Questions for you….
• Why is the year 1492 historically
significant?
• Why is the year 1607 historically
significant?
• 1620?
The Lost Century???
1492 - 1620
With a partner brainstorm as
many historical events, places,
names you can that took place in
North America during this time
period.
Why does historian Tony Horwitz call
this time period the Lost Century?
Plymouth Rock
• Most common questions for Claire Olsen
(veteran park ranger at Plymouth, MA) –
Why does it read 1620 rather than 1492?
– Is this where the Nina, the Pinta and the
Santa Maria landed?
– Didn’t Columbus drop off the Pilgrims and
then sail home?
English were latecomers!
• By the time the English settled the eastern
seaboard of North America, Europeans
had already reached half of the forty-eight
states that today make up the continental
US.
Giovanni da Verrazzano 1524
Verrazzano bridge
st
1
St. Augustine
permanent
European City on US soil 1565
The Spanish Black Legend
La Leyenda Negra
Golden Age of Spain
15th - 18th Century
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
Philip II of Spain
Golden Age Tarnished
Critics called the arrival of
Spanish in the new world an
“invasion” fueled by greed
and leading to “genocide”.
WHY?
Spanish Empire at various times
over a period exceeding 400 years
The Spanish colonial empire at its territorial height in 1790
Regions of influence
Portuguese possessions ruled jointly under the Spanish, 1580–1640
Birth of the Black Legend
•
•
•
•
Role of Protestant Reformation?
Jealousy of Rival Powers?
Spanish Inquisition?
Spanish victim of its own efforts to
administer justice and reform?
Bartolomé de Las Casas: Brevissima relación de
la destruycion de las Indias (A Brief Account of
the Destruction of the Indies)
Translated Into Many Languages
The Tears of the Indians: Being an
historical and true account of the
cruel massacres and slaughters of
above twenty millions of innocent
people; committed by the
Spaniards...
London: J.C. for Nath. Brooke,
1656.
Theodor de Bry
Title page, 1598 edition
[Frankfurt] published by
Theodore de Bry with
his engravings
“And thus pregnant and nursing
women and children and old persons
and any others they might take, they
would throw them into the holes until
the pits were filled, the Indians being
pierced through by the stakes, which
was a sore thing to see, especially
the women with their children.”
“They would erect long gibbets . . .
and bind thirteen of the Indians at one
time, in honour and reverence, they
said, of Our Redeemer and the twelve
Apostles, and put firewood around it
and burn the Indians alive.”
“Another time, because the Indians
did not give him a coffer filled with
gold, . . . they killed an infinite number
of souls, and cut off the hands and
noses of countless women and men,
and others they threw to the savage
dogs, who ate them and tore them to
pieces.”
“[T]he lord asked the holy father
whether Christians went to the sky.
The priest replied that they did, but
only those who were good. And the
cacique then said ... that he did not
desire to go to the sky, but rather
down to hell, so that he would not be
where they were and would not see
such cruel people.”
• King Charles issued the “New Laws of the
Indies” in 1542 to moderate the treatment
of the Indians.
• The New Laws were opposed and ignored
by most colonial officials in Spanish
America.