The Apocalyptic Spanish Race

This essay shows how a late sixteenth-century English polemic racialized Spaniards not only in terms of their perceived tincture of Moorish and Jewish blood but also in terms of their partly European Gothic otherness. Medieval and early modern Spanish chronicles created a positive pedigree from the figures of Tubal and Magog from the Noachic Table of Nations in Genesis. For Spaniards, these figures represented a pure, original Spanish or Gothic ancestry variously used to underwrite the reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula, assert blood purity against anxieties of Jewish and Moorish miscegenation, and justify Spain's claim to colonial dominance in the sixteenth century. For its part, this English polemic fastened Spain's pedigree to a sinister version of Magog described in Ezekiel and Revelation to explain Spanish cruelty and to qualify English claims to Spanish possessions. This essay uncovers the broader racial contours of the Black Legend through an approach centered on critical race studies and intellectual history.