But in the middle of the sixteenth century her image abroad suffered grievously from the publication of two works which gave birth to what became known as the ‘Black Legend’. These books were Bartolomé de las Casas’ Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, first published in Spain in 1552, which was a frank attempt to reclaim for the Indians a humanity that had been widely denied them, and Girolamo Benzoni’s History of the New World, published in Venice in 1565.14
