The Black Legend, Native Americans, and Spaniards – Crash Course US History

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April 26, 2014 by mrcaseyhistory

Check it out! I know this is from the US History series, but it’s totally relevant to what we’ve been discussing! Also could be very good for debates!

John Green talks about the Native Americans who lived in what is now the US prior to European contact. This is a history class, not archaeology, so we’re mainly going to cover written history. That means we start with the first sustained European settlement in North America, and that means the Spanish. The Spanish have a long history with the natives of the Americas, and not all of it was positive. The Spanish were definitely not peaceful colonizers, but what colonizers are peaceful? Colonization pretty much always results in an antagonistic relationship with the locals. John teaches you about early Spanish explorers, settlements, and what happened when they didn’t get along with the indigenous people. The story of their rocky relations has been called the Black Legend. Which is not a positive legend.

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