Ben Hale: Content Marketer & Writer

Connections Magazine, 2014

Do you remember the first time you sat in history class and your professor shattered what you thought to be true about an historic event? Sure, it might hurt at first. But it is better to get to the truth of the matter than to continue in ignorance. In that same spirit of “mythbusting,” BYU history professors Brian Cannon, Rebecca de Schweinitz, Karen Carter, and Matthew Mason took the time to debunk a few historical myths for our readers.

The Spanish Inquisition often conjures images of dark dungeons, sinister tribunals, torture, and executions. Karen Carter, who specializes in Enlightenment-era Catholicism in France, has encountered several myths about the Spanish Inquisition in her studies. But Carter has found evidence that contradicts common notions about the infamous Spanish Inquisition, shining a light on an era many consider one of history’s darkest.

In what was perhaps the most surprising myth, Carter explained that torture and the death penalty were relatively uncommon to the Inquisition. The inquisitors only employed torture in about ten percent of the cases they heard, and they executed approximately 5,000 people between 1478 and 1800, about 15 per year. That sum is considerable, but not quite as brutal as some accounts have painted the Inquisition. “The goal of the courts was to get people to change—it wasn’t to kill them,” said Carter. “The inquisitors saw themselves as trying to rehabilitate the individual, and save their souls. They were much more likely to be lenient than the secular courts.”

Confusion between Inquisition courts and secular courts contributes to misconceived notions about the Inquisition. Carter said that in this era, the secular courts had a reputation for meting out harsher punishments than the inquisitors, as well as having jails with much worse conditions. “There are cases in Spain of people in Spanish jails who purposely said something blasphemous in order to get transferred to Inquisition jails,” said Carter.

Another myth exposed by Carter is that the Inquisition condemned witchcraft on a large scale. As Carter explained, inquisitors tried very few cases of witchcraft; they were the first in early modern Europe to become suspicious of accusations of witchcraft and to reject such cases. “The most common type of case that the Spanish Inquisition dealt with was ethnically Jewish individuals who had converted to Christianity but were secretly trying to practice Judaism,” said Carter.

Carter explained that most myths about the Spanish Inquisition originated in Protestant England. As the two nations were rivals, both religiously and politically, during this era, the English attempted to make the Spanish look bad by spreading rumors about the Inquisition. But not only in England did Protestants spread these rumors. “In general, it was the Protestants across Europe that spread rumors about the Inquisition in order to make their own religious faith look more enlightened and encourage converts,” said Carter.

Many who trace their ancestry to the first Latter-day Saint settlers of Utah take pride in stories that exhibit the resilience of their forebears. While many of these stories are true, historians have found incongruities in Church history that are perpetuated even today. Professor Brian Cannon has encountered several myths in his studies of Utah history.

Cannon brought up one prominent myth, that Brigham Young uttered the phrase “this is the place,” or “this is the right place,” upon entering the Salt Lake Valley. While Young may have said those words, he was not even with the first saints who entered and settled the valley, due to illness.

“He was sick. His party fell behind. By the time he entered the Salt Lake Valley most of the people he had been traveling with were down in the valley plowing the ground,” said Cannon. Casting further doubt on the claim of President Young’s famous words, Cannon added, “They had started planting potatoes. They were definitely going to stay there.” Cannon explained that Wilford Woodruff recorded the account of Young’s words 30 years or more after the fact, which might account for the confusion.

Cannon also recalled a prolific myth he calls the “Miracle of the Garden.” This consisted of the propagated belief that the Salt Lake Valley was a true, inhospitable desert when the saints arrived. But, Cannon pointed out, “It was well watered. They talked about there being snow on the tops of the mountains. It appeared to be a place that was viable for settlement.”

According to Cannon, there was a concern about the sparse timber in the valley. He even recalled an experience when his grandfather took him to a marker that supposedly “enshrine[d] the location where the only tree in the valley stood.” Later, Cannon learned that the Utah Historical Society determined the alleged tree was actually an old fence post.

“We tend to simplify history. We do it in our text books, where we select an episode in history and [it] stands for a larger reality,” said Cannon. “I think in the case of these Mormon stories, it reinforces our conviction that the Saints were blessed, that they were God’s people, and that God prepared the way for them and opened up the way for what they had been called to do. From my perspective, the story’s heroic enough without having to exaggerate.

Matthew Mason dedicates an entire class to the study of slavery, and therefore was well-equipped to debunk the leading myths surrounding the age-old institution. As Mason has seen among the opinions and views of his students, a unique brand of American exceptionalism exists in regard to slavery. “Some people, because we are American and we think America is the center of the universe, think that it’s a peculiar American institution,” said Mason. “Most Americans run around thinking we are exceptionally awesome. In this case, some Americans think of our history as exceptionally horrible.”

According to Mason, the Civil War is the main cause of this peculiar notion of American exceptionalism. “In many ways what makes American slavery exceptional is the bloody Civil War that ended it,” said Mason. “The process of ending slavery tended to be more peaceful and less dramatic in other places.”

The principal misconception that persists is the geographical and chronological breadth of the existence of the “peculiar institution.” Many of his students and others he had come into contact with believed that slavery was solely an American institution, and that it started in the 17th century and ended in 1865 with the 13th Amendment.

Mason has explained to his students that civilizations have instituted slavery the world over, and for much longer than a few centuries. “I lead with how ancient an institution slavery is,” said Mason. “Think about Greek [and] Roman society, who we tend to think of as advanced societies. These are slave societies.”

Others Mason has taught and spoken to recognized that slavery has been around for a while, but they did not know that the American Civil War did not permanently end slavery. Brazil was the last western nation to legally abolish slavery in 1888.

And yet, slavery, in various forms, still exists today. Experts place the number of slaves worldwide between 20 and 30 million. Studies done by the US State Department estimate that 800 to 900 thousand people are trafficked across international borders each year. This modern, illegal slave trade dwarfs the Atlantic slave trade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. “This is global. It’s truly everywhere. It’s in every country,” said Mason. “Even though it’s illegal in every country, it’s a truly global phenomenon. The sheer numbers, as well as the persistence of slavery, are really shocking.”

Professor Mason works to spread awareness of modern slavery and to fight its implementation. He is part of an organization called Historians Against Slavery, whose mission is to help fight modern slavery using knowledge of the history of the institution. The largest problem encountered by these historians is that since slavery is illegal, it has become invisible to most people. “If we knew that it was truly global, and that it’s happening in our own backyard as well as everywhere else… then that brings it home to people,” said Mason. “The way we tell the story of contemporary slavery matters.”

Many myths that Professor Rebecca de Schweinitz has found in her studies of the civil rights movement center around youth involvement in the activities of the movement. However, the first misconception she mentioned had to do with the historical timeline of the movement itself.

“We often think of [it] as a movement that really begins in the mid-1950s and goes through about the mid-1960s,” said de Schweinitz. “But it actually has a much longer history…. After emancipation, there’s a long history of resistance to second-class status. It continues, of course, past the mid-1960s. The movement continues even today.”

Aside from redefining the margins of the movement, de Schweinitz referred to several other commonly-believed myths about the era. One of the most important myths of the era, and the one most closely related to her field, is the absence of youth from the movement. The movement is often portrayed with only adults, both young and old, participating in sit-ins and protests. But de Schweinitz pointed out that many times this was not the case.

De Schweinitz noted that if youth receive any mention as part of the discussion of the movement, they are portrayed largely as objects, in events such as the Birmingham Children’s Crusade, used by leaders to make racism uglier in the public eye. “If you have kids involved, if they’re the ones being attacked by police dogs and fire hoses, and being put in jail, then that gives a very different face to racism in America,” said de Schweinitz. “This captures white attention and sympathy in a way that, if it’s happening to black adults, just doesn’t in postwar America.”

Contradictory to the idea that civil rights leaders used children only to garner sympathy, de Schweinitz argued that many adolescent youth were ready and willing to fight for a cause they believed in. “These young people were also just chomping at the bit, they were so anxious to be involved,” said de Schweinitz. “They saw their participation in the movement not as their being used as pawns, but as an expression of their own political will. They were determined to change things so their lives would be different.” According to de Schweinitz, these youth were actively involved throughout the civil rights movement.

While not quite a myth, de Schweinitz revealed a common oversimplification found in many history books. She discussed how the leaders of the civil rights movement, while important and influential, were not the only reason the movement succeeded in its aims. Speaking specifically of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., de Schweinitz said, “He brought some particular talents to bear on the movement, but…he fully recognized that he played a particular role and that he was dependent on other equally or perhaps even more important local leaders. So in places like Birmingham, and Selma, and even Montgomery, where he first rises to prominence, that happens because of this cadre of really active black leaders that had been working for decades.”

DeSchweinitz also explained the other side of the same coin, as personified by Rosa Parks. Parks is often characterized as a modest, anonymous seamstress who randomly decided to take a stand, but de Schweinitz said this description leaves much to be desired. “Her husband was involved with the Scottsboro Boys case in the 1930s, she’s a little bit in the background in the movement,” said de Schweinitz. “But then in the 1940s, she gets actively involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, and she becomes the go-to woman for recording and cataloguing instances of racial violence…. She’s part of a long-term, vibrant Civil Rights Movement…long before the Montgomery Bus Boycott starts.” According to de Schweinitz, this marginalization of Rosa Parks as a civil rights leader is just one case of many.

Many historical myths still thrive. It is important to understand the past for what it was, rather than what we want it to be, if we are to truly understand ourselves in the present. Thanks to these BYU scholars, people have one more source to turn to in their search for truth. Although the expertise of Carter, Cannon, Mason, and de Schweinitz is diverse, the message in their mythbusting is clear: history is usually not as simplistic as people would like it to be.

See the article as appeared in the BYU’s Connections magazine here.