Treaty of Tordesillas
The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian 370 leagues or west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. That line of demarcation was about halfway between Cape Verde and the islands visited by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage, named in the treaty as Cipangu and Antillia.
The lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Castile, modifying an earlier bull by Pope Alexander VI. The treaty was created on 7 June 1494, then ratified by Spain on, by Portugal on, and by Pope Julius II on 24 January 1506. The other side of the world was divided a few decades later by the Treaty of Zaragoza, signed on, which specified the antimeridian to the line of demarcation specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas. Portugal and Spain largely respected the treaties, while the Indigenous peoples of the Americas did not acknowledge them.
The Treaty of Tordesillas was added by UNESCO to its Memory of the World international register in 2007. Originals of both treaties are kept at the General Archive of the Indies in Spain and at the Torre do Tombo National Archive in Portugal.
Signing and enforcement
The Treaty of Tordesillas was intended to solve the dispute that arose following the return of Christopher Columbus and his crew, who had sailed under the Crown of Castile, on his way back to Spain, he first stopped at Lisbon, where he requested another meeting with King John II to prove to him that there were more islands to the southwest of the Canary Islands.After learning of the Castilian-sponsored voyage, the Portuguese King sent a threatening letter to the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, stating that by the Treaty of Alcáçovas signed in 1479 and by the 1481 papal bull Aeterni regis that granted all lands south of the Canary Islands to Portugal, all of the lands discovered by Columbus belonged, in fact, to Portugal. The Portuguese king also stated that he was already making arrangements for a fleet to depart shortly and take possession of the new lands. The Spanish rulers replied that Spain owned the islands discovered by Columbus and warned King John II not to permit anyone from Portugal to go there. Finally, the rulers invited Portugal to send ambassadors to begin diplomatic negotiations aimed at settling the rights of each nation in the Atlantic.
On 4 May 1493, Pope Alexander VI, an Aragonese from Valencia by birth, decreed in the bull Inter caetera that all lands west of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde Islands should belong to Castile, although territory under Christian rule as of Christmas 1492 would remain untouched. The bull did not mention Portugal or its lands, so Portugal could not claim newly discovered lands even if they were east of the line. Another bull, Dudum siquidem, entitled Extension of the Apostolic Grant and Donation of the Indies and dated 1493, gave all mainlands and islands, "at one time or even still belonging to India" to Spain, even if east of the line.
The Portuguese King John II was not pleased with that arrangement, feeling that it gave him far too little land—it prevented him from possessing India, his near-term goal. By 1493, Portuguese explorers had reached the southern tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese were unlikely to go to war over the islands encountered by Columbus, but the explicit mention of India was a major issue. As the Pope had not made changes, the Portuguese king opened direct negotiations with the Catholic Monarchs to move the line to the west and allow him to claim newly discovered lands east of the line. In the bargain, John accepted Inter caetera as the starting point of discussion with Ferdinand and Isabella but had the boundary line moved west, protecting the Portuguese route down the coast of Africa and giving the Portuguese rights to lands that now constitute the eastern quarter of Brazil. As one scholar assessed the results, "both sides must have known that so vague a boundary could not be accurately fixed, and each thought that the other was deceived", concluding that it was a "diplomatic triumph for Portugal, confirming to the Portuguese not only the true route to India, but most of the South Atlantic".
File:Iberian_mare_clausum_claims.svg|thumb|Mare clausum claims during the Age of Discovery.
The treaty was negotiated without consulting Pope Alexander VI and effectively countered his bulls. However, it was subsequently sanctioned by his successor Pope Julius II by means of the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis of and therefore some sources call the resulting line the "Papal Line of Demarcation".
Very little of the newly divided area had actually been seen by Europeans, as it was only divided via the treaty. Castile gained lands including most of the Americas, which in 1494 had little proven wealth. The easternmost part of current Brazil was granted to Portugal when in 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral landed there while he was en route to India. Some historians contend that the Portuguese already knew of the South American bulge that makes up most of Brazil before this time, so his landing in Brazil was not an accident. One scholar points to Cabral's landing on the Brazilian coast 12 degrees farther south than the expected Cape São Roque, such that "the likelihood of making such a landfall as a result of freak weather or a navigational error was remote; and it is highly probable that Cabral had been instructed to investigate a coast whose existence was not merely suspected, but already known".
File:16th century Portuguese Spanish trade routes.png|thumb|upright=1.15|Portuguese India Armadas and trade routes since Vasco da Gama's 1498 journey and the Spanish Manila-Acapulco galleons trade routes established in 1568
The line was not strictly enforced—the Spanish did not resist the Portuguese expansion of Brazil across the meridian. However, Spain attempted to stop the Portuguese advance in Asia, by claiming the meridian line ran around the world, dividing the whole world in half rather than just the Atlantic. Portugal pushed back, seeking another papal pronouncement that limited the line of demarcation to the Atlantic. This was given by Pope Leo X, who was friendly toward Portugal and its discoveries, in 1514 in the bull Praecelsae devotionis.
The divided possessions sanctioned by the treaty continued, even when Spain and Portugal were united under a single king between 1580 and 1640, until the treaty was superseded by the 1750 [|Treaty of Madrid].
Emerging Protestant maritime powers, particularly England and The Netherlands, and other third parties such as Catholic France, did not recognize the division of the world between only two Catholic nations brokered by the pope.
Tordesillas meridian
The Treaty of Tordesillas only specified the line of demarcation in leagues from the Cape Verde Islands. It did not specify the length of the league, its equivalent in equatorial degrees, or which of the Cape Verde islands was intended. Instead, the treaty provided that these matters were to be settled by a joint voyage. This voyage never occurred, and instead there were only a series of nonbinding expert opinions produced over the next several decades. Their computations were further complicated by remaining uncertainty about the exact equatorial circumference of the earth. As such, each proposed line can be variously computed using geographical leagues defined in terms of a degree using a ratio which applies regardless of the size of the earth or using a specifically measured league applied to the actual equatorial circumference of the earth, with allowances necessary for the imperfect Portuguese and Spanish knowledge of its true dimensions.- The earliest Aragonese opinion was provided by Jaime Ferrer in 1495 at the request of Ferdinand and Isabella. He stated to them that the demarcation line was 18° west of the most central island of the Cape Verde Islands, equivalent to 24°25 west of Greenwich. Thus, Ferrer placed the line at 42°25 W. on his sphere, which was 21.1% larger than the actual size of the earth. Harrisse further concludes from Ferrer's claim that his league contained 32 Olympic stades that his lineif perfectly measuredwould have corresponded to a position west of Fogo at 47°37 W.
- The earliest surviving Portuguese opinion is on the Cantino planisphere of 1501 or 1502, generally considered to represent the Portuguese standard map of its day. Because its demarcation line was midway between Cape Saint Roque, the northeast cape of South America, and the mouth of the Amazon River, labeled the Great River with an estuary marked "All of this sea is fresh water", Harrisse computed that this line was at 42°30 W. on the actual globe. Harrisse believed the large estuary just west of the line on the Cantino map was that of the Rio Maranhão, whose flow is so weak that its gulf does not contain fresh water.
- In 1518, another Castilian opinion was provided by Martin Fernández de Enciso. Harrisse computes that Enciso's sphere was 7.7% smaller than the actual size of the earth so his line at 47°24 W. corresponds to the actual 45°38 W. based on his other numerical data. Enciso further described the coastal features near which the line passed, but in a very confused manner that might place the line as far west as the mouth of the Amazon between 49°W and 50°W.
- In 1524, the Castilian mathematician Tomás Durán and pilots Sebastian Cabot and Juan Vespucci gave their opinion to the conference at Badajoz, whose failure to resolve the dispute led to the Treaty of Zaragoza. The pilots specified that the line should be understood as 22° plus about west of the center of Santo Antão, the westernmost Cape Verde island. Based on their understanding of the equator, Harrisse concludes they intended 47°17 W. on their sphere or 46°36W on the actual globe.
- At the same conference, the Portuguese presented a globe on which the line was marked as 21°30 west of Santo Antão, which would place it at 47°1652 W. when adjusted to match the actual circumference of the earth, nearly identical to the Spanish suggestion. However, the Badajoz conference disbanded without reaching any formal settlement on any issue.
- The 1529 Treaty of Zaragoza, agreed to by the Spanish king Charles I and John III of Portugal, implicitly assumes within its measurements of a new eastern line that the leagues of the two treaties should be understood as a geographical league equivalent to 4/70th of an equatorial degree, placing the line between 43°56 and 46°18 W. depending on the island chosen. Note, however, that the 1529 Diogo Ribeiro mapgenerally considered to represent the now-lost Spanish standard map used to finalize the agreement at Zaragozaplaced its own delineation of the Tordesillas agreement much further west, around 49°45 W.