On Indians and the Black Legend of Spain
Serge posts some Gems from The Latin Mass magazine on the above.

It will be clear to even a casual observer that the original peoples of the Americas suffered remarkably different fates whether they were North or South of the Rio Grande; i.e. whether they were conquered by Protestants or Catholics:

It is often said as an excuse for the very different English relations with the Indians that the Aztecs and other [Mesoamerican] tribes were civilised while the North American Indians were still savage... the Guaraní of Paraguay were Stone Age people when the Jesuits first converted them....

From the melancholy fate of the Indian neighbours of the English colonists and their American successors, denied the true faith, done out of their land, given worthless treaties and herded onto reservations, the Aztec cannibals were — by a mysteriously divine dispensation — blessedly free.

I posted the following in the combox to Serge's post:

I've always found it interesting that the majority of the people in Latin America are mestizo and many pure-blooded Indians live according to their cultures.

In North America, following the one-drop rule, the people we call Indians are in reality mixed-race; there are virtually no pure-blooded Indians left.

The reason for all this? Serge hits the nail on the head: "The Calvinists probably thought the Indians were damned anyway."

Hispanists might like to read La Leyenda Negra antiespañola and La leyenda negra anticatólica y antihispanista.

I wonder, how much is this Black Legend governing the current immigration debate in the US?