Today is October 12, a holiday to celebrate. Today is Hispanidad Day, Pilar Day (the patron saint of Spain, la Virgen del Pilar) and The Race Day or Día de la Raza (in our beloved America).
A special day, a historic day. And if we talk about history, we have to do it well, you know, data kills a story. Until not long ago, only the Anglo-Saxon story prevailed, they are the ones who write history, or rather, they rewrite and manipulate it, they are the ones who make movies and write books, those which arrives to everyone.
And always Spain, and everything that was the Spanish Empire. Managing to create a negative propaganda, hiding their miseries, inventing those of the rival, creating the "black legend" that we have had to hear and even learn in our school books.
But that is changing, the true connoisseurs of history also write books, authors such as María Elvira Roca Barea (who is collaborator of the Higher Council for Scientific Research) and Juan Marcelo Gullo Omodeo, although they do not publicize them as much, and many also work as University Professors, many of them are people that has gone to the historical source and not to the movies. We have discovered another story, the real one, the one that exists in official documents of the time and in historical archives, all that we ignore and do not read. And there is so much that I cannot reproduce even a small part…
We start with General Otto Von Bismarck, whose phrase we always remember:
“The strongest nation in the world is undoubtedly Spain. It has always tried to self-destruct and has never succeeded. The day they stop trying, they will once again be the vanguard of the world.”
«Tu Regere Ymperio Fluctus Hispane Memento
-- Recuerda, España, que tú registe el imperio de los mares»
Source: Twitter (@pildorashispan)
This is how it seems to have been. But for centuries it became the best Empire, even if they just want to tell us that it was genocide and robbery, it was not. What did the English do?
Are there natives in the territories colonized by the English or did they exterminate them and put them on reservations where they ended up drunk? If you don't believe me, look up and listen to what Alfonso Borrego says, a descendant of Apache chief Jerónimo and president of the Cultural Heritage Society of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro" in San Elizario, Texas. (Put the subtitles)
Actually, they are facts, Spain did not have colonies. They were Viceroyalties and provinces, provinces that were equal to the Spanish provinces, where all its inhabitants enjoyed the same rights.
- Did you know that Queen Elizabeth I La Católica was the first leader (and woman) to abolish slavery?
On June 19, 1500, Isabella the Catholic sent Pedro de Torres a certificate with which she ordered the release of the Indians brought by Columbus. Three years later, in 1503, she issued a new royal decree prohibiting the enslavement of the Indians.
Source: Twitter (@bichowarrior)
Did you know that Hernán Cortés was the creator of the first hospital in America?
In his will, he stipulated that his fortune be used to build today's "Hospital de Jesus."*Did you know that Spain was a pioneer in the 16th century in implementing the most advanced labor regulations in the world? *
The 8-hour working day, which to many seems modern, is already reflected in Law VI of the instruction ordinance of 1593 with King Felipe II, more than four centuries ago.Did you know that Spain founded more Universities than there were in Europe?
Until the 19th century, the Hispanic Monarchy created between twenty-five and thirty universities (depending on the date) and sixteen colleges, in addition to countless schools. No empire can be compared to the Spanish in terms of the number of universities founded during its rule. Portugal did not create any university in its colonial days in Brazil, as did the Belgian Empire in the Congo. It was not until the 20th century that the Netherlands founded the first university in a colony of its own.
Image Source: Twitter (@PabloVictoriaW)
- Did you know that 33 Hispanic cities have been declared World Heritage Sites? How many of the English, French or Dutch colonies?
The legislation of the time was the most advanced in the world in terms of the rights of individuals who lived in any province of the empire. And there is much more to tell...
Do you really think that 200 people on those ships could have defeated thousands? It was not like that, the Spanish helped some villages that were killed by others, practicing savage human sacrifices, which fortunately ceased to exist.
The army of Hernán Cortés, with which he attacked Tenochtitlán was made up of 200,000 soldiers, of which less than 1% were Spanish. But at a tactical level they were superior to the Aztecs and Incas. But it was the rest of the oppressed indigenous peoples who really fought, along with some Spaniards, to put an end to that pre-Columbian domination full of blood and human sacrifice.And the stolen gold? Spain during the time of the Roman Empire was the Roman province that provided the most gold and silver, that is, there are mines here too. The then Hispania, did not mean "land of rabbits" in Phoenician as is often believed, it was a play on words, the Phoenicians actually meant "land of metals" but without other peoples knowing it. And from the American continent he brought more silver than gold, gold only 20%, most of it stayed there. Have you seen some churches and cathedrals in countries like Mexico or Colombia? With many more ornaments and riches than some Spanish ones.
Did you know that now the multinationals get more wealth in one year than the Spaniards got in all the time they were there?
*Who financed those who wanted to become independent? *The independence movements of Creoles incited from the Anglo-Saxon orbit, were financed and supported by Englishmen who wanted all that territory to continue extracting more resources and turn it into their backyard, have they improved the quality of life? For 4 centuries the continent did not experience wars. Spain built bridges, hospitals, universities and printing houses there. It exported laws and culture, and unified the globe for the first time.
There is currently a good documentary called "Spain, the first globalization" or España, la primera globalización that explains many things that happened, that we have never been told and that we need to know. I went to the cinema to see this documentary to support the diffusion and propagation of historical facts that are hidden to manipulate history and ourselves.
In Mexico, when it was New Spain, the standard of living was one of the best in the world, higher than France and Spain itself. Can you tell how much they have improved?
Spain left Mexico with a higher level of wealth than Europe but England forced Mexico to go into debt demanding 7 pesos for each one lent for its independence, then France invaded and devastated Mexico in 1862 and finally USA stole half of its territory.
The case of Puerto Rico is curious, poorly treated by the United States who have used it as I say as a garbage yard, there are those who group in associations asking to become a Spanish overseas province again. As they were before and as many others were.
There are those who say that if you want to know Spain you should travel to Hispano-America.
Regarding the concept of Hispano-America (it is the one that should be used, or Ibero-America if we include Portuguese-speaking countries) instead of Latin America, a term coined by Alfred Morel-Fatio, a French historian, in order to try with words that also have power, to weaken the Hispanic idea and legacy.
Hispanidad (hispanic) is synonymous with the union of peoples, races and cultures, a fusion that was unique and historical in its time, with more humane laws than those of the rest of the powers.
Let's go back to the historical quotes. Here you are more...
"In my travels through the vast Spanish empire I have been amazed at how the Spanish treat the Indians as equals, even forming mestizo families and creating hospitals and universities for them, I have met indigenous mayors and bishops, and even military officers, which results in social peace, well-being and general happiness that we would like for ourselves in the territories that, with so much effort, we are taking from them. consider the policy of depopulation and extermination, since clearly, Spanish faith and intelligence are building, not like us an empire of death, but a civilized society Spain is the wise Greece, the imperial Rome, England the Turkish corsair ." Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), a Member of the Royal Society and grandfather of Charles Darwin.
"England only produces three good things: tea, whiskey, and my books. But it turns out the tea is Chinese, the Scotch whiskey, and I'm Irish. In other words, England has taken the only good thing it has from other countries". Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"It must be admitted that Spain's success remains a force that made possible the preservation of the Indians, as opposed to their destruction that was so characteristic of the Anglo-American frontier". Herbert E. Bolton (1870–1953) historian and Berkeley professor
"The Spaniards, with the transmission of their blood, their life and their faith, implanted on our soil a civilization very different from that of other conquering peoples. More humane than the one that kills and enslaves races like the French, the English and ourselves did with the Indians in North America". Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
Surely things were done wrong in the Empire where the sun never set, from Patagonia to Alaska, Flanders, Germany and the Philippines... but everything that was done right is hidden. It is impossible to control from one place what others do in another continent, but if we compare what others did. Why are the terrible acts of the other empires, especially the Anglo-Saxon, never questioned?
Did you know that they cut off fingers and hands of women and girls in India, so that they could not weave in factories and thus could not compete with their own textile industry? And what they did in Australia with the aborigines, and in other colonies? I have another list too. They don't make movies or claim anything?
I have never seen a people that hates itself as much as the Spanish, as Otto Von Bismarck said, people from Hispanic America who hate their grandparents who went there, now ask for forgiveness. My grandparents didn't go anywhere, they stayed here, they were their own. They who victimize themselves so much, keep their Spanish surnames while hating everything they are, and they can be thanks to their ancestors, because if the English had arrived before they would have annihilated them, there would only be blonde people with the surname Smith in those cities, or would they? Isn't that what has happened in their domains?
Outside hypocrisies and ideological sectarianism, historical revenge and black legend. I remain without a doubt with Spain and Hispanidad. The best queen in the world was the queen Isabel I La Católica and she will continue to be, why are her words omitted, her testament, everything she did?
Put aside what they tell you on television, on Wikipedia, in documentaries from large corporations and especially what they tell us at school, because there they teach you not what you need but what they want you to know.
All politicians live from confrontation and hatred between us, from dividing us, you know: "divide and conquer" (divide et impera), and so while we fight, discuss and hate each other we don't go against them, we don't realize the truth, we only repeat the slogans of alien ideologies and deep indoctrination. You have to stop learning, unlearn, to do it again.
Today I want to honor the positive historical legacy because are tired of lies, manipulation and hate. We want to recover the common ties that unite us, beyond geography... language, culture, laws, architecture, legacy, beliefs, miscegenation, union and fusion, respect and brotherhood. That is globalization, of the good kind, a real human globalization.
Hispanidad es humanidad.
Ah, last quote!
"The Spanish black legend has been for centuries the greatest collective hallucination in the West". Sverker Arnoldsson, one of the most important historians and hispanists of the 20th century.
Thanks for reading! Have a nice and festive day.
(And sorry for any possible translation mistake!)
The text is mine, by ©Duvinca
with all the quotes I found on Internet (and Twitter, Telegram, etc...) and videos are from YouTube. More resources here on the site: Academia Play