Latest / The Rise of Colonialism: How Europe Divided the World — Fexingo History / The Treaty of Tordesillas: How Two Lines Split the World
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about how the Portuguese and Spanish each built their own empires—the Carreira da Índia, the Manila galleon, Potosí. But there's this moment before all of that really kicks off, in the 1490s, when the two crowns sat down and literally drew a line down the map of the entire world. That's the Treaty of Tordesillas. Luna: A line down the whole world? That sounds almost too neat. Lucas: It was messy, actually. It started with Columbus. He's just come back from his first voyage, and he's convinced he's reached Asia. Portugal's King John II is furious because he thinks these new lands fall within his sphere, based on earlier treaties. So he starts threatening war. The Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, need a quick solution, so they turn to the pope—Alexander VI, who's Spanish, by the way. Lucas: The pope issues a series of bulls, the most famous being Inter caetera from May 1493. It basically said that all lands west and south of a line drawn a hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde belonged to Spain. Portugal got everything east of that line. It was a papal grant, which in theory made it spiritually binding. Luna: So the pope just handed half the world to Spain? That's incredible. Lucas: Well, John II didn't accept it. He argued that the line was too far east, that it would cut off Portugal's route around Africa. So he opened direct negotiations with the Spanish crown, bypassing the pope entirely. The result was the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in June 1494. They moved the line two hundred seventy leagues further west, to a meridian roughly forty-six degrees west of Greenwich. Lucas: That shift is why Brazil, which bulges east of that line, ended up speaking Portuguese. And it's why the rest of South America, west of it, is Spanish-speaking. But here's the twist: nobody actually knew where the line was on the ground. Longitude was nearly impossible to measure accurately at the time. Luna: So they were arguing over a line nobody could find? Lucas: Exactly. The treaty even included a provision for joint expeditions to determine the line's location, but they never really agreed. Each side interpreted the line to suit its own interests. The Portuguese, for instance, argued it ran far to the west, which would give them more of the Atlantic. The Spanish thought it ran further east, closer to Africa. Lucas: And the ambiguity didn't stop there. The treaty only applied to the Atlantic, not the Pacific or the Indian Ocean. So when the Spanish reached the Philippines and the Portuguese reached the Moluccas, they clashed again. That led to the Treaty of Zaragoza in 1529, which drew another line in the Pacific—this time dividing the spice islands. Luna: So it's like they kept drawing lines until the map looked like a patchwork quilt. Lucas: Pretty much. But think about what this meant for the rest of the world. Here were two European kings, with a papal blessing, carving up territories they'd never even seen. The people living there—the Tainos, the Incas, the Africans, the Asians—had no say in it. Their fates were sealed by a few degrees of longitude. Lucas: And the line itself became a kind of legal fiction that both sides used to justify expansion. The Portuguese claimed Brazil because it was east of the line. The Spanish claimed the Philippines because they argued the line ran far to the east, putting the islands in their half. It's a classic example of how colonial powers used treaties to legitimize conquest. Luna: It's almost like they were playing a game of Risk with real lives. Lucas: That's a good way to put it. And the game continued for centuries. The Treaty of Tordesillas remained in effect, at least nominally, even after Portugal and Spain were united under one crown from 1580 to 1640. During that time, the line mattered less, because the same king controlled both empires. But after the union dissolved, they went back to bickering over it. Lucas: There were also practical problems. The line ran through the middle of the Atlantic, but ships needed to follow prevailing winds and currents. They couldn't just sail straight along the meridian. So the line became more of a guideline than a hard border. Smuggling and illegal trade were rampant across it. Luna: So it was more like a suggestion than a real boundary. Lucas: Exactly. But it still shaped the political geography of the Americas in a profound way. When the Portuguese colonized Brazil, they did so with an eye to the east of the line. When the Spanish pushed into the interior, they often found themselves crossing into Portuguese territory according to the treaty, which led to border disputes that lasted into the eighteenth century. Lucas: One of the most fascinating episodes is how the Portuguese used the treaty to claim the Amazon region. They argued that the line passed through the mouth of the Amazon, so the entire river basin was theirs. The Spanish, naturally, disagreed. But the Portuguese had a stronger presence on the ground, so they ended up with most of the Amazon basin in what's now Brazil. Luna: That's a huge chunk of territory. It's hard to imagine a few degrees deciding that. Lucas: But it did. And it also shaped the Philippines. The Spanish arrived there in 1565, and they justified their claim by arguing that the line of Tordesillas, if extended around the globe, put the islands in their half. The Portuguese, of course, said the line actually ran further east, giving them the Philippines. They even fought a few skirmishes over it, but the Spanish won out. Lucas: Now, here's a thought that might resonate with what we've covered before. The line of Tordesillas was drawn in a time when Europeans had almost no accurate knowledge of the world's geography. They were using maps that were often wildly wrong. Columbus thought he was in Asia. So the treaty was based on a misunderstanding of what was actually out there. Luna: It's like they were building an empire on a map made of guesswork. Lucas: And yet that guesswork had real consequences. The line of Tordesillas was the first attempt to divide the non-European world between two European powers, and it set a precedent. Later, at the Congress of Berlin in 1884, European powers would carve up Africa with similar disregard for local populations. The line at Tordesillas was the prototype for that. Lucas: But let's not forget the human toll. The people who lived in these 'discovered' lands didn't get a say in which empire they belonged to. They were subjected to forced labor, conversion, and violence, often justified by the same papal bulls that underlay the treaty. The line was a legal abstraction, but it had very real, very brutal consequences. Luna: That's a heavy thought. But it's important to remember. Lucas: And on a lighter note, the treaty also had some unintended consequences. Because the Spanish were so focused on the west, they missed out on some opportunities in the east. The Portuguese, for example, were able to establish a stranglehold on the spice trade in the Moluccas, which the Spanish never really broke, even after the Treaty of Zaragoza. Lucas: It's also interesting to note that the line of Tordesillas was only legally binding between the two signatories. Other European powers, like the French and the English, never recognized it. They came to the Americas and established colonies anyway, often in territories that Spain claimed under the treaty. So the line was only as strong as the power behind it. Luna: So it was basically a contract between two people that everyone else ignored. Lucas: Pretty much. But it still shaped the world. The modern borders of Brazil, for instance, are largely a result of the Portuguese expansion that the treaty encouraged. The fact that most of South America speaks Spanish except for Brazil is a direct legacy of that line. It's one of those historical accidents that became a permanent reality. Lucas: And you know, thinking about it, we're doing this because we're curious about how these empires formed. And we do it without ads, which is a choice we've made. If you want to support that choice, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure—just if you want to keep the history flowing. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to help us keep doing this. And honestly, we love diving into these stories with you. Lucas: So back to the line. The Treaty of Tordesillas wasn't just a piece of paper—it was a way of thinking about the world. It assumed that the non-European world was a blank slate that Europeans could divide among themselves. That mentality, more than any specific boundary, is what shaped the colonial era for centuries to come. Lucas: And even today, when we look at the map, we can see the echoes of that line. Brazil's eastern bulge, the Spanish-speaking nations of the Americas, the Portuguese-speaking enclave of Goa in India—it all traces back to decisions made in the fifteenth century by kings who had never seen these places. Luna: It's amazing how a line drawn by a pope and two kings still affects us today. Lucas: It is. And it's a reminder that history isn't just about great battles or famous figures. Sometimes it's about a line drawn on a map, and the people who had to live with it.