Treaty of Tordesillas
1494 treaty dividing the unclaimed world between Spanish and Portuguese sovereignty / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Treaty of Tordesillas,[note 1] signed in Tordesillas, Spain on 7 June 1494, and authenticated in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Empire (Crown of Castile), along a meridian 370 leagues[note 2] west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. That line of demarcation was about halfway between the Cape Verde islands (already Portuguese) and the islands visited by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage (claimed for Castile and León), named in the treaty as Cipangu and Antillia (Cuba and Hispaniola).
| Treaty of Tordesillas | |
|---|---|
 Front page of the Portuguese-owned treaty. This page is written in Spanish | |
| Created | 7 June 1494 in Tordesillas, Spain |
| Ratified | 2 July 1494 in Spain 5 September 1494 in Portugal 24 January 1505 or 1506 by Pope Julius II[1][2] |
| Signatories | Ferdinand II of Aragon Isabella I of Castile John, Prince of Asturias John II of Portugal[3][4] |
| Purpose | To resolve the conflict that arose from the 1481 papal bull Aeterni regis which affirmed Portuguese claims to all non-Christian lands south of the Canary Islands after Columbus claimed the Antilles for Castile, and to divide trading and colonising rights for all lands located west of the Canary Islands between Portugal and Castile (later applied between the Spanish Crown and Portugal) to the exclusion of any other Christian empires. |
The lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Castile, modifying an earlier division proposed by Pope Alexander VI. The treaty was signed by Spain, 2 July 1494, and by Portugal, 5 September 1494. The other side of the world was divided a few decades later by the Treaty of Zaragoza, 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 General Archive of the Indies in Spain and at the Torre do Tombo National Archive in Portugal.[9]
Despite considerable lack of information regarding the geography of the New World, Portugal and Spain largely respected the treaty. The other European powers, however, did not sign the treaty and generally ignored it, particularly those that became Protestant after the Reformation. Similarly, the indigenous peoples of the Americas did not acknowledge the treaty, and as the legal foundation for the discovery doctrine,[10] it has been a source of ongoing tension regarding land ownership into modern times.
The treaty was included by UNESCO in 2007 in its Memory of the World Programme.