black legend

plural black legends

1. Historiographical phenomenon in which a sustained trend in historical writing of biased reporting and introduction of fabricated, exaggerated and/or decontextualized facts is directed against particular persons, nations or institutions with the intention of creating a distorted and uniquely inhuman image of them.

1. Alternative letter-case form of Black Legend.

   Here the problem is aggravated by the mutually reinforcing influences of the ‘black legend’ of Spanish greed and cruelty, and the contrasting myth of the American Indian as ‘noble savage’.

   1992, Edwin Williamson, The Penguin history of Latin America, London; New York: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 84

alternative black legend

1. historiographyThe depiction of Spain and Spaniards (or, by extension, all Hispanics and their countries of origin) as bloodthirsty and cruel, greedy and fanatical, especially concerning the colonial period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

   […]if the black legend seemed to be fading at last, the horrors of the Civil War revived it with a vengeance. Never was a conflict fought more bitterly.

   1964, Jan Morris, “Wild Spain”, in Spain, Faber and Faber, published 2008, →ISBN

   1 more example

   Here the problem is aggravated by the mutually reinforcing influences of the ‘black legend’ of Spanish greed and cruelty, and the contrasting myth of the American Indian as ‘noble savage’.

   1992, Edwin Williamson, The Penguin history of Latin America, London; New York: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 84