“From Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization”: (North) American Historians, Spanish Conquistadores, and the Fate of the Amerindians in the New World, 1840s–1960s

Abstract

This article looks at the (North) American historiography on Spanish America with a particular focus on the fate of the Amerindians from the 1840s to the early 1960s. For over a century, (North) American historians routinely romanticized the Spanish conquest, while also routinely scorning the indigenous population (as well as mestizos and blacks), and embracing the rising pseudo-scientific Anglo-Saxon racism of the day. Down to the 1960s, (North) American historians by and large viewed Amerindians as savages and barbarians, while they interpreted the history of the Spanish conquistadores and their successors in ways that held Western civilization itself up as the main colonial heritage in the Americas (north and south).