March 17, 2003

SECTION: Guardian Foreign Pages, Pg. 17

HEADLINE: Spanish fury at slur on the Conquistadores: Historian claims ancient civilisations were destroyed by ruthless entrepreneurs

BYLINE: Giles Tremlett in Madrid

Outraged Spanish conservatives have turned against an historian for daring to question the idea that bravery, patriotism and belief in a Christian god were the key values of the Conquistadores who created Spain's new world empire.

The respected American historian Henry Kamen has been accused of "rubbishing the history of Spain" and "destroying the foundations of the Spanish empire" in his book, Spain's Road to Empire.

There has even been talk among those most upset by the attack on such national icons as conquistadores Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro of settling Spain's wounded honour with an old-fashioned duel.

Mr Kamen's book has shaken the accepted, school-taught Spanish view of the New World conquista as an epic tale of organised empire-building carried out by brave, loyal Spaniards for the greater glory of their country and monarchs. The historian has, instead, painted the destruction of the Inca and Aztec civilisations as the work of ruthless, self-interested entrepeneurs and mercenaries who used the Spanish crown as little more than a shield for their ambitions.

"Most of what he says is distortion and twisted interpretation," complained one angry letter writer to the conservative daily newspaper ABC. "In other times this would have led to a duel."

In Spain's august Royal Academy of History, many of whose largely elderly academicians cut their teeth as professors in General Franco's universities, the angry rumbling of discontent has been at its loudest.

"His theses are false. He is just trying to grab attention," fumed academician Luis Suarez. "We have the misfortune that foreigners write our history for us."

"The worst thing is the morbid passion, the history that defames," added the academy's former director, Antonio Rumeu de Armas.

Mr Kamen's crimes, his critics have said, include pointing out that much of the conquista of Aztecs and Incas was done by native peoples allied to Spain and that those who most benefited were often the German and Italian bankers who paid for the expeditions.

Where Spaniards themselves were prominent in a period of empire-building that stretched from the end of the 15th century to the mid-18th century, greed for silver and gold and "pitiless, barbaric" cruelty were the tonic of the times. Worst of all for the traditionalists, Mr Kamen has questioned whether the Spain of the times, itself only just "reconquered" from the Moors and "united" under a single monarchy, could really be considered a proper country.

"At the outset. . . 'Spain' did not exist, it had not formed politically or economically," he said in the book's introduction. This, his critics said, played straight into the hands of regional nationalists in Catalonia and the Basque country who claim to have histories that run separate to a Spain dominated by Castilian monarchs.

Mr Kamen admitted yesterday that could be why the book had been so enthusiastically accepted in Catalonia. "I am playing down Spain's role in its history which, for Catalans, is very satisfactory."

But the historian said he welcomed the controversy he had generated. "This is the most fundamental questioning anyone has done. . . you cannot go much further in overturning everything. I hope this will open out a few more factual references for people educated in a historical pattern that has remained unchanged, in a certain way, since Franco."

Publication of the book in Spain follows a long-running row between regional nationalists and the conservative People's party government of Jose Maria Aznar, backed by the royal academy, over what version of Spanish history should be taught in schools.

It also came as Mr Aznar, a keen supporter of the proposed war on Iraq, has launched a campaign for Spain to be taken seriously on the world stage again.