slavery

 

 

 

  1. Reading the Short Account

 

    1. Rhetorical appeals to authority 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Compulsion 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Recurrent motifs

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. A world turned upside-down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. English uses of “The Black Legend” (La Leyenda Negra). 

 

    1. Richard Eden  

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Francisco López de Gómara, Historia de la Conquista de Mexico (1552); translated into English as The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of the Weast India, now called new Spayne (1578). 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. The English, the Dutch, and Theodor de Bry.

 

 

 

 

                                                              i.      1568 – The Dutch Revolt

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      1583 – La Brevíssima Relacion is translated (from a Dutch translation of a French translation) by Thomas Dawson into English as The Spanish Colonie, Or Briefe Chronicle of the Acts and gestes of the Spaniardes in the West Indies, called the newe World, for the space of xl. yeeres; written in the Castilian tongue by the reverend Bishop Bartholomew de las Casas or Casaus, A Friar of the order of S. Dominicke.

 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      1588 – The Spanish Armada

 

 

 

                                                          iv.      Theodor de Bry’s anti-Catholic propaganda:  [Benzoni 1565] [Benzoni/de Bry 1594] [Las Casas/de Bry 1598]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next time: The first two voyages of Martin Frobisher, as recorded by George Best.  For Thursday, I'd like you to read pp. 1-41, but I'd like you to focus especially on pp. 18-41, which describe Frobisher's first two voyages to "Meta Incognita."  The first 18 pages consist of prefatory matter that will make more sense for us to discuss next Tuesday, so if you don't get to it for Thursday, that's fine.  You should have all of it read by next Tuesday, plus an additional text (a very brief autopsy report by Edward Dodding) that I'll be uploading in the next couple of days.

 

As you read, identify those ways in which you think Hakluyt, Best, and/or Frobisher are trying either to duplicate Spanish colonial practices OR distance themselves from them.