Treaty of Tordesillas

Cantino planisphere of 1502 depicting the meridian designated by the treaty.
Colonial demarcation lines between Castille/Spain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th Centuries

The Treaty of Tordesillas (Portuguese: Tratado de Tordesilhas, Spanish: Tratado de Tordesillas), signed at Tordesillas (now in Valladolid province, Spain), June 7, 1494, divided the "newly discovered" lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal along a north-south meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa). This was about halfway between the Cape Verde Islands (already Portuguese) and the islands discovered by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage (claimed for Spain), named in the treaty as Cipangu and Antilia (Cuba and Hispaniola). The lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Spain. The treaty was ratified by Spain (at the time, the Crowns of Castile and Aragon), July 2, 1494 and by Portugal, September 5, 1494. The other side of the world would be divided a few decades later by the Treaty of Saragossa or Treaty of Zaragoza, signed on April 22, 1529, which specified the anti-meridian to the line of demarcation specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas. Originals of both treaties are kept at the Archivo General de Indias in Spain and at the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo in Portugal.[1]

Contents

Signing and enforcement

The Treaty of Tordesillas was intended to resolve the dispute that had been created following the return of Christopher Columbus. In 1481 the papal Bull Aeterni regis had granted all land south of the Canary Islands to Portugal. On May 4, 1493 the Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI decreed in the bull Inter caetera that all lands west and south of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west and south of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde Islands should belong to Spain, although territory under Christian rule as of Christmas 1492 would remain untouched. The bull did not mention Portugal or its lands, so Portugal couldn't 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 September 25, 1493, gave all mainlands and islands then 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 (as of 1493, Portuguese explorers had only reached the east coast of Africa). He opened negotiations with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to move the line to the west and allow him to claim newly discovered lands east of the line. The treaty effectively countered the bulls of Alexander VI and was sanctioned by Pope Julius II via the bull Ea quae of January 24, 1506.[2]

Very little of the newly divided area had actually been seen by Europeans, as it was only divided according within the treaty. Spain gained lands including most of the Americas. The easternmost part of current Brazil, when it was discovered accidentally in 1500 by Pedro Álvares Cabral, while on route to India, was granted to Portugal. However some historians contend that the Portuguese knew of the South American bulge that makes up most of Brazil before this time, and that his landing in Brazil was not an accident. Vasco da Gama warned Cabral about the doldrums that existed off of the African route to India, and so decided to sail far west. They point out that Gama's pilot went along with the crew, winds were reportedly extremely favorable, and that the captain must have known it would be unnecessary to sail so far west to reach India. Maps of new territories and accounts of voyages previously taken by the Portuguese were not permitted to be published in Portugal at the time, and this would explain the prudent foresight that the Portuguese exhibited in their persuasion of Spain to sign the treaty. The line was not strictly enforced — the Spanish did not resist the Portuguese expansion of Brazil across the meridian. The treaty was rendered meaningless between 1580 and 1640 while the Spanish King was also King of Portugal. It was superseded by the 1750 Treaty of Madrid which granted Portugal control of the lands it occupied in South America. However, the latter treaty was immediately repudiated by Spain.

Lines of demarcation

Lines of demarcation (1495–1545)

The Treaty of Tordesillas only specified its demarcation line in leagues from the Cape Verde Islands. It did not specify the line in degrees, nor did it identify the specific island or the specific length of its league. Instead, the treaty stated that these matters were to be settled by a joint voyage, which never occurred. The number of degrees can be determined via a ratio of marine leagues to degrees which applies to any sized Earth or via a specific marine league applied to the true size of the Earth.

Anti-meridian

Initially, the line of demarcation did not encircle the Earth. Instead, Spain and Portugal could conquer any new lands they were the first to discover, Spain to the west and Portugal to the east, even if they passed each other on the other side of the globe.[8] But Portugal's discovery of the highly valued Moluccas in 1512 caused Spain to argue in 1518 that the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the Earth into two equal hemispheres. After the surviving ships of Magellan's fleet visited the Moluccas in 1521, Spain claimed that those islands were within its western hemisphere. In 1523, the Treaty of Vitoria called for the Badajoz Junta to meet in 1524, at which the two countries tried to reach an agreement on the anti-meridian but failed. They finally agreed via the 1529 Treaty of Saragossa (or Zaragoza) that Spain would relinquish its claims to the Moluccas upon the payment of 350,000 ducats of gold by Portugal to Spain. To prevent Spain from encroaching upon Portugal's Moluccas, the anti-meridian was to be 297.5 leagues or 17° to the east of the Moluccas, passing through the islands of las Velas and Santo Thome.[9] This distance is slightly smaller than the 300 leagues determined by Magellan as the westward distance from los Ladrones to the Philippine island of Samar, which is just west of due north of the Moluccas.[10]

Moluccas (north at right)

The Moluccas are a group of islands just west of New Guinea. However, unlike the large modern Indonesian archipelago of the Maluku Islands, to sixteenth-century Europeans the Moluccas were a small chain of islands, the only place on Earth where cloves grew, just west of the large north Malukan island of Halmahera (called Gilolo at the time). Cloves were so prized by Europeans for their medicinal uses that they were worth their weight in gold.[11][12] Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century maps and descriptions indicate that the main islands were Ternate, Tidore, Moti, Makian and Bacan, although the last was often ignored even though it was by far the largest island.[13][14][15] The principal island was Ternate at the chain's northern end (0°47'N, only 11 km (7 mi) in diameter) on whose southwest coast the Portuguese built a stone fort (São João Bautista) during 1522–23,[16] which could only be repaired, not modified, according to the Treaty of Saragossa. This north-south chain occupies two degrees of latitude bisected by the equator at about 127°24'E, with Ternate, Tidore, Moti, and Makian north of the equator and Bacan south of it.

Although the treaty's Santo Thome island has not been identified, its "Islas de las Velas" (Islands of the Sails) appear in a 1585 Spanish history of China, on the 1594 world map of Petrus Plancius, on an anonymous map of the Moluccas in the 1598 London edition of Linschoten, and on the 1607 world map of Petro Kærio, identified as a north-south chain of islands in the northwest Pacific, which were also called the "Islas de los Ladrones" (Islands of the Thieves) during that period.[17][18][19] Their name was changed by Spain in 1667 to "Islas de las Marianas" (Mariana Islands), which include Guam at their southern end. Guam's longitude of 144°45'E is east of the Moluccas' longitude of 127°24'E by 17°21', which is remarkably close by sixteenth-century standards to the treaty's 17° east. This longitude passes through the eastern end of the main north Japanese island of Hokkaidō and through the eastern end of New Guinea, which is where Frédéric Durand placed the demarcation line.[20] Moriarty and Keistman placed the demarcation line at 147°E by measuring 16.4° east from the western end of New Guinea (or 17° east of 130°E).[21] Despite the treaty's clear statement that the demarcation line passes 17° east of the Moluccas, some sources place the line just east of the Moluccas.[22][23][24]

The Treaty of Saragossa did not modify or clarify the line of demarcation in the Treaty of Tordesillas, nor did it validate Spain's claim to equal hemispheres (180° each), so the two lines divided the Earth into unequal hemispheres. Portugal's portion was roughly 191° whereas Spain's portion was roughly 169°. Both portions have a large uncertainty of ±4° due to the wide variation in the opinions regarding the location of the Tordesillas line.

Portugal gained control of all lands and seas west of the Saragossa line, including all of Asia and its neighboring islands so far "discovered," leaving Spain most of the Pacific Ocean. Although the Philippines were not named in the treaty, Spain implicitly relinquished any claim to them because they were well west of the line. Nevertheless, by 1542, King Charles V decided to colonize the Philippines, judging that Portugal would not protest too vigorously because the archipelago had no spice, but he failed in his attempt. King Philip II succeeded in 1565, establishing the initial Spanish trading post at Manila.

Besides Brazil and the Moluccas, Portugal would eventually control Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe in Africa; Goa and Daman and Diu in India; and East Timor and Macau in the Far East.

Portuguese Empire (anachronous)
Red - possessions
Pink - land explorations
Blue - sea explorations
Spanish and Portuguese Empires during their personal union (1581-1640)
Red/Pink - Spanish Empire
Blue/Light Blue - Portuguese Empire
Spanish Empire (anachronous)

Notes

  1. ↑ Davenport, pp. 85, 171.
  2. ↑ Frances Gardiner Davenport, ed., European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1917) 107–111.
  3. ↑ Harrisse, pp. 91–97, 178–190.
  4. ↑ Harrisse, pp. 100–102, 190–192.
  5. ↑ Harrisse, pp. 103–108, 122, 192–200.
  6. ↑ Harrisse, pp. 138–139, 207–208.
  7. ↑ Harrisse, pp. 207–208.
  8. ↑ Edward Gaylord Bourne, "Historical Introduction", in Blair.
  9. ↑ Treaty of Saragossa in Blair.
  10. ↑ Lord Stanley of Alderley, The first voyage round the world, by Magellan, London: Hakluyt, 1874, p.71
  11. ↑ Andaya, pp.1-3
  12. ↑ Corn, p.xxiv.
  13. ↑ Gavan Daws and Marty Fujita, Archipelago: The Islands of Indonesia, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p.98, ISBN 0520215761 (early 1500s).
  14. ↑ The Portuguese in the Moluccas and in the Lesser Sunda Islands by Marco Ramerini, 1600s
  15. ↑ Lord Stanley of Alderley, The first voyage round the world, by Magellan, London: Hakluyt Society, 1874, pp. 126–7.
  16. ↑ Andaya, p.117. After the Iberian Union (1580–1640) and the effective Dutch conquest of the Moluccas (1605–1611, pp. 152–3), the fort was destroyed by the Spanish in 1666 during their retreat to the Philippines. (p.156)
  17. ↑ Knowlton, p.341. The islands were named both las Velas and los Ladrones in a quote from Father Juan González de Mendoza in Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran Reino de la China (History of the most remarkable things, rites and customs of the great Kingdom of China, 1585).
  18. ↑ Cortesao, p.224, with detailed maps naming each island on several maps.
  19. ↑ ed. John O. E. Clark, 100 Maps (New York: Sterling, 2005) p.115, ISBN 1402728859.
  20. ↑ The cartography of the Orientals and Southern Europeans in the beginning of the western exploration of South-East Asia from the middle of the XVth century to the beginning of the XVIIth century by Frédéric Durand
  21. ↑ Philip II Orders the Journey of the First Manila Galleon
  22. ↑ Lines in the sea by Giampiero Francalanci and others, p.3 about 129°E or only 1.5° east of the Moluccas.
  23. ↑ Lines of Demarcation 1529 about 134°E or 6.5° east of the Moluccas.
  24. ↑ Infoblatt Das Zeitalter der großen Entdeckungsfahrten about 135°E or 7.5° east of the Moluccas.

References

See also

External links