A collage made by Global Voices showing an 18th century painting by an anonymous artist about ethnic castes during the Spanish colonization of Mexico. Source: Wikimedia commons, public domain archive.

Before the inauguration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo on October 1, her first diplomatic conflict had already begun. Although she invited the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, to her inauguration, she denied attendance to King Felipe IV of Bourbon. Claudia justified her actions by highlighting the event where King Felipe's refused to answer  a diplomatic letter written by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in 2019, where he asked the king for an apology on behalf of the Spanish crown for the violence and massacres in Mexico during the Spanish conquest and the colonial period.

For years now, European nations have offered a set of apologies for their colonial past in the African continent. For example, the Belgian crown offered an apology for the massacres and mutilations made to the Congolese population by King Leopold II and the German president Frank Walter Steinmeier apologized for the abuses committed against the Indigenous peoples of Tanzania.

On the American continent, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized to Indigenous nations for the residential schools (where native children were killed) and even Pope Francis apologized on behalf of the Catholic Church for the violence in the evangelization of Mexico. These apologies likely gave AMLO the idea that he could obtain one from the Spanish crown, which he requested again in 2021.

That same year, AMLO apologized in the name of the Mexican state to the Mayo and Yaqui Indigenous communities in Northern Mexico for the massacres carried out by the state under Porfirio Díaz, Mexico's last dictator. He also apologized to the Mayas in the southern state of Yucatán for the brutal Caste War, and to the Tzotzil people for the massacre of Indigenous people in Acteal. And of course,  the massacres of Chinese migrants during the Mexican Revolution.

Spain celebrates its National Day (Día de la Hispanidad — Colombus Day) on October 12 — the date when Christopher Columbus set foot in the American continent. This day is the greatest source of pride for any nationalist and patriot and is also the celebration of the beginning of a colonization process that would lead to the creation of the Spanish empire and immortalize Spain in history as a conquering country. However, it would leave an indelible mark on the native peoples.

The black legend and the golden legend

Since 1552, the controversial book “Brevísima Relación de la Destrucción de las Indias” (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies) by the monk Fray Bartolomé de las Casas would reveal the excesses committed by Spanish conquistadors in the encomiendas. Centuries later, in 1914, historian Julián Juderías would spread the term “black legend,” claiming that this depiction of Spanish history in the Americas was biased and false, with the intention of portraying Spain as an enemy rather than as a cultural ally, a “humanist” that granted equal treatment to Indigenous peoples in the Americas.

However, primary sources show Aztec codices evidencing with graphic brutality the Spanish punishments to the Indigenous such as “emperramiento” (prisoners thrown to the dogs of war), and colonial paintings would show the stratified division of society in Spanish colonies in Latin America.

Nevertheless, for the Hispanic patriot Juderías, the history of Spanish colonization was painted as a “black legend.” One common complaint was that it was the Anglo-Saxon countries — first the British Empire and later the United States — that incited hatred toward the motherland, disdain for the Hispanic past, and encouraged rebellions in Latin America.

Of course, the attempted “reconquest” by King Ferdinand VII in the 19th century painted a different picture. In 1829, the Spanish tried to reconquer Mexico by besieging the coastal city of Tampico, and in 1862 Spanish forces joined a military expedition with England and France to collect debts to Mexico. Historically, there are reasons to understand the anti-Spanish sentiment during the 19th century.

There is a glorified idea of the Spanish Empire as a provider of culture, Catholic values, and civilization to the Mesoamerican nations, falling into denials such as the “quinto real” (the percentage of gold extracted from the colonies and sent to Spain) and defending the notion that this wealth was used to promote the construction of cities, palaces, universities, and cathedrals.

An idyllic past is portrayed, where miscegenation was consensual, where Indigenous peoples had equal representation under Spanish law, and where Hispanic violence was always overshadowed by the human sacrifices celebrated by the Aztec and Inca empires. The fact that Indigenous peoples were not eliminated as they were in the United States or Canada provides a justification for the colonization process.

The new Mexican identity

Mexico, unlike other nations in the region, went through a revolutionary process from 1910 to 1920 that marked a drastic change in all institutions and social classes. Suddenly, landowners of Spanish heritage, magnates who had inherited fortunes since the colonial era, lost everything at the turn of the 20th century. For Mexicans, it was easier to identify with the farmers and workers who had fought in the revolution than with the white Spaniard descendant elites that adorned the estates and public buildings. For Mexico, it made more sense to connect with an Indigenous past than with a Spanish one.

“La Raza Cósmica” (The Cosmic Race) (1925) by José Vasconcelos, the first secretary of public education, would be decisive in shaping a more homogeneous model of national history. It portrays Mexican identity as the union of two bloodlines, two worlds. A being stemming from both an Indigenous past and a Spanish one, it exalted Mexican nationalism while never forgetting the cruelty involved in the founding of Mexico.

Until the 1990s, during the administration of former president Salinas de Gortari, the term “Encounter of Two Worlds” was used to refer to the interactions between Spanish conquistadors and Indigenous peoples.

The diplomatic conflict

In 2019, when AMLO sent the letter, a response from the Spanish crown was expected. That response never came. Spanish investors in Mexico and the Spanish right, led by the president of the party VOX, Santiago Abascal, and a congresswoman of the People's Party (PP), Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, began to criticize AMLO's government, which the former president saw as an act of intervention in his administration.

Sheinbaum wrote a tweet explaining that her refusal to invite the King of Spain was not due to any ideology, but rather because of his refusal to respond to a letter from the president of Mexico. Now, as president of Mexico, she would remind Spain that debts are not forgotten.

Some attitudes of the Spanish kings are difficult to forget, such as King Felipe VI's refusal to stand up from his seat in the presence of the sword of Colombia’s liberator Simón Bolívar during the investiture ceremony of Colombian President Gustavo Petro Urrego in 2022. Or the famous “Why don't you shut up?” from King Juan Carlos I, directed at the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

If the Spanish crown is interested in deepening its relationship to Mexico, then an apology can strengthen those ties. However, as Spain is linked to the common European interests of the European Union, not Latin America, asking for an apology for an event that occurred 700 years ago seems ridiculous to them and Spanish investors have no problem continuing to invest in Mexico. Only the future will tell if there is a change of thinking in Spanish society to reconsider its role with Latin America.

If you are interested in this topic, read this: Portugal and the Myth of the Good Colonizer.