The use of the term leyenda negra to refer specifically to a biased, anti-Spanish depiction of history gained currency in the first two decades of the 20th century, and is most associated with Julián Juderías. "Golden" and "black legends" had been used by Spanish historians and intellectuals with the same meaning in reference to aspects of Spanish history Antonio Soler used both terms about the portrayal of Castilian and Aragonese monarchs. The term "black legend" was first used by Arthur Lévy in reference to biographies of Napoleon, and he primarily used it in the context of two opposing legends, a "golden legend" and a "black legend": two extreme, simplistic, one-dimensional approaches to a character which portrayed him as a god or a demon. Historiography and definitions of the Spanish Black Legend There is disagreement among scholars over whether a biased portrayal of Spanish history continues into the present day, and the degree to which it might be significant if it does. Like other black legends, the Spanish black legend combined fabrications, de-contextualization, exaggeration, cherry picking, and double standards with facts. Charles Gibson described it as "The accumulated tradition of propaganda and Hispanophobia according to which the Spanish Empire is regarded as cruel, bigoted, degenerate, exploitative and self-righteous in excess of reality". Īlthough the existence of a 16th- and 17th-century Spanish black legend is agreed upon by the majority of scholars, aspects of the legend are still debated.
This 17th-century propaganda found its basis in real events during the Spanish conquest of the Americas, which did involve atrocities, but it often employed lurid and exaggerated depictions of violence, while ignoring similar behaviour by other powers. The assimilation of originally Dutch and English 16th-century propaganda into mainstream history is theorised to have fostered an anti-Hispanic bias among subsequent historians along with a distorted view of the history of Spain, Latin America, and other parts of the world.