Judge Jacob Hessels spent much of the time in his courtroom dozing.
But he woke up when it really mattered… that is, whenever it was time to pronounce the death sentence.
Hessels couldn’t really be blamed for taking a snooze while on duty. He was working round the clock, presiding over a seemingly endless lineup of heresy cases during the 1570s Spanish Inquisition in the Netherlands.
At the time, the Netherlands were under Spanish control… and Spain’s Catholic ruler, Philip II, had given orders to round up all the Protestants in the Dutch “Low Country” and try them as heretics. But interrogating thousands of pious men and women – whose only crime was worshiping a little differently – proved exhausting for Judge Hessels.
After a few hundred cases, the judge started nodding off during the trials, waking up at the end to rubber-stamp executions with the words “Ad patibulum!” (“To the gallows with him!”)
If a Protestant was lucky, he caught Hessels between power naps – and maybe managed to get his sentence commuted to lifelong banishment, with all his worldly belongings confiscated for the benefit of the Catholic Church.
Artist and engraver Theodor de Bry was one of the “lucky” Protestants spared the gallows.
De Bry forfeited all his possessions to the Inquisitors, and was exiled to Strasburg, Germany in 1570 with life and limb intact. The penniless – but talented — De Bry got to work as soon as he landed in Germany… and before long, landed a history-altering art commission.
The project was a series of illustrations for travel books about the discovery and exploration of the New World (then, the destination of choice for gold-hungry Spanish conquistadors). De Bry’s fanciful engravings included strange gods and sea monsters… and, on every page, depictions of Spanish adventurers chopping up and torturing innocent natives.
The illustrator’s unfavorable – and realistic – portrayal of the Spanish had far-reaching consequences.
De Bry’s books found an audience across Europe, and his vivid illustrations were reprinted and used in countless other books – including a widely-circulated tome by a conscience-stricken Spanish monk, Bartolomé de las Casas, who wanted to atone for the sins his countrymen had committed in the New World. In a way, De Bry’s illustrations served as a kind of 16th-century Internet meme… a viral image that becomes a cultural touchstone.
During the same late 1500s/early 1600s time period, persecuted Protestants in several countries fought back against the Catholics…and eventually flipped the balance of power in Europe from Catholic to Protestant.
The kingdom of Spain, though, stayed stubbornly Catholic… and soon found out how it felt to be the underdog.
Protestant leaders like England’s Elizabeth I and the Netherlands’ William of Orange, along with powerful religious reformers like the French John Calvin and the German Martin Luther, launched a series of highly effective smear campaigns against still-Catholic Spain.
Fueled by recent memories of the Inquisition, and of course, by de Bry’s lurid engravings, a popular belief took root: the idea that the Spaniards were cruel… dastardly… violent… and just a little bit worse than the rest of Europe.
That was the start of the “Black Legend” of Spain.
Black Legends and Black Diamonds
The Spanish “Black Legend” was bigger than any single propaganda campaign or smear tactic. Over many decades and across the continent – and world – it survived as a “big idea” that the country of Spain was, somehow, a global menace.
As Spanish historian Julián Juderías explained in his 1914 book The Black Legend and the Historical Truth (the first place we find the term “Black Legend” officially used), the Legend is “the systematic ignorance… of all that is favorable and beautiful in the various manifestations of culture and art, the accusations that in every era have been flung against Spain.”
The Legend has taken many forms… subtle and not so subtle… over the last few centuries. (It’s a poorly-hidden source for a lot of the woke “anti-Columbus” drivel that young people spout today.) At its roots, the Black Legend was a collusion – by powerful political groups and interests – to demonize a country that, while not perfect, really didn’t deserve that level of vitriol.
Like all big stories, the Black Legend is a complicated one.
For one thing, there’s more than a grain of truth in it. The Spaniards – while not the worst villains in European history by far – did torture their opponents during the Inquisition. They also undeniably committed genocide in the Americas – it’s estimated that about eight million natives died, both from wartime violence and communicable diseases, during the three hundred years of Spanish colonization.
But as Juderías wrote… there’s much that’s “favorable and beautiful” in Spanish history, too.
The Black Legend is only one part of the complex story of Spain – and centuries of repetition have drowned out much of the other side… the good side… which has a legitimate claim to truth as well.
For instance, Spanish priests (fueled by the belief that they were doing the Lord’s work) toiled tirelessly over the three hundred years of the Spanish Colonial period to bring Native Americans schools, churches, and hospitals. Spanish and Native populations frequently intermarried during that time. And – as a direct result of de las Casas’ confessional writings – the Spanish government instituted a remarkable piece of humanitarian legislature, the Laws of Burgos, in 1512, ensuring that the conquistadors would treat the natives fairly, as free people, with cottages and land of their own.
In the end, there’s a lot of gray in the Black Legend. And we would be unfair to Spain – and to history – if we accepted this massive defamation campaign at face value.
Right now, it’s fair to say that we are in the midst of the creation of a new “Black Legend” for the modern age. We’re seeing a loosely coordinated group of political powers determined to torpedo an imperfect – but still valuable, still useful – resource.
I’m talking, of course, about coal – which, appropriately enough, sometimes goes by the name “black diamonds.” And about the “black legend” that’s sprung up around it – not due to warring religious kingdoms, but to an even more fanatic group of zealots: climate change warriors.
That includes Barack Obama, who stated openly in his 2008 campaign that he wanted to “bankrupt” the coal industry – and followed through with a series of stringent actions to shut down coal mines and destroy jobs in the coal sector; President Joe Biden, who’s continuing the war on coal with punitive EPA regulations designed to hamstring crucial coal mines in Montana’s Powder River Basin; and environmental activist organizations like 350.org, who openly admit
that they aim to conduct “smear campaigns” and to take away the industry’s “social license to operate.” All in favor of debunked green energy projects that are never going to work.
Coal is dirty energy, as we’ve written before. But it’s also a vital part of American industry, and a significant segment of the country’s energy backbone, responsible for 16% of power in the U.S., and 37% worldwide. And, especially now that we need massive doses of raw power to fuel AI’s increasing energy demands… coal is not going away.
We owe it to ourselves not to believe the reductive myth-making of the climate-change elite. While nothing can whitewash the impact of coal pollution, we can’t afford to ignore all the good things coal has done for the world, either.
In this issue, we’ll show how one top-tier U.S. coal producer has thrived in recent years, despite the best efforts of American policymakers to bankrupt the industry.
