The Black Legend, Native Americans, and Spaniards: Crash Course US History #1
In which
John Green kicks off
Crash Course US History! Why, you may ask, are we covering US History, and not more
World History, or the history of some other country, or the very specific history of your home region? Well, the reasons are many. But, like it or not, the
United States has probably meddled in your country to some degree in the last 236 years or so, and that means US History is relevant all over the world. In episode 1,
John talks about the
Native Americans who lived in what is now the US prior to
European contact. This is a history class, not archaeology, so we're mainly going to cover written history. That means we start with the first sustained
European settlement in
North America, and that means the
Spanish.
The Spanish have a long history with the natives of the
Americas, and not all of it was positive. The Spanish were definitely not peaceful colonizers, but what colonizers are peaceful?
Colonization pretty much always results in an antagonistic relationship with the locals. John teaches you about early
Spanish explorers, settlements, and what happened when they didn't get along with the indigenous people. The story of their rocky relations has been called the
Black Legend. Which is not a positive legend.
Turn on the captions. You'll like it!
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