The Treaty of Tordesillas (Portuguese: Tratado de Tordesilhas [tra'tadu di turdi'ziyaS], Spanish: Tratado de Tordesillas [tra'tado de torde'siyas]), signed at Tordesillas (now in Valladolid province, Spain) on 7 June 1494 and authenticated at Setubal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Portugal and Castile along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa). This line of demarcation was about halfway between the Cape Verde Islands (already Portuguese) and the islands entered by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage (claimed for Castile), 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 Castile. The treaty was signed by Castile, 2 July 1494 and by Portugal, 5 September 1494. The other side of the world would be divided a few decades later by the Treaty of Zaragoza or Saragossa, signed on 22 April 1529, which specified the antimeridian 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.
This treaty worked fairly well as between Spain and Portugal, despite considerable ignorance as to the geography of the New World, but it omitted all of the other European powers. Those countries generally ignored the treaty, particularly those that became Protestant after the Reformation.


== Signing and enforcement ==

The Treaty of Tordesillas was intended to solve the dispute that had been created following the return of Christopher Columbus and his crew, who had sailed for the crown of Castile. On his way back to Spain he first reached Lisbon, in Portugal. There he asked for another meeting with King John II to show him the newly discovered lands.
After learning of the Castilian-sponsored voyage, the Portuguese King sent a threatening letter to the Catholic Monarchs stating that by the previous Alcacovas Treaty signed in 1479 (confirmed In 1481, with the 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. Also, the Portuguese King stated that he was already making arrangements for a fleet to depart shortly and take possession of the new lands. After reading the letter the Catholic Monarchs knew they did not have any military power to match with the Portuguese, so they pursued a diplomatic way out. On 4 May 1493 the Aragonese-born Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) 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 Castile, although territory under Catholic 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 25 September 1493, gave all mainlands and islands, "at one time or even yet belonged 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 already 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. With the failure of the Pope to make changes, the Portuguese king opened direct negotiations with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella 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 the Catholic Monarchs, but had the boundary line moved 270 leagues west, protecting the Portuguese route down the coast of Africa, but also gave the Portuguese rights to Brazil. As one scholar assessed the results, with such that "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."
The treaty effectively countered the bulls of Alexander VI but was subsequently sanctioned by Pope Julius II by means of the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis of 24 January 1506. Even though the treaty was negotiated without consulting the Pope, a few 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 Alvares 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 Sao Roque, such that "the likelihood of making such a landfall as a result of freak weather or navigational error was remote; and it is highly probably that Cabral had been instructed to investigate a coast whose existence was not merely suspected, but already known."
The line was not strictly enforced--the Aragonese-Castilian union did not resist the Portuguese expansion of Brazil across the meridian. However, the catholic monarchs 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.
For a period, the treaty was rendered meaningless between 1580 and 1640 while the Castilian 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 the catholic monarch. The First Treaty of San Ildefonso settled the problem, with Castile acquiring territories east of the Uruguay River and Portugal acquiring territories in the Amazon Basin. Emerging Protestant maritime powers, particularly England and The Netherlands, and other third parties such as France, did not recognize the division of the world between 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 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 applied to the Earth regardless of its assumed size, or via a specific marine league applied to the true size of the Earth, called "our sphere" by historian Henry Harrisse.
The earliest Aragonese opinion was provided by Jaime Ferrer in 1495 at the request of and to the Aragonese king and Castilian queen. He stated that the demarcation line was 18deg west of the most central island of the Cape Verde Islands, which is Fogo according to Harrisse, having a longitude of 24deg25'W of Greenwich, hence Ferrer placed the line at 42deg25'W on his sphere, which was 21.1% larger than our sphere. Ferrer also stated that his league contained 32 Olympic stades, or 6.15264 km according to Harrisse, thus Ferrer's line was 2,276.5 km west of Fogo at 47deg37'W on our sphere.

The earliest surviving Portuguese opinion is on the Cantino planisphere of 1502. Because its demarcation line was midway between Cape Saint Roque (northeast cape of South America) and the mouth of the Amazon River (its estuary is marked Todo este mar he de agua doce (All of this sea is fresh water) and its river is marked Rio grande (great river)), Harrisse concluded that the line was at 42deg30'W on our sphere. Harrisse believed the large estuary just west of the line on the Cantino map was that of the Rio Maranhao (this estuary is now the Baia de Sao Marcos and the river is now the Mearim), whose flow is so weak that its gulf does not contain fresh water.

In 1518 another Castilian opinion was provided by Martin Fernandez de Enciso. Harrisse concluded that Enciso placed his line at 47deg24'W on his sphere (7.7% smaller than ours), but at 45deg38'W on our sphere using Enciso's numerical data. Enciso also described the coastal features near which the line passed in a very confused manner. Harrisse concluded from this description that Enciso's line could also be near the mouth of the Amazon between 49deg and 50degW.
In 1524 the Castilian pilots (ships' captains) Thomas Duran, Sebastian Cabot (son of John Cabot), and Juan Vespuccius (nephew of Amerigo Vespucci) gave their opinion to the Badajoz Junta, whose failure to resolve the dispute led to the Treaty of Saragossa. They specified that the line was 22deg plus nearly 9 miles west of the center of Santo Antao (the westernmost Cape Verde island), which Harrisse concluded was 47deg17'W on their sphere (3.1% smaller than ours) and 46deg36'W on our sphere.
In 1524 the Portuguese presented a globe to the Badajoz Junta on which the line was marked 21deg30' west of Santo Antao (22deg6'36" on our sphere).


== Antimeridian: Moluccas and Treaty of Zaragoza ==

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. 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 in a treaty signed at 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 17deg to the east of the Moluccas, passing through the islands of Las Velas and Santo Thome. 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.
The Moluccas are a group of islands just west of New Guinea. However, unlike the large modern Indonesian archipelago of the Maluku Islands, to 16th-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. 16th- and 17th-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. The principal island was Ternate at the chain's northern end (0deg47'N, only 11 kilometres (7 mi) in diameter) on whose southwest coast the Portuguese built a stone fort (Forte de Sao Joao Baptista de Ternate) during 1522-23, 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 127deg24'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 Kaerio, 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. 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 144deg45'E is east of the Moluccas' longitude of 127deg24'E by 17deg21', which is remarkably close by 16th-century standards to the treaty's 17deg east. This longitude passes through the eastern end of the main north Japanese island of Hokkaido and through the eastern end of New Guinea, which is where Frederic Durand placed the demarcation line. Moriarty and Keistman placed the demarcation line at 147degE by measuring 16.4deg east from the western end of New Guinea (or 17deg east of 130degE). Despite the treaty's clear statement that the demarcation line passes 17deg east of the Moluccas, some sources place the line just east of the Moluccas.
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 (180deg each), so the two lines divided the Earth into unequal hemispheres. Portugal's portion was roughly 191deg whereas Spain's portion was roughly 169deg. Both portions have a large uncertainty of +-4deg because of 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 because the archipelago had no spices. Although a number of expeditions sent from New Spain arrived in the Philippines, they were unable to establish a settlement because the return route across the Pacific was unknown. King Philip II succeeded in 1565 when he sent Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and Andres de Urdaneta, establishing the initial Spanish trading post at Cebu and later founding Manila in 1571.
Besides Brazil and the Moluccas, Portugal would eventually control Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea, and Sao Tome and Principe (among other territories and bases) in Africa; several bases or territories as Muscat, Ormus and Bahrein in the Persian Gulf, Goa, Bombay and Daman and Diu (among other coastal cities) in India; Ceylon, and Malacca, bases in present day Indonesia as Makassar, Solor and Ambon, Portuguese Timor, the entrepot-base of Macau and the entrepot-enclave of Dejima (Nagasaki) in the Far East.
Spain, on the other hand, would control vast western regions in the Americas, in areas ranging from the present-day United States to present-day Argentina, an empire that would extend to the Philippines, and bases in Ternate and Formosa (17th century).


== Effect on other European powers ==
The treaty was historically important in dividing Latin America, as well as establishing Spain in the western Pacific until 1898. However, it quickly became obsolete in North America, and later in Asia and Africa, where it affected colonization. It was ignored by other European nations, and with the decline of Spanish and Portuguese power, the home countries were unable to hold many of their claims, much less expand them into poorly explored areas. Thus, with sufficient backing, it became possible for any European state to colonize open territories, or those weakly held by Lisbon or Madrid. The attitude towards the treaty that other governments had was expressed in a statement attributed to France's King Francis I, "Show me Adam's will!"


== Modern claims ==
The Treaty of Tordesillas has been invoked by Chile in the 20th century to defend the principle of an Antarctic sector extending along a meridian to the South Pole, as well as the assertion that the treaty made Spanish (or Portuguese) all undiscovered land south to the Pole.
The Treaty of Tordesillas was also invoked by Argentina in the 20th century as part of its claim to the Falkland Islands/Malvinas Islands.


== See also ==
Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery
History of Portugal (1415-1578)
List of treaties


== Notes ==


== References ==


== Bibliography ==
Edward G. Bourne, 'The History and Determination of the Line of Demarcation by Pope Alexander VI, between the Spanish and Portuguese Fields of Discovery and Colonization', American Historical Association, Annual Report for 1891, Washington, 1892; Senate Miscellaneous Documents, Washington, Vol.5, 1891-92, pp. 103-30.
James R Akerman, The Imperial Map (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009) 138.
Leonard Y. Andaya, The world of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the early modern period (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8248-1490-8.
Emma Helen Blair, ed., The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (vol 1 of 55) (Cleveland, Ohio: 1903-1909), containing complete English translations of both treaties and related documents.
Stephen R. Bown, 1494: How a family feud in medieval Spain divided the world in half (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2012) ISBN=978-0-312-61612-0.
Charles Corn, The Scents of Eden, (New York: Kodansha, 1998), ISBN 1-56836-202-1.
Armando Cortesao, "Antonio Pereira and his map of circa 1545", Geographical Review 29 (1939) 205-225.
Frances Gardiner Davenport, ed., European Treaties bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies to 1648 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917/1967).
Translation of the Treaty of Tordesillas by Davenport.
Henry Harrisse, The Diplomatic History of America: Its first chapter 1452--1493--1494 (London: Stevens, 1897).
Edgar C. Knowlton, "China and the Philippines in El Periquillo Sarniento", Hispanic Review 31 (1963) 336-347.


== External links ==
Treaty of Tordesillas (about.com)
Treaty of Tordesillas (Portuguese) from Archivo General de Indias
Treaty of Tordesillas English translation from Blair
Compact Between the Catholic Sovereigns and the King of Portugal Regarding the Demarcation and the Division of the Ocean Sea English translation from Blair