Publication Date
2009
Categories
Related entries
Celebrated on 7 July, 1494 in the city that gave it its name, the Treaty of Tordesillas represented a key moment in the Iberian Crowns´ overseas diplomacy. Because of its signing, the Kingdom of Portugal and the Spanish Monarchy shared influence over the Atlantic territories, ending a negotiation process that had dragged on since Christopher Columbus´ return from his first exploration trip in 1493.
The signing of the Tordesillas Treaty came out of the circumstances of increased rivalry between the Iberian kingdoms in the last decade of the 15th century, as they vied for control of the overseas territories. This state of affairs altered the paradigm established by the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479), in which Portuguese sovereignty over both the discovered and the not yet discovered lands south of the Canary Islands had been recognized.
If in the 1470s, the Portuguese-Castillian dispute occurred due to the Gulf of Guinea commerce, in the 1490s it was provoked by the competition for establishing commercial, political, and diplomatic relations with the Orient. This rivalry in seeking to obtain the mythical riches of India, China, and Japan was concentrated on two parallel projects.
The Portuguese monarch, Dom João II embodied an imperial project of overseas expansion, led by its own political logic and integrating various fronts and territories but focused on the discovery of a maritime passage to the Indian Ocean, through the southward exploration of the African Coast. After Bartolomeu Dias´ success in rounding the Cape of Good Hope in his voyage between 1487 and 1488, the Joanine project was directed towards reaching India via this route.
The Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, in turn, were listening to Chrispoher Columbus´ ideas of exploration. He proposed to reach the Orient by navigating west, following the ideas defended by the Florentine mathematician and astronomer Paolo Toscanelli.
Christopher Columbus had unsuccessfully attempted to gain the support of Dom João II for his plan, which offered the Spanish Monarchs the possibility of accessing the riches of the Orient, increasing their political and diplomatic prestige, and compensating for their exclusion from African commerce, as dictated by the Treaty of Alcáçovas, while thwarting the plans of Dom João II.
Thus, with the taking of Granada and the end of the Reconquest in January 1492, in face of favorable external circumstances, the Castillian Crown supported Columbus´ voyage. This first of the four voyages to the Western Atlantic led by this navigator, culminated in the discovery of previously unknown islands which Columbus viewed as harbingers of the Asian continent. The discovery had immediate impact on the terms of the Treaty of Alcáçovas, based on which Dom João II, who received Christopher Columbus on March 9, 1493, after his return, immediately presented his claim for sovereignty of these territories.
Thus started an intense process of three way negotiations, Integrating the Portuguese and Spanish courts and the Roman Papacy´s Curia, who were led by a Valencian, Alexander VI, and favored the pretensions of the Catholic Kings. In face of the Portuguese position of maintaining the parallel of Alcáçovas which should be extended so as to include the lands discovered to the west, the Catholic Kings alleged that the previous treaty only referred to the African Coast and did not comprise the new discovery. In this way they moved so as to gain recognition of their rights over the western islands and any other lands to be reached, which was granted by the bull Inter Caetera, on 3 May, 1493.
The Portuguese intransigently refused to recognize this sovereignty, requiring ongoing diplomatic pressure by the Castillians both with the Portuguese Crown and the Papacy. This pressure resulted in the promulgation of new bulls: Eximiae Devotionis and Piis Fidelium, were related to concessions, graces, and exemptions of a religious and evangelical nature; a new bull, Inter Caetera, completed on 28 June, 1493, but antedated 4 May, was especially significant because it decreed a division of the ocean between the Crowns, through a meridian that was to lie 100 leagues west of the Atlantic archipelagos of Cape Verde and the Azores. This demarcation was suggested by Columbus himself, and would lead to all the lands west of this meridian being placed under Castillian sovereignty. A fourth bull, Dudum Siquidem, dated 26 September, 1493, revoked all Portuguese privileges in the south seas.
At the same time, fearing that the Portuguese would be ahead of them in exploring the western territories, the Castillians dispatched a reinforced expedition, which was once again commanded by Christopher Columbus, to the western Atlantic. The measurements carried out during this trip allowed for the development of a nautical chart, which was delivered to the Spanish monarchs in April 1494 and would influence the position of the Castillian negotiators of the Treaty of Tordesillas. Dom João II reacted to this offensive by increasing diplomatic and military pressure, reinforcing the areas in the borders and strengthening diplomatic ties with France, at a time when France´s relations with the Catholic Monarchy were deteriorating.
Finally, at the beginning of 1494, Dom João II proposed to the Catholic Kings that they have bilateral talks in order to resolve the dispute. Believing that Columbus had reached Asia, Ferdinand and Isabella sought Portuguese recognition of their sovereignty, while Dom João II tried to assure exclusive dominion of the Cabo route, preserving his influence in the South Atlantic. Due to this situation, the negotiations dragged on, as the Portuguese demanded that the limiting meridian lie not 100 but 370 leagues west of the Cape Verdean archipelago. Dom João II was intransigent in this demand, refusing attempts at compromise that proposed 270 or 350 leagues.
The monarch´s intransigence, nominally justified by the necessity of assuring the return trip from the Cabo, which required a volta ao largo or turn on the open sea, might equally be related to the suspected or known existence of islands or a continent in the Southwest Atlantic. Through the demand for 370 leagues, the Portuguese crown would assure a strategic position in the South Atlantic, preserving the monopoly of the Cabo route. The Spanish monarchs, in turn, according to the data they had received from Columbus´ second trip, knew that giving in to the Portuguese demand would not jeopardize their claims to the newly discovered territories in the Antilles.
The Portuguese demand was accepted, being sanctioned in the first treaty, which was signed in Tordesillas on 7 June, 1494 by envoys from both kingdoms. In the second treaty, which was signed right after, parallel questions were negotiated and some concessions were made that facilitated the Castillians´ yielding regarding the dividing meridian. Territorial frontiers in North Africa were adjusted in this treaty as were fishing rights in the Cape Bojador region. The guarantee by Dom João II that Dom Manuel, Duke of Beja and cousin of Isabella of Castille, would be his heir, rather than his illegitimate son Dom Jorge, was also sanctioned. The Catholic Kings thus tried to assure they would have influence with the future king of Portugal.
The terms agreed to in Tordesillas were ratified by the Catholic Kings on 2 July and by Dom João II on 5 September. Papal approval was requested already into Dom Manuel´s reign, having been granted through the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis in 1506. However, the disputes around the precise location of the line of demarcation remained for decades, with different claims from both parties, such as the dispute over possession of the Molucca Islands in the first half of the 16th century, following which the Tordesillas line became a true meridian. In fact, one of the clauses in the treaty stipulated the organization of a joint fleet that could explore the Ocean and define with exactitude the semi-meridian. However, the Portuguese never were interested in implementing this clause - the debates about how to measure longitude were constant but of little use - preferring to maintain the lack of definition and explore the south seas unilaterally.
Through the Tordesillas Treaty, the Iberian rivalry regarding overseas expansion was regulated; a true division of the Atlantic territories beyond Europe into zones of influence shared by the two Iberian crowns occurred. Its significance would be diminished as other European kingdoms came on the scene and progressively contested Iberian hegemony. To Portugal, however, the Treaty represented a guarantee of its monopoly of the Cabo Route and, after 1500, made Portuguese sovereignty of Brazil possible.
The principles that were sanctioned in Tordesillas retained their validity in the arbitration of the Portuguese-Spanish disputes in Latin America, until its eventual revocation by the Treaty of Madrid (1750) and the treaty of Santo Ildefonso (1777), which established the frontiers of Brazil with the Spanish colonies. These remained in place until present times, with a few changes.
Bibliography:
ALBUQUERQUE, Luís de, O tratado de Tordesilhas e as dificuldades técnicas da sua aplicação rigorosa, Lisboa, Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1973. COUTO, Jorge, A Construção do Brasil, Lisboa, Edições Cosmos, 1997. Fonseca, Luís Adão da, D. João II, Lisboa, Circulo de Leitores. MORALES PADRÓN, Francisco, Historia del descubrimiento y conquista de América, Madrid, Ed. Nacional, 1981. O Testamento de Adão, coord. Francisco Faria Paulino, Lisboa, C.N.C.D.P., 1994.THOMAZ, Luís Filipe, "O projecto imperial Joanino" in De Ceuta a Timor, Lisboa, Difel, 1998. VARELA MARCOS, Jesús, "La Cartografia Colombina del Nuevo Mundo" in El Tratado de Tordesillas en la cartografia histórica, coord Jesús Varela Marcos, Valladolid, Sociedad V Centenario del Tratado de Tordesillas, 1994, pp. 351-369.
Translated by: Maria João Pimentel
The signing of the Tordesillas Treaty came out of the circumstances of increased rivalry between the Iberian kingdoms in the last decade of the 15th century, as they vied for control of the overseas territories. This state of affairs altered the paradigm established by the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479), in which Portuguese sovereignty over both the discovered and the not yet discovered lands south of the Canary Islands had been recognized.
If in the 1470s, the Portuguese-Castillian dispute occurred due to the Gulf of Guinea commerce, in the 1490s it was provoked by the competition for establishing commercial, political, and diplomatic relations with the Orient. This rivalry in seeking to obtain the mythical riches of India, China, and Japan was concentrated on two parallel projects.
The Portuguese monarch, Dom João II embodied an imperial project of overseas expansion, led by its own political logic and integrating various fronts and territories but focused on the discovery of a maritime passage to the Indian Ocean, through the southward exploration of the African Coast. After Bartolomeu Dias´ success in rounding the Cape of Good Hope in his voyage between 1487 and 1488, the Joanine project was directed towards reaching India via this route.
The Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, in turn, were listening to Chrispoher Columbus´ ideas of exploration. He proposed to reach the Orient by navigating west, following the ideas defended by the Florentine mathematician and astronomer Paolo Toscanelli.
Christopher Columbus had unsuccessfully attempted to gain the support of Dom João II for his plan, which offered the Spanish Monarchs the possibility of accessing the riches of the Orient, increasing their political and diplomatic prestige, and compensating for their exclusion from African commerce, as dictated by the Treaty of Alcáçovas, while thwarting the plans of Dom João II.
Thus, with the taking of Granada and the end of the Reconquest in January 1492, in face of favorable external circumstances, the Castillian Crown supported Columbus´ voyage. This first of the four voyages to the Western Atlantic led by this navigator, culminated in the discovery of previously unknown islands which Columbus viewed as harbingers of the Asian continent. The discovery had immediate impact on the terms of the Treaty of Alcáçovas, based on which Dom João II, who received Christopher Columbus on March 9, 1493, after his return, immediately presented his claim for sovereignty of these territories.
Thus started an intense process of three way negotiations, Integrating the Portuguese and Spanish courts and the Roman Papacy´s Curia, who were led by a Valencian, Alexander VI, and favored the pretensions of the Catholic Kings. In face of the Portuguese position of maintaining the parallel of Alcáçovas which should be extended so as to include the lands discovered to the west, the Catholic Kings alleged that the previous treaty only referred to the African Coast and did not comprise the new discovery. In this way they moved so as to gain recognition of their rights over the western islands and any other lands to be reached, which was granted by the bull Inter Caetera, on 3 May, 1493.
The Portuguese intransigently refused to recognize this sovereignty, requiring ongoing diplomatic pressure by the Castillians both with the Portuguese Crown and the Papacy. This pressure resulted in the promulgation of new bulls: Eximiae Devotionis and Piis Fidelium, were related to concessions, graces, and exemptions of a religious and evangelical nature; a new bull, Inter Caetera, completed on 28 June, 1493, but antedated 4 May, was especially significant because it decreed a division of the ocean between the Crowns, through a meridian that was to lie 100 leagues west of the Atlantic archipelagos of Cape Verde and the Azores. This demarcation was suggested by Columbus himself, and would lead to all the lands west of this meridian being placed under Castillian sovereignty. A fourth bull, Dudum Siquidem, dated 26 September, 1493, revoked all Portuguese privileges in the south seas.
At the same time, fearing that the Portuguese would be ahead of them in exploring the western territories, the Castillians dispatched a reinforced expedition, which was once again commanded by Christopher Columbus, to the western Atlantic. The measurements carried out during this trip allowed for the development of a nautical chart, which was delivered to the Spanish monarchs in April 1494 and would influence the position of the Castillian negotiators of the Treaty of Tordesillas. Dom João II reacted to this offensive by increasing diplomatic and military pressure, reinforcing the areas in the borders and strengthening diplomatic ties with France, at a time when France´s relations with the Catholic Monarchy were deteriorating.
Finally, at the beginning of 1494, Dom João II proposed to the Catholic Kings that they have bilateral talks in order to resolve the dispute. Believing that Columbus had reached Asia, Ferdinand and Isabella sought Portuguese recognition of their sovereignty, while Dom João II tried to assure exclusive dominion of the Cabo route, preserving his influence in the South Atlantic. Due to this situation, the negotiations dragged on, as the Portuguese demanded that the limiting meridian lie not 100 but 370 leagues west of the Cape Verdean archipelago. Dom João II was intransigent in this demand, refusing attempts at compromise that proposed 270 or 350 leagues.
The monarch´s intransigence, nominally justified by the necessity of assuring the return trip from the Cabo, which required a volta ao largo or turn on the open sea, might equally be related to the suspected or known existence of islands or a continent in the Southwest Atlantic. Through the demand for 370 leagues, the Portuguese crown would assure a strategic position in the South Atlantic, preserving the monopoly of the Cabo route. The Spanish monarchs, in turn, according to the data they had received from Columbus´ second trip, knew that giving in to the Portuguese demand would not jeopardize their claims to the newly discovered territories in the Antilles.
The Portuguese demand was accepted, being sanctioned in the first treaty, which was signed in Tordesillas on 7 June, 1494 by envoys from both kingdoms. In the second treaty, which was signed right after, parallel questions were negotiated and some concessions were made that facilitated the Castillians´ yielding regarding the dividing meridian. Territorial frontiers in North Africa were adjusted in this treaty as were fishing rights in the Cape Bojador region. The guarantee by Dom João II that Dom Manuel, Duke of Beja and cousin of Isabella of Castille, would be his heir, rather than his illegitimate son Dom Jorge, was also sanctioned. The Catholic Kings thus tried to assure they would have influence with the future king of Portugal.
The terms agreed to in Tordesillas were ratified by the Catholic Kings on 2 July and by Dom João II on 5 September. Papal approval was requested already into Dom Manuel´s reign, having been granted through the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis in 1506. However, the disputes around the precise location of the line of demarcation remained for decades, with different claims from both parties, such as the dispute over possession of the Molucca Islands in the first half of the 16th century, following which the Tordesillas line became a true meridian. In fact, one of the clauses in the treaty stipulated the organization of a joint fleet that could explore the Ocean and define with exactitude the semi-meridian. However, the Portuguese never were interested in implementing this clause - the debates about how to measure longitude were constant but of little use - preferring to maintain the lack of definition and explore the south seas unilaterally.
Through the Tordesillas Treaty, the Iberian rivalry regarding overseas expansion was regulated; a true division of the Atlantic territories beyond Europe into zones of influence shared by the two Iberian crowns occurred. Its significance would be diminished as other European kingdoms came on the scene and progressively contested Iberian hegemony. To Portugal, however, the Treaty represented a guarantee of its monopoly of the Cabo Route and, after 1500, made Portuguese sovereignty of Brazil possible.
The principles that were sanctioned in Tordesillas retained their validity in the arbitration of the Portuguese-Spanish disputes in Latin America, until its eventual revocation by the Treaty of Madrid (1750) and the treaty of Santo Ildefonso (1777), which established the frontiers of Brazil with the Spanish colonies. These remained in place until present times, with a few changes.
Bibliography:
ALBUQUERQUE, Luís de, O tratado de Tordesilhas e as dificuldades técnicas da sua aplicação rigorosa, Lisboa, Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1973. COUTO, Jorge, A Construção do Brasil, Lisboa, Edições Cosmos, 1997. Fonseca, Luís Adão da, D. João II, Lisboa, Circulo de Leitores. MORALES PADRÓN, Francisco, Historia del descubrimiento y conquista de América, Madrid, Ed. Nacional, 1981. O Testamento de Adão, coord. Francisco Faria Paulino, Lisboa, C.N.C.D.P., 1994.THOMAZ, Luís Filipe, "O projecto imperial Joanino" in De Ceuta a Timor, Lisboa, Difel, 1998. VARELA MARCOS, Jesús, "La Cartografia Colombina del Nuevo Mundo" in El Tratado de Tordesillas en la cartografia histórica, coord Jesús Varela Marcos, Valladolid, Sociedad V Centenario del Tratado de Tordesillas, 1994, pp. 351-369.
Translated by: Maria João Pimentel