Genetic traces of the Spanish Occupation of the Low Countries?

Angela

Angela

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This is a strange one. The whole paper is available.

See:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.23409/abstract

"Abstract

Objectives

War atrocities committed by the Spanish army in the Low Countries during the 16th century are so ingrained in the collective memory of Belgian and Dutch societies that they generally assume a signature of this history to be present in their genetic ancestry. Historians claim this assumption is a consequence of the so-called “Black Legend” and negative propaganda portraying and remembering Spanish soldiers as extreme sexual aggressors. The impact of the presence of Spaniards during the Dutch Revolt on the genetic variation in the Low Countries has been verified in this study.
Materials and methods

A recent population genetic analysis of Iberian-associated Y-chromosomal variation among Europe is enlarged with representative samples of Dutch (N = 250) and Flemish (N = 1,087) males. Frequencies of these variants are also compared between donors whose oldest reported paternal ancestors lived in—nowadays Flemish—cities affected by so-called Spanish Furies (N = 116) versus other patrilineages in current Flemish territory (N = 971).
Results

The frequencies of Y-chromosomal markers Z195 and SRY2627 decline steeply going north from Spain and the data for the Flemish and Dutch populations fits within this pattern. No trend of higher frequencies of these variants has been found within the well-ascertained samples associated with Spanish Fury cities.
Discussion

Although sexual aggression did occur in the 16th century, these activities did not leave a traceable “Spanish” genetic signature in the autochthonous genome of the Low Countries. Our results support the view that the ‘Black Legend’ and historical propaganda on sexual aggression have nurtured today's incorrect assumptions regarding genetic ancestry."

Maybe I just don't understand the context. Should the Germans do a study on births within a couple of years of 1945, especially in places like Berlin, and see if a lot of "Slavic" y dna shows up? How about "German" y dna showing up along the Gothic Line in Italy, or other foreign dna showing up in the south as the invasion moved up the peninsula? In the Balkans, where rape was a weapon of war the yDna is so similar you'd never be able to tell, which is probably a good thing.

See:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32529679

Some sources maintain 2 million German women were raped by Soviet soldiers during WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany

Nothing on that scale happened in Italy, but it wasn't unknown.
 
Anti-Spanish political agenda presented as a scientific article, thanks @Angela for its objectivity.


In wars, most of what is done is to kill and rape, to present this as if it were only the heritage of the Iberians is like a kind of resurrection of a new black legend that has always been a rubbish, political propaganda against a country, that many Spaniards on foot we can not understand.
 
The whole thing is stupid anyway. The soldiers employed by the Spanish crown were often German and Swiss mercenaries, so if anything they should be looking for that kind of yDna. It was the same way in the Italian Wars. The majority of the troops of Charles V who pillaged Rome and used St. Peter's as a stable for their horses and defecated on the altar were German Lutheran mercenaries.

Amazing the nonsense people will believe because it suits their prejudices, and indeed amazing how they will tailor the legends to attribute evil only to groups against whom they are prejudiced either for religious or ethnic reasons. Sometimes I honestly despair of people.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(1527)
 
The black legend has done a lot of damage to the image of Spain and the Spanish and already knows that it was negative publicity from other places in Europe and they have also done a lot of damage to romantic travelers or not traveling to Spain or Andalusia and then publishing false stories and invented that have to do with us especially in the fixation with the Muslim era, in agreement that we have three monuments and half of that time, but there is no ideological, sentimental connection of the current Spaniards or of several centuries with the Muslim world , geographically it is close but in our minds it is farther than America, it happens the same with Portugal is a neighboring country, but we ignore it or turn our backs on it, and those European travelers have done a lot of damage with lies and giving a vision of Spain More of an African country that European, I curse the lie room where you are.

On genetic fingerprint by rape it seems very difficult to me in a rough way, since with the mentalities that they should have in those times of having been born some child fruit of a rape by invasion wars e.t.c. It is very likely that they had disposed of the baby.
 
Rape is exaggerated as a cause for any seemingly foreign haplogroups in any region, it never worked as an explanation, not once.
 
Angela said:
The whole thing is stupid anyway. The soldiers employed by the Spanish crown were often German and Swiss mercenaries, so if anything they should be looking for that kind of yDna. It was the same way in the Italian Wars. The majority of the troops of Charles V who pillaged Rome and used St. Peter's as a stable for their horses and defecated on the altar were German Lutheran mercenaries.

Amazing the nonsense people will believe because it suits their prejudices, and indeed amazing how they will tailor the legends to attribute evil only to groups against whom they are prejudiced either for religious or ethnic reasons. Sometimes I honestly despair of people.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(1527)
Click to expand...

Well it's also an inconvenience to me as well because whenever someone here or on some other site posts misleading information that sounds convincing and the source seems reputable, i wind up believeing it
 
I agree with IronSide comment about rape.

Viruses and bacteria epidemics caused more collapses of Y-DNA groups than wars, genocides ... combined. Migrations of new people to new lands unintentionally introduced new diseases, causing epidemics. This was well documented on Hawai and other islands. For example, there is a recent article on how salmonella killed millions of people in North and South America of 16th century.

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/15/health/salmonella-epidemic-16th-century-mexico/index.html
 
@Zvrk9,

You have an objection to my posting this paper? By all means share your thoughts, instead of hiding behind reputation points which you think protect your identity but do not.

There are few things I object to more than passive aggressive behavior. I never engage in it myself. I think it's cowardly.
 
Zvrk9, I'm not sure what's wrong with her posting that article as well, but we would like to learn why it was a bad idea so we know what to do in the future. It'll be a learning experience.
 
Sure DaveF, thanks for your comment. Here are my related comments.

I completely agree that this article is of little value.

I find Angela's comments about Balkans and rape as a weapon of war inappropriate. There many examples of this horrible crime throughout distant and recent history. I get sick in the stomach reading about the act of rape in any form (war or not). However, one can't judge people of 9 nations (Balkans peninsula) based on media coverage of few.

As a reference to making some broad judgments on who is likely to rape (if that is ever appropriate), please compare statistics for this criminal act and that will give you another point of view.
 
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Angela, I am not here to win some form of popularity contest, win the most points or sticker. I am also clearly not demonstrating the aggressive behavior.
 
Zvrk9 said:
Sure DaveF, thanks for your comment. Here are my related comments.

I completely agree that is article is of little value.

I find Angela's comments about Balkans and rape as a weapon of war inappropriate. There many examples of this horrible crime throughout distant and recent history. I get sick in the stomach reading about the act of rape in any form (war or not). However, one can't judge people of 9 nations (Balkans peninsula) based on media coverage of few.

As a reference to making some broad judgments on who is likely to rape (if that is ever appropriate), please compare statistics for this criminal act and that will give you another point of view.
Click to expand...

I didn't single out the men of the Balkans. They were one of three examples. Anyone with a brain in his head would know I could go on and list many more. Would it make you feel better if I were to include the Rape of Nanking by Japanese men during World War II? There's a tale to tell for Southeast Asia as well. How about the routine rapes of lower caste women in India? How about the Tutsi and the Hutu? Should I go all the way back in history and mention the Roman conquest of Gaul, where I don't doubt some of that went on?

You guys had better grow up. You, and I use "you" in a general sense, had better realize that all this denial of your recent history and refusal to acknowledge the uncivilized horrors that were perpetrated makes you look even worse.

You don't see Germans doing that. I respect them for it.

You love to stir the pot, don't you, Davef?
 
"Anyone with a brain in his head" that is your choice of words?
 
Angela I'm so sorry, i should've kept away from all this...

Zvrk9, let's get along, ok? She wasn't trying to single out Balkans and even used examples of other countries committing terrible acts. Nobody here has a grudge against Balkans besides the idiots who like to talk smack in the hundreds of "Balkan war" threads we got going on here but most of them are already banned
 
In the supp it appears 4% of DF27, thought to be Iberian. Now there are some 3 million Flemishmen so 120000 persons. 5 centuries ago such four percent would be 40000. Assigning such number to rapes it would be necessary to increase it to 100000 as 40% of Spaniards are DF27 (following such hypothese of rape it's to think that non-DF27 would be included also). So a 10% of the Flemish would have Spanish ancestry? 100000 rapes as minimum (1/10 Flemish women)? Hard to believe... and knowing that genetists usualy don't use good methodologies, it could be that they have tested Flemish citizens with Portuguese surnames with fathers migrated from Algarve per example?
 
In addition, 100% of the rapes do not guarantee a pregnancy, in addition to the fact that many pregnant women would be girls. Without counting the women who should die after being raped. And then there would be some kind of documentation, being a single mother if the raped woman was a girl at that time should not be easy, so there should be anecdotal cases the results of births by rape in past or past times. It is also possible that the cases that would have borne fruit or a baby product of a rape will lead families to deliver the baby away from their territory as a child plan, a way to avoid the embarrassment of having a scion of the invaders, abandoned, so perhaps these genes are not in the area that could be believed if not scattered in other territories, perhaps in a neighboring country, but equally must be an anecdotal number.
 
The paper is absurd, a nonsense, the result is sooo obvious that the sole initial idea is ridiculous. The tercio's soldiers in the Low Countries were Dutch, German, Italian, Swiss, Irish, English and Flemish; even Hungarian, French and Burgundian troops were quite common. For instance, the nowadays famous anonymous mask hero Guy Fawkes fought in the Low Countries as a Spanish soldier. The average percentage of peninsular soldiers was always extremely low, only around 5 to 7%, some of the captains or "maestros de campo" and intendancy people, mostly of Castilian and Basque origin because at that time Spain wasn't still a real country but a confederation of kingdoms without proper political union of crowns that was achieved with the Bourbons not the Habsburg. At some point during the 80 years’ war and for political and propaganda reasons all the troops and servers of Spanish origin were sent out of the Netherlands meaning that for most part of the 80 years’ war the prototypical rapist Spanish soldier wasn't present. The Habsburg dynasty was the owner of a huge multiethnic piece of Europe and their army represented the religious and political problem at that time, not only Spain against the others but all against all. The minimum percentage of Dutch troops that fought with the Habsburg in the Low Countries was always above 50% during the whole war. It is possible to follow back the black legend and how was an easy thing to blame the "Spanish soldiers" and not their own people and neighbors, sometimes face the true is difficult in a kind of civil war situation. In my opinion it is weird to blame the Spaniards, being the rapist troops of the Habsburg mostly Dutch. Anyhow and again, it is amazing the lack of historical knowledge of these guys.
 
The Catalan TV has more info, googletranslated:

http://www.ccma.cat/324/la-brutalit...jada-genetica-en-la-poblacio/noticia/2832440/

Sexual aggression and brutality, but without leaving a genetic mark in the current population. This would be the summary of the action of the Thirds of Flanders according to a research led by Maarten Larmuseau, from the Evolutionary Genomics and Biodiversity Laboratory of the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). Francesc Calafell, researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) and professor at the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), has collaborated in the study. ,

Published in the "American Journal of Physical Anthropology", the study titled "The black legend of the Spanish presence in the Netherlands: verifying shared beliefs about genetic lineage." This title is justified at the beginning remembering that

"The atrocities committed by the Spanish army in the Netherlands in the 16th century are so deep-rooted in the collective memory of Belgian and Dutch societies that it is generally assumed that the brands of this story are present in their genetic lineage ".

Thus, it is believed that people with hair and dark hairs are descended from Spanish soldiers.

The key is male sexual chromosome

The study was based on the Y chromosome, which only represents 1% of the male genome but is responsible for the anatomical and physiological characteristics of men. Because it is only transmitted by male line, it is used to track populations.

In this study we studied the frequencies, in a sample of Belgian and Dutch men, of two variants of the Y chromosome much more frequent in the Iberian Peninsula than in the rest of Europe: the R1b-Z195 and the R1b-SRY2627. The sample was made up of 116 volunteers who knew their genealogy by paternal way, who had ancestors living in Malines, Aalst, Antwerp or Zichem before the year 1700, whose surnames had been documented in one of these cities at late 16th century. The four cities were looted and destroyed between 1572 and 1578.

The results indicate that the frequencies of the variants were very similar between flamingos from the devastated cities and the rest of the inhabitants of Flanders. And, in addition, they were also very similar to those in neighboring areas, such as northern France, where there was hardly any Spanish presence.

The conclusion, then, is that the impact of the attacks of the troops of Felipe II on the genetic variation was not significant enough to have left an obvious footprint in the DNA of the native autochthonous populations today, not even in men who They descend from the communities that were victims of the Spanish Fury during the second half of the 16th century.

As Francesc Calafell points out:

"The finding does not refute the brutality of the Spanish troops, but it shows that few of the births resulting from sexual assaults that perpetrated survived and originated in the present Belgian population."

The thirds were military units of infantry. Philip II sent thirds to Flanders to occupy the territory and subject him to a stricter political and religious control. In the 16th century, during this occupation, several cities were attacked. The facts, known by the name of the Spanish Fury, included violations, robberies and murders on a large scale, and were of an unusual gravity even for the time.
Click to expand...
 
As Carlos points out to 100000 rapes providing male descendency it would be necessary to add another 100000 for female descendency (without Y-DNA track) plus tens of thousands of miscarriages or without conception (250000 rapes in 8 years?). Very difficult to believe. But the region was Spanish more than a century (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Netherlands), and it's to be thought that there were merchants, administrative posts, military garrisons, etc.
 
@Davef and @Angela
sorry Davef, I found your post #14 sensible and peaceful even if not centered on the very technical focus of the thread, I wanted to give you a thumb up and I made an error! one down!!! Could this be corrected, Angela?
 
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