Treaty of Tordesillas (1494): Spain and Portugal Divide the World

The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed on 7 June 1494, divided the newly found and still unknown lands outside Europe between Castile and Portugal. The two kingdoms agreed on a north-south line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands: Portugal would have everything to the east, Castile everything to the west. The agreement shaped the colonial map of the Atlantic world and explains why Brazil became Portuguese while most of the rest of Latin America became Spanish.

Background: rivalry on the Atlantic

Portugal had led European exploration for most of the 15th century, working its way down the west coast of Africa. In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of the continent, opening the prospect of a sea route to India.

Castile was Portugal’s chief rival. The Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479) had ended a war between them, leaving the Canary Islands to Castile and recognising Portuguese rights to Guinea and the lands to the south.

In March 1493 Christopher Columbus, returning from his Castilian-sponsored voyage across the Atlantic, put in at Lisbon. King John II of Portugal argued that the lands Columbus had found belonged to Portugal under Alcáçovas and prepared to send a fleet of his own.

Behind the dispute lay more than prestige. Both kingdoms hoped to reach the spices, silks and other luxury goods of Asia without passing through the Venetian and Middle Eastern middlemen who controlled the overland and Red Sea routes. Whoever held the sea routes stood to gain great wealth, and both crowns wanted legal security before investing in costly fleets.

The papal bulls of 1493

Ferdinand and Isabella appealed to Pope Alexander VI, a Spaniard by birth. In 1493 he issued a series of bulls, including Inter caetera, which granted Castile the lands west of a line 100 leagues beyond the Azores and Cape Verde Islands.

For Portugal the line was dangerously close to Africa. Portuguese ships returning from West Africa needed to sail far out into the Atlantic to catch favourable winds, a manoeuvre known as the volta do mar. John II also wanted room for future discoveries in the South Atlantic. Instead of appealing to the pope, he opened direct negotiations with the Spanish monarchs.

Negotiation and terms

Envoys of both crowns met in the Castilian town of Tordesillas on the Duero river. The Castilian side included Enrique Enríquez, Gutierre de Cárdenas and the jurist Rodrigo Maldonado; Portugal was represented by Rui de Sousa, his son João de Sousa and Aires de Almada.

The treaty, signed on 7 June 1494, set the line at 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, more than three times the distance in the papal bull. Lands discovered east of the line, by either party, would belong to Portugal; those west of it to Castile.

Further clauses provided for a joint expedition of pilots and astronomers to fix the line within ten months, although this never took place. Ships of each crown were allowed to cross the other’s waters on direct voyages. A separate treaty signed the same day dealt with fishing and conquests on the coast of North Africa.

The talks were conducted as a negotiation between sovereigns rather than as a papal arbitration, which was itself significant. The pope’s earlier bulls provided a starting point, but the final terms reflected the bargaining strength of the two crowns. Portugal, with its experienced navigators and knowledge of Atlantic winds, had a clearer idea of what it was giving up and gaining than Castile did. Some historians have suggested that the Portuguese already suspected land lay in the South Atlantic, but there is no firm evidence of a secret earlier discovery of Brazil.

Castile ratified the agreement on 2 July 1494 and Portugal on 5 September 1494. In 1506 Pope Julius II confirmed it with the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis.

Where was the line?

The treaty did not say which of the Cape Verde Islands was the starting point or how long a league was, and longitude could not be measured accurately at sea until the 18th century. As a result the exact position of the line was disputed for centuries.

Modern calculations generally place it at around 46 to 49 degrees west of Greenwich, with a figure close to 46°37′ W often cited. In practice it ran through the eastern part of what is now Brazil, roughly from the mouth of the Amazon in the north to a point near present-day São Paulo state in the south.

The earliest surviving map to show the line is the Cantino planisphere of 1502, a Portuguese world map smuggled to Italy, on which a vertical line divides the Atlantic. Later Spanish and Portuguese cartographers often drew the line in different places, each to their own advantage.

Consequences

Brazil. In April 1500 a Portuguese fleet under Pedro Álvares Cabral, on its way to India, reached the coast of Brazil. Because the land lay east of the line, Portugal could claim it. Over the following centuries Portuguese settlers, missionaries and bandeirantes pushed far beyond the line into the interior.

Asia. The treaty gave Portugal a free hand on the route around Africa that Vasco da Gama opened in 1498. It did not, however, say where the line fell on the other side of the globe.

The Moluccas dispute. When the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan reached the Spice Islands (Moluccas) in 1521, both crowns claimed them. The Treaty of Zaragoza (1529) set an antimeridian east of the Moluccas, and Charles V gave up his claim to the islands in return for 350,000 ducats paid by Portugal. Spain nevertheless later colonised the Philippines, which lay on the Portuguese side.

Other powers. France, England and the Netherlands rejected the division. A remark attributed to King Francis I of France, asking to see the clause in Adam’s will that excluded him from a share of the world, captures the attitude, though its exact wording is uncertain.

Myths and facts

Myth: the pope divided the world between Spain and Portugal at Tordesillas. The pope was not a party to the Treaty of Tordesillas. His 1493 bulls set an earlier line, but the treaty was negotiated directly by the two crowns and moved that line much further west. Papal confirmation came only in 1506.

Myth: the treaty gave Spain all of the Americas. It gave Castile the lands west of the line, but the eastern tip of South America lay on the Portuguese side, which is how Portugal came to hold Brazil.

Myth: the line was precisely drawn. No one in 1494 could measure longitude accurately, and the agreed survey to fix the line never took place. Its position was argued over for more than 250 years.

Later history of the treaty

The line became less meaningful as settlement spread. During the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns (1580–1640) it was largely ignored, and Portuguese-speaking settlers moved far west.

The Treaty of Madrid (1750) abandoned the Tordesillas line in South America and drew new borders based largely on actual occupation. It was annulled in 1761, but the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1777) again redrew the boundaries, broadly along the lines that separate Brazil from its Spanish-speaking neighbours today.

The original treaty documents survive in the General Archive of the Indies in Seville and the National Archive of Torre do Tombo in Lisbon. In 2007 they were inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. The houses in Tordesillas where the negotiators are said to have met now hold a museum devoted to the treaty.

Key people

• Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452–1516) and Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504): the Catholic Monarchs, sponsors of Columbus.
• John II of Portugal (1455–1495): the king who insisted on renegotiating the papal line and secured the more westerly meridian.
• Pope Alexander VI (1431–1503): issued the 1493 bulls that preceded the treaty.
• Rui de Sousa and Enrique Enríquez: leading envoys of Portugal and Castile at the negotiations in Tordesillas.
• Pedro Álvares Cabral (c. 1467–c. 1520): the Portuguese commander whose landfall in 1500 turned the Portuguese share of South America into a real claim.

Timeline

• 1479, 4 September: Treaty of Alcáçovas between Castile and Portugal.
• 1488: Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope.
• 1493, March: Columbus returns via Lisbon; John II claims the new lands.
• 1493, May: Papal bulls Inter caetera grant Castile lands west of a line 100 leagues beyond the Azores and Cape Verde.
• 1494, 7 June: Treaty of Tordesillas signed.
• 1494, 2 July and 5 September: Castile and Portugal ratify the treaty.
• 1500, April: Cabral reaches Brazil, on the Portuguese side of the line.
• 1506: Pope Julius II confirms the treaty.
• 1529: Treaty of Zaragoza settles the line in Asia.
• 1750: Treaty of Madrid replaces the line in South America.

Why it matters

The Treaty of Tordesillas was one of the first attempts to divide the world by agreement between European states. It explains the linguistic map of South America and set the framework within which Spain and Portugal built their empires. It also shows how Europeans assumed the right to apportion lands that were already home to millions of people.