Treaty of Tordesillas

Not to be confused with [[:Treaty of Tordesillas (Monaco), of 1524 with Monaco]].

Treaty of Tordesillas

Houses of the Treaty, where the historic treaty was signed in 1494
Country	Spain and Portugal
Type	Memory of the World
Region	Europe
Year	2007

The Cantino planisphere of 1502 is the oldest known graphic representation showing the line of demarcation agreed upon in the Treaty of Tordesillas.

The Treaty of Tordesillas (Portuguese: Tratado de Tordesilhas) was an agreement signed in the Castilian town of Tordesillas on June 7, 1494 between the representatives of Isabella and Ferdinand, monarchs of Castile and Aragon, on one side, and those of King John II of Portugal, on the other. The treaty established a division of the zones of navigation and conquest of the Atlantic Ocean and the New World (America) by means of a line located 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, in order to avoid a conflict of interests between the Crowns of Spain and Portugal. In practice, this agreement guaranteed the Portuguese kingdom that the Spanish would not interfere with its route around the Cape of Good Hope, and vice versa: the former would not do so in the recently discovered Antilles.

Although the name Treaty of Tordesillas refers to the boundary agreement in the Atlantic Ocean, another treaty was also signed in Tordesillas that same day, by which the sea fisheries between Cape Bojador and Río de Oro were delimited, as well as the limits of the Kingdom of Fez in North Africa.

UNESCO granted it the distinction of Heritage of Humanity in 2007 within its category "Memory of the World" as a document shared between Spain and Portugal.

Background

The Treaty of Alcáçovas

Main article: Treaty of Alcáçovas

The Treaty of Tordesillas had as its precedent the Treaty of Alcáçovas, signed on September 4, 1479 between the monarchs Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon and King Afonso V of Portugal, by which the peace that ended the War of the Castilian Succession was sealed. In addition to serving to formalize the end of hostilities, the pact contained other clauses concerning foreign expansion policy, at a time when Castilians and Portuguese were competing for dominion over the Atlantic Ocean and the coasts of Africa. Through the division made by this treaty, the Crown of Castile received the Canary Islands, while the Kingdom of Portugal obtained recognition of its dominion over the islands of Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde, and over Guinea and in general over the African coast: "all that is found and shall be found, conquered or discovered in the said bounds, beyond what is found, occupied or discovered".

Immediate precedent: the first voyage of Columbus

Main article: First voyage of Christopher Columbus

Reconstruction of the itinerary of the first of the four voyages that Columbus made to America, based on the data from the Diary attributed to Columbus.

In 1492 the monarchs of Castile and Aragon authorized Christopher Columbus to carry out a maritime expedition sailing across the Atlantic Ocean toward the west to the Spice Islands. Two caravels took part, the Pinta and the Niña, along with the nao Santa María, under the command of Martín Alonso Pinzón, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and Juan de la Cosa, respectively.

At the end of the 15th century, Eratosthenes' measurement of the circumference of the Earth was known, but some considered valid the calculations of Claudius Ptolemy of 180,000 stadia, which gave a circumference of 28,350 km. The real circumference of the Earth is 40,120 km, a difference of 11,770 km from Ptolemy's calculation, and between the American and Asian coasts there is a maximum arc of approximately 11,200 km. Taking this measurement error into account, and given that since the arrival of Marco Polo in China the eastern coastlines of Asia were known in Europe, Columbus expected to find the coast of Cipango exactly at the present-day location of the Antilles. It should not be forgotten that Eratosthenes' measurement of 252,000 stadia, much closer to reality, was also known; this measurement was put forward in the report requested from the University of Salamanca to rule that Columbus's voyage was impossible.

Evidently Columbus clung to Ptolemy's measurement, and so the ships set out from Palos de la Frontera on August 3, 1492 and headed for the Canary Islands. On September 16 the ships reached the Sargasso Sea and on October 12 they arrived at the island of Guanahani, in the American archipelago of the Bahamas. Columbus continued his journey through the Caribbean Sea, arriving in Cuba on October 28 and at Hispaniola on December 6. On December 24 the Santa María ran aground on the coast of Hispaniola, and Fort Navidad was built with its remains.

The expedition began the return journey on January 16, 1493, and a few days later a storm separated the two ships. The Pinta, under the command of Pinzón, arrived at Bayona (Galicia) at the end of February and announced the discovery to the monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand. Meanwhile, the Niña, on which Columbus was traveling, called on February 17 at the Portuguese island of Santa María, in the Azores, and on March 4 put in at Lisbon, after a voyage of 7 months and 12 days. There he was questioned by King John II and informed him of his discoveries. The Portuguese Monarch immediately claimed ownership of the new lands, alleging rights derived from the Treaty of Alcáçovas. Isabella and Ferdinand, for their part, rejected this claim, arguing that the navigation had always been carried out to the west, "and not south of the Canaries". On the 15th Columbus returned to the port of Palos, and the following month he was received in Badalona by the monarchs.

The Alexandrine bulls

Dividing lines of influence between Spain and Portugal: in purple the line resulting from the Treaty of Tordesillas and in green the one resulting from the Treaty of Zaragoza.

Main article: Bulls of Donation

To affirm Castilian sovereignty over the territories recently found by Columbus, Isabella and Ferdinand requested the help of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), who had been elected in August 1492 and with whom they had a long relationship of mutual favors. The Pope issued four bulls, known as the Alexandrine bulls, dated between May and September 1493: the first Inter caetera, the second Inter caetera, the third Eximiae devotionis and the fourth and last Dudum siquidem. In them he established that the lands and seas west of the meridian located 100 leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde would belong to the Crown of Castile. Excommunication was decreed for all those who crossed said meridian without authorization from the monarchs of Castile.

Negotiation of the treaty

Houses of the Treaty of Tordesillas, the place where the negotiations of the Treaty took place.

After Columbus's return and his stop in Lisbon in March 1493, King John II of Portugal asserted that the discovered islands lay south of the Canaries and interpreted the Treaty of Alcáçovas as awarding them to him, although according to other interpretations that treaty referred only to the African coasts. John II ordered a squadron to be prepared to verify this, for which purpose he detained two Portuguese pilots who had returned with Columbus from the Indies. The arrival of an emissary of the Catholic Monarchs asking him to send ambassadors to Barcelona to discuss the matter led him to suspend the expedition provisionally. Nevertheless, in a letter written in August 1493 Columbus informed the monarchs that the Portuguese had sent a caravel from Madeira toward the west.

John II sent Doctor Pero Dias and his secretary Rui de Pina to his rival monarchs, while in May 1493 the Inter Caetera bulls became known; these—especially the second—were very favorable to the Castilians and dismayed the Portuguese king. Portugal was in practice excluded from the American enterprises, since the imaginary line of demarcation drawn by papal design relegated it to the African coasts, leaving the New World exclusively to Castile. The Catholic Monarchs defended the new situation with the same firmness with which the Portuguese had defended the Treaty of Alcáçovas, since their position was no longer precarious, as they counted on papal support and on the peace signed with the King of France.

Subsequently, the Catholic Monarchs and the Portuguese monarch negotiated a bilateral treaty. The diplomatic delegations met for several months in Tordesillas. According to the Portuguese chronicler Garcia de Resende, John II had a very effective spy network made up of people close to the Catholic Monarchs, whose identity is not known, and a system of mounted couriers who quickly carried the news to Lisbon. The Portuguese ambassadors received from Lisbon secret reports on what the Castilians' negotiating position was going to be, along with direct instructions from King John.

Finally the delegates of both monarchies reached an agreement that was embodied in a treaty, signed on June 7, 1494, today called the Treaty of Tordesillas. On behalf of the Catholic Monarchs it was signed by Enrique Enríquez de Quiñones, mayordomo mayor of the monarchs, Gutierre de Cárdenas, comendador mayor of the Order of Santiago and royal accountant, and Doctor Rodrigo Maldonado; on the Portuguese side it was signed by Ruy de Sousa, his son Juan de Sousa and the magistrate Arias de Almadana. A period of one hundred days was set for its ratification by the respective monarchs; the Catholic Monarchs endorsed it on July 2, 1494 in Arévalo, and John II did so on September 5 of that year in Setúbal. The originals of the treaty are preserved in the General Archive of the Indies in Seville (Spain) and in the National Archive of Torre do Tombo in Lisbon (Portugal).

The Treaty stated that its confirmation by the Holy See would be requested, but it also clearly stipulated that neither party could be exempted from complying with it by invoking a papal "motu proprio". Pope Alexander VI never confirmed the Treaty, and it was not until Julius II that it was confirmed, by means of the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis in 1506.

Content of the Treaty

Original page of the treaty. National Library of Lisbon.

General Archive of the Indies

The essence of the Treaty consisted of agreeing on a new line of demarcation, namely one which, having its ends at both geographic poles, would pass 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. The great difference from the demarcation established in the papal bulls was that the eastern part of South America, the eastern tip of Brazil, was now assigned to Portugal's area of action, which made possible its subjection to Portuguese sovereignty when in 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral arrived on the Brazilian coast.

In his Historia de España, Ramón Menéndez Pidal described the Treaty of Tordesillas as the first modern treaty in European history because, for the first time, alongside the diplomats conducting the talks there were two groups of experts (Spanish and Portuguese) who advised the former on technical matters.

The reason for the treaty was expressed as:

... whereas between the said lords, their principals, there is a certain disagreement as to what belongs to each of the said parties of that which, up to this day of the date of this capitulation, remains to be discovered in the ocean sea ...

The boundary was established as follows:

... that there be drawn and marked across the said Ocean Sea a boundary, or straight line, from pole to pole, that is to say, from the Arctic pole to the Antarctic pole, which is from north to south, which boundary or line shall be drawn, and drawn straight, as has been said, at three hundred and seventy leagues from the islands of Cape Verde, toward the west, by degrees or by any other manner as may best and most quickly be done, so that they be no more...

The assignment of jurisdictions was:

... and that all that has hitherto been found and discovered, and henceforth shall be found and discovered by the said lord of Portugal, and by his ships, both islands and mainland, from the said boundary and line drawn in the aforesaid manner, going toward the said eastern part within the said boundary toward the east, or the north, or the south of it, so long as it is not by crossing the said boundary, that this be, remain and belong to the said lord king of Portugal and to his successors, forever and ever; and that all the rest, both islands and mainland, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, which are or shall be found by the said lords king and queen of Castile, and of Aragon, etc., and by their ships, from the said boundary drawn in the aforesaid manner, going toward the said western part, after passing the said boundary toward the west, or the north, or the south of it, that all of it be, remain and belong to the said lords king and queen of Castile, of León, etc., and to their successors forever and ever.

The parties committed themselves—with the obligation to hand over what they found should they fail to comply—not to send expeditions into the jurisdiction of the other:

... that from this day forward they shall not send any ships; that is to say, the said lords king and queen of Castile, and of León, and of Aragon, etc., to this side of the boundary toward the east, on this side of the said boundary, which remains for the said lord king of Portugal and of the Algarves, etc., nor the said lord king of Portugal to the other side of the said boundary, which remains for the said lords king and queen of Castile, and of Aragon, etc., to discover and seek any lands or islands, nor to trade, nor barter, nor conquer in any manner whatsoever...

Spanish ships were granted free navigation through the waters of the Portuguese side in order to travel to America:

... the said ships of the said lords king and queen of Castile, of León, of Aragon, etc., may go and come, and shall go and come freely, safely and peacefully without any opposition through the said seas that remain with the said lord king of Portugal, within the said boundary, at all times, and whenever and as often as Their Highnesses and their successors may wish and see fit; which ships shall go by their direct paths and routes from their kingdoms to any part of what is within their boundary and limit... they may not depart from them, save insofar as contrary weather may force them to depart...

Bearing in mind that the Second voyage of Columbus was under way, it was also agreed that if, up to June 20, 1494, the navigators of Castile and Aragon discovered any island or mainland between 250 and 370 leagues, from pole to pole, from Cape Verde, these should remain for the Spanish monarchs. This did not happen, since Columbus did not approach South America on his first two voyages.

And that all the islands and mainland which, up to the said twentieth day of this month of June in which we are, may be found and discovered by the ships of the said lords king and queen of Castile, and of Aragon, etc., and by their people, or in any other manner, within the other one hundred and twenty leagues that remain to complete the said three hundred and seventy leagues, at which the said boundary is to end, which is to be drawn from pole to pole, as has been said, in any part of the said one hundred and twenty leagues toward the said poles, which may be found up to the said day, shall be and remain for the said lords king and queen of Castile and of Aragon, etc.,

Treaty on fisheries in Africa and on the Kingdom of Fez

The second treaty signed in Tordesillas on June 7, 1494 established a 3-year ban on the Spanish, during which they could not fish in the waters between Cape Bojador and Río de Oro and farther south, but they could raid the adjacent Muslim coast. North of Cape Bojador both countries could fish and raid the coast. The zones of influence in the Kingdom of Fez were delimited at the town of Cazaza, toward the east.

Demarcation of the boundary line

First lines of demarcation proposed for the Treaty of Tordesillas (1495–1545).

The Treaty of Tordesillas only specified the line of demarcation as a straight line from pole to pole 370 leagues due west of the Cape Verde islands. It did not specify the line in degrees of meridian, nor how many leagues made up a degree, nor did it identify the island from which the 370 leagues were to be counted. The treaty declared that these matters would be established by a joint expedition, which was never carried out.

... so that the said line or boundary of the said partition may be drawn, and drawn straight, and as accurately as possible, at the said three hundred and seventy leagues from the said islands of Cape Verde toward the west, as has been said, it is agreed and settled by the said representatives of both the said parties that, within the first ten months following, counted from the day of the date of this capitulation, the said lords, their principals, shall send two or four caravels, that is to say, one or two from each party, or fewer, as the said parties may agree are necessary, which shall be gathered by the said time at the island of Gran Canaria ... which said ships, all together, shall continue their course to the said islands of Cape Verde, and from there shall take their straight route to the west as far as the said three hundred and seventy leagues, measured as the said persons who thus go shall agree they should be measured, without prejudice to the said parties, and there where they end the appropriate point and mark shall be made, by degrees of the Sun or of the North, or by the day's run in leagues, or as they may best be able to agree.

Once the agreed ten-month period had expired without the experts of both parties having met, it was agreed on April 15, 1495 that the meeting would take place in July 1495 at some border point, but this did not take place either. The demarcation of the boundary was never carried out, and each party interpreted the treaty to its own advantage.

Difficulties in establishing the position of the line

The navigators of the time did not agree on how many leagues there were in a degree of meridian; among the Spanish, opinions ranged among 14 and 1/6, 15, 16 and 2/3, 17 and 1/2, and 21 and 3/8 leagues per degree. The same was true among the Portuguese, among whom there were opinions of 18, 20 or 25 leagues per degree. The size of the terrestrial sphere was not then known exactly, and therefore the distance between each meridian varied according to the length attributed to the sphere; this meant that, even if there was agreement on how many leagues there were in a degree of longitude, its distance in kilometers would vary according to the size attributed to the Earth, and to the latitude at which it was measured. At that time it was possible to determine latitude by observing the pole star with a quadrant or an astrolabe, but for determining longitude the only way to fix distances at sea, and the only, very imprecise, way to determine it, was by means of the time taken to cover a given distance. This required constant speeds, and moreover there were no accurate clocks.

Although the Portuguese knew how to navigate by determining latitude, Columbus and the other Spanish navigators sailed using the compass. It was then believed that, if one sailed over the Earth's surface keeping a fixed direction with the compass, the path traveled was a great circle, and a ship following a fixed course would end up going around the world and returning to its point of departure. This concept is reflected in the use of the word derecha ("straight") in the treaty. Pedro Nunes was the first to point out the falsity of this belief and to discover loxodromic lines, which he presented on publishing in 1537 the volumes Tratado sobre navegación marítima and Tratado sobre algunas dudas de la época sobre navegación marítima. When following a fixed course one cannot return to the point of departure, and the path approaches one of the poles asymptotically. Maps of the period show the distortions caused by this error, drawing a line that passed through the poles only at the meridian of origin, for example the Cantino planisphere of 1502, which is the oldest known Portuguese representation in which the Tordesillas line appears. The line of demarcation was located halfway between Cape San Roque, the northeastern extreme point of South America, and the estuary of the Amazon River, at approximately 42°30'W, and it is distorted, leaving all of Greenland, Newfoundland and part of Labrador in the Portuguese hemisphere. To the south it penetrates farther west into South America, leaving Cape of Santa Marta to the east. The error of drawing maps on the basis of magnetic bearings, which was the knowledge existing when the treaty was signed, favored the Portuguese, who thus enlarged their territories in Brazil, and therefore it was maintained in their maps and claims.

The first Spanish opinion on the position of the treaty line was that of the Catalan Jaume Ferrer de Blanes in 1495, made at the request of the monarchs of Castile and Aragon. Ferrer considered that the line of demarcation should be established 18° (at 20 and 5/8 leagues per degree) west of the most central of the Cape Verde islands, the island of Fogo (which according to him lay at 15°W), establishing that the treaty line lay at 42°25'W, but he believed the size of the terrestrial sphere to be 21.1% larger than it actually is. Ferrer also established that the league should be 32 Olympic stadia (6.15264 km); in this way Ferrer's line coincided with the meridian 45°37'W. To resolve the problem he proposed a voyage in triangular form, but he did not know that he was calculating by a loxodromic line and not by an arc of a great circle.

Map of Juan de la Cosa (1500). The New World is shown in the upper part (in green) and the Old World in the central and lower part (in white).

On the map of Juan de la Cosa of 1500 there appears a line from pole to pole titled liña meridional that passes through the Cape Verde islands. Some speculate that it could be the first known graphic representation referring to the Treaty of Tordesillas, if it was the line of origin from which the 370 leagues were to be counted.

In 1518 the Spaniard Martín Fernández de Enciso placed the line at 47°24'W, but he believed the terrestrial sphere to be 7.7% smaller than it is, so that his line passed at 45°38'W.

Junta of Badajoz and Elvas of 1524

Because of the dispute over the Moluccas, between March 1 and May 31, 1524 experts from both Crowns met, among them, for Spain, the navigators Tomás Durán, Sebastián Gaboto and Juan Vespucio, who gave their opinion to the Junta of Badajoz-Elvas, which was established to rule on the dispute. They specified that the line should lie 22° from 9 miles west of the center of the island of San Antonio, the westernmost of the Cape Verde islands (they maintained that there were 17.5 leagues in a degree). The terrestrial sphere then considered was 3.1% smaller than the present one, so that the line fixed at 47°17'W in reality corresponds to 46°36'W. The map used by the Spanish side was the Totius Orbis Descriptio Tam Veterum Quam Recentium Geographorum Traditionibus Observata Novum by Juan Vespucio, printed in Italy in 1524. The Portuguese presented to the Junta of Badajoz-Elvas a map on which the line was marked at 21°30' west of San Antonio. The meetings ended without reaching an agreement.

Treaty of Zaragoza

The Treaty of Tordesillas did not designate a line as a great meridian circle, only a straight line from the north pole to the south pole. The concept of the antipode or of the opposite hemisphere was not taken into account at the time, but years later both parties attempted to use the treaty to delimit their zones of influence in Asia. The Treaty of Zaragoza was signed on April 22, 1529 between Spain and Portugal, where Charles I and John III respectively reigned, and it fixed the spheres of influence of Portugal and Spain at 297.5 leagues east of the Moluccas. This line of demarcation was therefore located near the meridian 135°E.

Junta of Badajoz and Elvas of 1681

When the Portuguese founded Colonia del Sacramento on the left bank of the Río de la Plata in 1680, the Governor of Buenos Aires responded by razing the settlement, whereupon Portugal lodged a claim with the Spanish Crown. On May 17, 1681 a provisional treaty was signed in Lisbon that reproduced the juntas of Badajoz and Elvas of 1524, since commissioners of both parties were to be appointed who would meet alternately in Badajoz and Elvas in order, within a period of two months, to issue an opinion on the position of the Tordesillas line, submitting to an arbitration award by Pope Innocent XI should no solution be found.

The junta deliberated between November 4, 1681 and January 22, 1682. The Portuguese commissioners claimed that the 370 leagues should be counted from the western end of the Island of San Antonio, and the Spanish from the center of San Nicolás. It was agreed that the points through which each of the two proposed lines would pass should be verified and, once these were determined, the island of origin would be established.

The second difficulty arose when they could not agree on which charts would serve as a reference: the Spanish wanted them to be those made by Dutch cartographers, while the Portuguese sought to use their own charts, those made by Pedro Nunes, Juan Texeira and Juan Texeira de Albornoz. According to the Dutch charts, Colonia del Sacramento lay in Spanish territory, but according to the Portuguese ones, the line could pass 13 leagues to the west (if San Antonio Island was taken) or 19 to the east (if San Nicolás was taken).

As there was no agreement, it was decided to refer the decision to the Pope. Spain sent the Duke of Jovenazo to Rome, but Portugal sent no one, and the Pope let the one-year period fixed for the award elapse.

Violation of the treaty

World map of Domingos Teixeira (1573).

In its colonization of the American continent, Portugal violated the demarcation of the Treaty of Tordesillas by gradually advancing from Brazil toward the west and south of South America before the Treaty of Madrid of 1750, which annulled the Tordesillas line.

Map by Luís Teixeira (c. 1574) with the division of Brazil into hereditary captaincies. The Tordesillas line is shifted ten degrees farther west, following loxodromic bearings.

In 1532 the Portuguese King John III created the system of hereditary captaincies to colonize Brazil; he granted to Pero Lopes de Sousa the Captaincy of Santana, which extended from Isla de Mel in the Cananéia group to Laguna, which much later was considered in Portugal to be the extreme point of its territory in South America, that is, where they believed the Tordesillas line passed.

Although this was largely due to the difficulty that existed in the 15th century in determining longitude, the Portuguese far exceeded the borders assigned to them by the Tordesillas line, justifying their attitude by the difficulty of fixing longitudes (the location of the meridians) owing to the imprecision of the instruments of the time (back then, to indicate longitudes or meridians, approximate calculations were made in which the most suitable resource was usually the log line; not until the middle of the 18th century did England develop precise chronographs (Harrison's chronometer, invented in 1765) which, combined with sextants, made it possible to locate the position of meridians with considerable precision).

These difficulties meant that on various Portuguese maps the mouth of the Río de la Plata and even the Strait of Magellan appeared as located east of the Tordesillas line, that is, as territories of Brazil. In other cases, maps were falsified by shifting the land eastward so as to include it in the Portuguese zone, as may have happened with the Caverio planisphere drawn between 1504 and 1505.

Furthermore, for sixty years the treaty ceased to have legal meaning, since between 1580 and 1640 Spain and Portugal had the same Spanish monarch in a dynastic union aeque principaliter under the House of Austria, and the monarchs granted Portuguese explorers captaincies and concessions in the Amazon basin. Thus, from 1580 onward, Portuguese merchants and settlers could establish themselves without concern beyond the said meridian, penetrating deep into the Brazilian jungle. In this way, when the independence of Portugal took place in 1640, it kept the possessions acquired up to then far to the west of the demarcation of the Treaty of Tordesillas by virtue of the precept uti possidetis ite possideatis.

Alleged treaty marker in Cananéia

During the third voyage of Américo Vespucio to the New World, on February 15, 1502, the Portuguese expedition under the command of Gonzalo Coelho, on reaching an approximate latitude of 25º 35' S, which corresponds to Cardoso Island in the Cananéia group, held a council that decided whether to continue the voyage through the Spanish dominions; there Américo Vespucio assumed command of the expedition. In 1767, on the beach of Itacuruçá on Cardoso Island, a piece of marble measuring 80 by 40 by 20 centimeters was found embedded in the ground and carved with the coat of arms of Portugal. Magnaghi believes that the column could only have been placed by Vespucci's 1502 expedition to mark the Tordesillas line, although others suppose that it was Martim Afonso de Sousa in 1531. The marker remained on the island until 1841, when the minister of the Empire of Brazil, the Baron of Capanema, removed it and took it to the Imperial Museum in Rio de Janeiro. There is a replica at the same place where the original piece was found, at 25°06′27.44″S 47°53′43.43″W.

Abolition of the treaty

The Treaty of Madrid of 1750, signed between the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Portugal, annulled the Treaty of Tordesillas and any other complementary treaty:

Article I: The present treaty shall be the sole foundation and rule to be followed henceforth for the division and limits of the dominions in all of America and in Asia; and by virtue of it shall be abolished any right and action that the two Crowns may allege on account of the bull of Pope Alexander VI, of happy memory, and of the treaties of Tordesillas, of Lisbon and of Utrecht, of the deed of sale executed in Zaragoza, and of any other treaties, conventions and promises whatsoever; all of which, insofar as it concerns the line of demarcation, shall be of no value or effect, as if it had not been determined, remaining in all other respects in full force and vigor. And in the future the said line shall no longer be discussed, nor may this means be used for the decision of any difficulty that may arise concerning the limits, but only the frontier prescribed in the present articles, as an invariable rule and much less subject to controversy.

However, the Treaty of Madrid was annulled by the Treaty of El Pardo of 1761, which restored the Tordesillas line until it was definitively abandoned by the Treaty of San Ildefonso of October 1, 1777.

Present day

Most current Brazilian historical maps show the line of demarcation at 48° 42'W, passing near the cities of Belém and Laguna. In the latter, a commemorative monument or treaty marker was built in 1975. The line corresponds to where the Captaincy of Santana ended according to the letter of donation of January 21, 1535.

Hispanic American maps generally show the line passing through Cananéia, coinciding with the capitulation signed on August 21, 1536 between Queen Joanna and Gregorio de Pesquera Rosa, by which he was granted benefits over 50 leagues of coast: la tierra adentro que comienza desde donde dicen la Cananea hazia el rio de Santa Catalina ("the land inland that begins from where they call la Cananea toward the river of Santa Catalina").

In 1994 the 5th Centenary of the Treaty was celebrated. In 2007 Spain and Portugal registered the treaty with UNESCO as documentary heritage recommended for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register of the Memory of the World Programme. Together with the General Archive of Simancas, which obtained this recognition in 2017, they are the only two documentary historical heritage items of the Province of Valladolid that form part of said register.

See also

• List of World Heritage Sites in Spain
• General Archive of Simancas

Bibliography

• Boorstin, Daniel J. (1983). Los descubridores (in español). Barcelona: Editorial Crítica (published 2000). ISBN 84-8432-062-6.
• Davenport, Frances Gardiner (1917). European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies. Clark, New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. (published 2004). ISBN 1-58477-422-3. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

External links

• Texto completo del Tratado de Tordesillas (full text of the Treaty of Tordesillas) (in Spanish)
• Tratado de Tordesillas digital copy of the original preserved in the General Archive of the Indies, Portal Pares (in Spanish)
• Parte del texto del tratado (part of the text of the treaty) (in Spanish)
• El Tratado de Tordesillas y su proyección en el Pacífico, by Lourdes Díaz-Trechuelo. (in Spanish)