Now, however, new and startling information is beginning to blow away the dark cobwebs of lies and myths-that racist distortion of the Spanish national character and and Hispanic culture. Thus, a combination of political rivalry, contempt for the Catholic faith, and anti-Spanish racism created a distorted image of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was fiercely attacked with gross exaggeration. Spaniards were described by Northern Europeans as dark, cruel, greedy, treacherous, ignorant, and narrow.

Her Protestant enemies were jealous of Spain and many resorted to lies to help bring down Spanish power and control. In the 16th century, Catholic Spain was the great continental power. Historians have known for some time that the popular view of the Spanish Inquisition is only part of the 'Black Legend'-that body of writings which, since the 16th century, has vilified both Spain and its Catholic faith. I remember being appalled by the powerful prose of Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum. What Protestant or Catholic child has not heard of the fearful, macabre horrors of the dungeons of the Inquisition? Men of great imaginative genius such as Edgar Poe have written of inquisitorial terrors as though they were worse than the Gestapo's. Some fundamentalists have claimed that millions died in this fashion.Д«igoted, ignorant, and fanatical Dominican friars are shown zealously directing this cruel and dark page of Spanish history. The condemned were then sent to vile prisons, there to await death by burning at the stake. Bent on wiping out heresy, the Inquisition, we were told, arbitrarily arrested innocent Spaniards accused of heresy and browbeat them during endless and unjust interrogations, often torturing the accused to secure meaningless confessions. We're all familiar with the popular idea of the Spanish Inquisition, which for centuries has been depicted as a monstrous tyranny imposed upon Spain by sinister Church and state officials.

The black legend described