Latest / The Rise of Colonialism: How Europe Divided the World — Fexingo History / The Forgotten Treaty of Tordesillas: How Spain and Portugal Divided the World
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- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about how Spain and Portugal actually ran their empires — the encomienda, the cartaz system, the Manila Galleon. But I think we skipped over something pretty fundamental: how did they decide who got what in the first place? Luna: You mean like a line on a map? Lucas: Exactly. I'm talking about the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494. It was basically a papal-brokered agreement that drew a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. Everything east went to Portugal, everything west to Spain. And it was completely absurd, but also world-changing. Luna: Absurd how? Lucas: Well, first of all, no one had accurate longitude measurements back then. So even figuring out where that line actually fell on the globe was nearly impossible. And second — the idea that a pope, Alexander VI, could just give away half the planet to two countries? That was a huge claim, and it didn't go unchallenged for long. Lucas: The background is that Columbus had just returned from his first voyage in 1493, and Spain wanted to secure its claims before Portugal could muscle in. So the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, appealed to the pope, who was Spanish-born, by the way — Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI. Luna: Right, the Borgia pope. Lucas: Exactly. Pope Alexander issued a series of bulls, the most famous being Inter Caetera in May 1493. It granted Spain all lands discovered or to be discovered west of a line drawn one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde. Portugal was not happy — King John II felt that line was too close to Africa and would limit Portuguese expansion. Lucas: So the following year, representatives from both kingdoms met in the Spanish town of Tordesillas, and they negotiated a new line: 370 leagues west of Cape Verde. That's the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed June 7, 1494. And interestingly, it moved the line far enough west that it ended up giving Portugal a claim to what would become Brazil. Luna: Wait, so Brazil was basically a lucky accident? Lucas: In a way, yes. When Pedro Álvares Cabral landed on the coast of Brazil in 1500, it fell east of the Tordesillas line — so Portugal had a legitimate claim. But if the line had stayed at 100 leagues, Brazil would have been Spanish. So John II's negotiation was a masterstroke. Lucas: Now, here's something that often gets overlooked: the treaty only applied to the Atlantic. What about the Pacific? When Magellan's expedition crossed the Pacific and reached the Spice Islands in 1521, it sparked another dispute. Both Spain and Portugal claimed the Moluccas were on their side of the line. Luna: How did they resolve that? Lucas: They signed another treaty — the Treaty of Zaragoza in 1529. This time, they drew a line in the Pacific, east of the Moluccas. Portugal paid Spain a huge sum — 350,000 ducats — to keep the islands. But the terms were so complicated that nobody really knew where the line was, and it was never effectively enforced. Luna: So the whole thing was kind of a mess. Lucas: It was. And beyond the practical problems, there was a deeper issue: what gave the pope the right to grant sovereignty over non-Christian lands? That was questioned even at the time. The French king Francis I supposedly said, 'I should like to see the clause in Adam's will that excludes me from the partition of the world.' Lucas: And he wasn't alone. England, the Dutch Republic, and other Protestant powers simply ignored the treaty. They argued that discovery alone wasn't enough — you needed effective occupation. That argument would later become central in the Scramble for Africa. Luna: If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small way to keep this going if you're getting something out of it. So back to the treaty — the Treaty of Tordesillas was actually in force for centuries. It wasn't formally abrogated until 1750, when the Treaty of Madrid superseded it. But by then, other European powers had carved out huge empires in the Americas regardless. Luna: So what was the real legacy of Tordesillas? Lucas: I think the most lasting effect was linguistic and cultural. Today, Brazil speaks Portuguese while the rest of South America speaks Spanish. That's a direct result of that line. And it also set a precedent for European powers dividing the world among themselves without consulting the people who actually lived there. That pattern would repeat over and over. Lucas: There's also a fascinating detail: the treaty included a clause that said if any other Christian power objected, the pope would mediate. But that never happened because the other powers just ignored it. So it was an agreement between two kingdoms that tried to claim a monopoly on the world — and it almost worked, for a while. Luna: Almost. Lucas: Yeah. The Treaty of Tordesillas is a perfect example of how colonialism was as much about legal fictions and paperwork as it was about ships and guns. And it raises a question that's still relevant today: who gets to decide where the lines are drawn?