https://www.elmundo.es/papel/historias/2024/11/12/673249c2fc6c830e508b459e.html Zunzunegui, the Mexican historian against the Black Legend: "Spain was not an unfortunate country that had enslaved colonies: we were an empire" The academic defends the legacy of the Spanish empire on both sides of the Atlantic and is highly critical of the false myths that still persist: "Spain is our father country and America, our mother country," he says. 81 comments Jorge Benítez (Text) Bernardo Díaz (Photography) Updated Tuesday, November 12, 2024 - 00:38 If Philip II had hired Juan Miguel Zunzunegui as press secretary, the Black Legend spread by England and the Netherlands against the Spanish Monarchy would have been quickly dispelled, and Spain would be more associated with a Christmas advertisement for El Almendro than with the Inquisition, the rape of Indigenous women, or the terror the Duke of Alba inspired in Flanders. This 49-year-old Mexican historian, who has thousands of...
Me vs. ChatGPT: Las Casas is not merely “unreliable with numbers”; Zunzunegui calls the numerical claims outright lies. He specifically says Las Casas claimed around 24 million deaths when the population could not even have supported that figure.Not merely: Las Casas got the numbers wrong. More strongly: Las Casas's narrative misrepresents what happened. Bernal's own claim: Las Casas's description contradicts the facts as Bernal, an eyewitness participant, says he experienced them.
Las Casas is not merely “unreliable with numbers”; Zunzunegui calls the numerical claims outright lies. He specifically says Las Casas claimed around 24 million deaths when the population could not even have supported that figure . He sees the Brevísima itself as already exaggerated , rather than simply an innocent eyewitness account subsequently distorted by Europeans. Zunzunegui says William of Orange took an already exaggerated work, altered and further exaggerated it , and supplied sensational illustrations. The illustrations are central to his argument. Zunzunegui points to the famous engravings depicting Spaniards committing horrific acts against Indians and argues that these images functioned like propaganda: a European reader could mistake an intentionally produced illustration for documentary evidence. He therefore sees the Black Legend as a process of amplification: Las Casas → Dutch/Protestant polemic → further exaggeration and visual propaganda → later European...