Week 19: The Atlantic World IDs

The Treaty of Tordesillas was concluded on June 7 1494 to settle the contentious matter of the possession of the newly discovered lands of the non Christian world between Portugal and Spain. It was ratified by Spain on July 2, 1494. and by Portugal on September 5, 1494.

The precedent of the treaty was the Inter Caetera Papal Bull, issued by the Spanish Pope Alexander VI which fixed a division that gave the entire New World to Spain and Africa and India to Portugal. The margin of the maneuver given to Portugal by the papal bull was small.

The Treaty of Tordesillas shifted the demarcation line to a circle passing 370 leagues West of the Cape Verde Islands and thus set the legal base for the colonization by Portugal of the eastern coast of the land now known as Brazil.

(The house left to the tower is where the treaty was concluded in 1494.)

(The treaty with the signature of the sovereign of Spain and Portugal.)