Final answer:
The Black Legend refers to the propagated notion that Spanish conquerors did little more than brutally exploit and butcher Indigenous peoples in the name of Christ. While there was significant truth to Spanish cruelty and exploitation, the Black Legend was exaggerated by Spain's rivals to justify their own colonial abuses.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term for the false notion that Spanish conquerors did little but butcher the Indians and steal their gold in the name of Christ is referred to as the Black Legend. This belief was principally stirred and perpetuated by Spain's imperial rivals, who used reports and writings about the Spaniards' horrific treatment of Native people to support their own colonization projects. While it is true that there was a significant amount of cruelty and exploitation inflicted on the Indigenous peoples by the Spanish, the Black Legend served to demonize the Spanish, exaggerating their cruelty to justify other Europeans' colonial abuses.
The Black Legend is mainly based on the accounts of Las Casas, a Spanish priest who was initially a settler and slave owner but later became an advocate for the rights of the Indigenous peoples. His writings vividly depicted instances of Spanish cruelty against the natives, which became fuel for the Black Legend.
However, it's also crucial to recognize that the Spanish's vision of their colonial empire was not rooted solely in greed and brutality. They believed in the concept of reciprocal obligations, which theoretically meant while Natives would work for them, in turn, they would bring Catholicism and, in their vision, 'civilization' to Native people. Nevertheless, it's clear that natives everywhere resisted this imposition.
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