Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upOur lens: how we read it
Year: 1552 · Places: Europe
The case
Our case: the official Spanish history of the Indies, written in 1552, lays out human color from white to black, and puts "our Indians" on the side that runs toward black. It also admits the people of the far south were blacker than their cold land could explain.
What this case proves for us
Point 1: We are of this land. Their own historian filed the people of this land on the black side of his color scale.
Point 7: Same games, new names. He admits the sun does not explain it: the far-south people were dark in a cold land.
Background
Francisco López de Gómara wrote the Historia general de las Indias in 1552. He was Hernán Cortés's chaplain and secretary. Chapter CCXVI is titled "Del color de los indios," on the color of the Indians.
Our evidence
Exhibit A · Record: The scale"de blanco va a bermejo por descolorido y rubio, y a negro por cenizo, moreno, loro y leonado como nuestros indios": from white it goes to red by pale and blond, and to black by ashen, brown, loro and tawny, like our Indians.
Exhibit B · Record: Their color"son todos en general como leonados o membrillos cochos, o tiriciados o castaños": all in general like tawny or cooked quince, or jaundiced-yellow or chestnut.
Exhibit C · Record: Not the sunOf the Strait of Magellan: "todos más negros que requiere la frialdad de aquella tierra": all of them blacker than the coldness of that land would require.
Exhibit D · Pattern: The black sideThe official history puts our Indians on the side of the scale that runs toward black.
Exhibit E · Our lens: Our lensTheir own historian filed us on the black side of his scale.
The colonizer lens
The Indians were red men, a race apart from black.
Who says it: The later red-man picture of the Indian.
What it covers: That the Spanish historian put them on the road to black, and said the sun could not explain it.
Cross-examination
If the Indians were red men apart from black, why does Gómara place them on the road to black?
If the sun made them dark, why were the people of the cold south blacker still?
Verdict: we won
We won on Gómara's own chapter. He put our Indians on the road to black and said the sun did not explain it.
How we won
His scale: to black, by ashen, brown, loro and tawny, like our Indians.
His words for us: tawny, chestnut.
His admission: blacker than the cold land would require.
Where this gets us
Level 1: Awakening. The official Spanish history on our side of the color line.
To reach level 2, Paperwork, we still need:
Every chronicler's color words collected beside his (the Witness Index).
The later red-man picture traced: who started it, and when.
The original card
SUMMARYGómara, 1552: "toward black... like our Indians" (Nov 13, 2026; Witness Index W015, W016, W023)
RECORDFrancisco López de Gómara, Historia general de las Indias (1552), chapter CCXVI, "Del color de los indios": human color "de blanco va a bermejo por descolorido y rubio, y a negro por cenizo, moreno, loro y leonado como nuestros indios" (from white it goes to red by pale and blond, and to black by ashen, brown, loro and tawny, like our Indians). The same chapter: they "son todos en general como leonados o membrillos cochos, o tiriciados o castaños" (all in general like tawny or cooked quince, or jaundiced-yellow or chestnut)
RECORDchapter XCII, on the people of the Strait of Magellan: "todos más negros que requiere la frialdad de aquella tierra" (all of them blacker than the coldness of that land would require)
PATTERNthe official Spanish history of the Indies puts "our Indians" on the side of the color scale that runs toward black, and admits the far-south people were dark in a cold land, so the sun does not explain it
LENS (WW9)their own historian filed us on the black side of his scale
SOURCEGómara, Historia general de las Indias (1552).