Treaty of Zaragoza

From Hispanopedia
Treaty of Zaragoza
SignedApril 22, 1529
LocationZaragoza
SignatoriesCharles I of Spain
John III of Portugal
Line of the Treaty of Tordesillas (in purple) and of the Treaty of Zaragoza (in green).

The Treaty of Zaragoza was a peace treaty signed on April 22, 1529, between Spain and Portugal, where Charles I and John III respectively reigned. The Treaty precisely delimited the Portuguese and Spanish zones of influence in Asia.

After the successful westward voyage of the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan in 1519–1521/1522, a dispute arose over the valuable Moluccas, located in the Malay Archipelago. However, Magellan's expedition was very costly, and another expedition to the islands was planned starting in 1525. Led by García Jofre de Loaísa and Juan Sebastián Elcano, the latter a participant in Magellan's expedition, the mission was a failure. The route through the Strait of Magellan and across the Pacific was too dangerous to succeed as a trade route, so Charles I ended up renouncing all Spanish claims to the Moluccas. These islands played an important role in the trade of the Indies as a supplier of spices, and the Spanish King sold them "for little money" (350,000 ducats) to the Portuguese King John III.[1]

Background: the question of the Moluccas

In 1494 Castile and Portugal had signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the world into two zones of exploration and colonization: the Castilian and the Portuguese. This treaty established a meridian in the Atlantic Ocean, with the zones west of the line exclusive to Spain, and those east of the line to Portugal.

During the 16th century, the Portuguese reached the East Indies by sailing around Africa and crossing the Indian Ocean (Malacca in 1509). In 1511, Malacca, then the center of Asian trade, was conquered for Portugal by Afonso de Albuquerque. Upon learning the location of the so-called "Spice Islands" – the Banda Islands, Ternate and Tidore in the Maluku Islands (modern Indonesia), then the world's only source of nutmeg and clove, and also producers of cinnamon and pepper, and the main objective of European explorations in the Indian Ocean – Albuquerque sent an expedition led by António de Abreu in search of the Moluccas, in particular the Banda Islands. The expedition arrived in early 1512, passing en route through the Lesser Sunda Islands, the first Europeans to reach them.[2] Before reaching Banda, the explorers visited the islands of Buru, Ambon and Seram. Later, after a separation forced by a shipwreck, Abreu's vice-captain Francisco Serrão sailed north, but his ship sank off Ternate, where he obtained a license to build a Portuguese fortress-factory: the Forte de São João Baptista de Ternate.

The letters describing the "Spice Islands" from Serrão to Ferdinand Magellan, who was his friend and possibly a cousin, helped Magellan persuade the Spanish Crown to fit out an expedition to conquer those islands.[3][4] On November 6, 1521, the Moluccas, "the cradle of all spices," were reached from the east by the fleet of the late Magellan, which was then sailing under the command of Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa. Magellan and Serrão were unable to meet again because Serrão died on the Island of Ternate at almost the same time that Magellan died in the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines.[5]

After Magellan's expedition reached the Moluccas sailing westward and Juan Sebastián de Elcano returned to Spain with the news, completing the first circumnavigation of the planet, Emperor Charles decided to send a new expedition to establish his rights, commanded by García Jofre de Loaisa.[6] The expedition reached the Moluccas, after many losses of ships and lives, and founded the fort of Tidore. A conflict arose with the Portuguese already established on the island. The Spanish were defeated within a few months, but the survivors managed to hold out during almost a decade of skirmishes for possession of the islands.

Junta of Badajoz–Elvas

In 1524, both kingdoms organized the "Junta of Badajoz–Elvas" to resolve the dispute. Each Crown appointed three astronomers and cartographers, three pilots and three mathematicians, who formed a commission to establish the exact location of the antimeridian of Tordesillas, the intention being to divide the entire world into two equal hemispheres.

The Portuguese delegation sent by King John III included António de Azevedo Coutinho, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira and Lopo Homem, cartographer and cosmographer. The plenipotentiary of Portugal was Mercurio Gâtine, and those of Spain were Count Mercurio Gâtine, García de Loaysa, Bishop of Osma, and García de Padilla, Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava. The former Portuguese cartographer Diogo Ribeiro was part of the Spanish delegation.[7]

It is said that an amusing anecdote took place at this meeting. According to the contemporary Castilian writer Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, a small boy stopped the Portuguese delegation and asked them whether they intended to divide up the world. The delegation replied that they did. The boy responded by showing his backside and suggesting that they draw the line through the crack of his buttocks.[8][9][10]

The junta met several times, in Badajoz and Elvas, without reaching an agreement. The geographical knowledge of the time was inadequate for a precise assignment of longitude, and each group chose maps or globes that showed the islands to be in its own hemisphere.[11] John III and Charles V agreed not to send anyone else to the Moluccas until it was established in which hemisphere they were located.

Map of the Maluku Islands, showing Ternate and Tidore

Between 1525 and 1528, Portugal sent several expeditions to the area around the Maluku Islands. Gomes de Sequeira and Diogo da Rocha were sent by the governor of Ternate, Jorge de Meneses, to Celebes (already visited by Simão de Abreu in 1523) and to the north. The expedition members were the first Europeans to reach the Caroline Islands, which they named the "Islands of Sequeira".[12] Explorers such as Martim Afonso de Melo (1522–24), and possibly Gomes de Sequeira (1526–1527), sighted the Aru Islands and the Tanimbar Islands.[13] In 1526 Jorge de Meneses reached northwestern Papua New Guinea, landing on Biak in the Schouten Islands, and from there sailed to Waigeo on the Bird's Head Peninsula.

On the other hand, in addition to Spain's Loaísa expedition to the Moluccas (1525–1526), the Castilians sent an expedition there across the Pacific, led by Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón (1528) (prepared by Hernán Cortés in Mexico), in order to compete with the Portuguese in the region. Members of García Jofre de Loaísa's expedition were taken prisoner by the Portuguese, who returned the survivors to Europe by the western route. Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón reached the Marshall Islands, and in two failed attempts to return from the Moluccas across the Pacific, he explored part of western and northern New Guinea, also reaching the Schouten Islands and sighting Yapen, as well as the Admiralty Islands and the Carolines.

On February 10, 1525, Charles V's younger sister Catherine of Austria married John III of Portugal, and on March 11, 1526, Charles V married King John's sister Isabella of Portugal. These cross-marriages tightened the bonds between the two Crowns, facilitating an agreement on the Moluccas. The Emperor was interested in avoiding conflict so as to be able to concentrate on his European policy, and the Spanish did not then know how to bring the spices of the Maluku Islands to Europe by the eastern route. The Manila–Acapulco route was not established until 1565, by Andrés de Urdaneta.

Treaty

The Treaty of Zaragoza established that the eastern boundary between the two zones of dominion would lie 297+1⁄2 leagues (1,763 kilometers, 952 nautical miles)[note 1], or 17° east, of the Moluccas. This demarcation line was therefore located approximately near the meridian 135° east of Greenwich.[15] In exchange for thus ceding possession of the Moluccas to Portugal, Emperor Charles V received a payment of 350,000 ducats from the King of Portugal.

The treaty included a safeguard clause establishing that the deal would be undone if at any time the Emperor wished to revoke it, the money they were to pay being refunded to the Portuguese, and each nation "shall have the right and action as it is now." However, that never happened, because the Emperor desperately needed the Portuguese money to finance the War of the League of Cognac against his archenemy Francis I of France.

The treaty neither clarified nor modified the demarcation line established by the Treaty of Tordesillas, nor did it validate Spain's claim to a complete hemisphere of 180°, since the two lines divided the Earth into unequal portions. Portugal's portion represented approximately 191° of the Earth's circumference, while Spain's was approximately 169°. There was a margin of uncertainty of ±4° regarding the exact size of both portions, owing to the variation of opinions about the precise location of the Tordesillas line.[16]

Under the treaty, Portugal obtained control of all lands and seas west of the line, including all of Asia and its neighboring islands (including the Moluccas) "discovered" up to that time, leaving Spain with most of the Pacific Ocean. Although the Philippines were not mentioned in the treaty, Spain implicitly renounced any claim to them, since they lay west of the line. However, in 1542, Emperor Charles V decided to colonize the Philippines, assuming that Portugal would not protest too much because the archipelago had no spices. Although he failed in his attempt, his son King Philip II did succeed in 1565, establishing the first European trading post in Manila. As his father had expected, there was little opposition from the Portuguese.[17]

In reality, Portugal bought the Spanish rights over the islands (which in fact recognized them), including those of ownership, the right of navigation and the right of trade. In addition, the pact included a clause by which the King of Spain could invalidate it in exchange for returning the Portuguese payment.

Among other consequences, the signing of this agreement brought about the disappearance of the Casa de la Especiería of A Coruña, created in 1522 for the purpose of monopolizing the Spanish spice trade.

In later times, Portuguese colonization in Brazil during the Iberian Union extended far west of the line defined in the Treaty of Tordesillas and into what would have been Spanish territory according to the treaty. New boundaries were later drawn in the Treaty of Madrid of 1750, which resulted in the present-day borders of Brazil.

Challenges to the treaty

Dutch Empire at the beginning of its history.

The other European powers did not accept this division of the world between Castilians and Portuguese, and the monopoly over discovery, navigation and trade established in favor of the Iberian powers was challenged by France, England and later by the United Provinces, which believed that papal decisions were not binding and that the treaty was a bilateral commitment applicable only to its signatories.[18] In September 1522 the surviving members of the first circumnavigation of the Earth arrived in Castile. This spurred French merchants to seek new trade routes, and in 1523 King Francis I of France financed expeditions commanded by Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore an area compressed between Florida and Newfoundland with the aim of finding a sea route to the Pacific Ocean. During the 16th century, the Portuguese and Castilians recalled the prohibition that barred foreigners from navigating within their respective dominions, and until then, the Spanish settled in the Philippines, which lay in Portuguese territory according to the agreements of the Treaty of Zaragoza.[18]

Their official vigilance was reduced after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis of 1559, when the Hispanic and French monarchies decided to work actively against the Protestant heresy, and those powers understood that their political influence was at stake as much at sea as on land; the era of the great naval powers began, which competed with one another in various arenas, from theoretical debate to armed conflict.[19] The rivalry among states over discoveries, navigation and trade to the Americas and to Asia provoked a controversy between the supporters of exclusive maritime dominions, mare clausum, and those of the freedom of the seas, mare liberum. In 1609, in his Mare liberum, the Dutchman Hugo Grotius defended the notion that the law of nature and of nations prohibited any appropriation of the high seas, which were considered the common property of all countries, a thesis opposed by the Englishman John Selden in Mare clausum. In the 1640s Spain and Portugal admitted the right of foreigners to navigate in what, for a time, they had considered their part of the world.[18]

Notes

  1. ↑ Using the nautical league of four Roman miles totaling 5.926 km, used by Spain for navigation during the 15th and 16th centuries.[14]

References

  1. ↑ Terra X (2020-04-13). "El viaje de Magallanes alrededor de la Tierra - La aventura de la primera circunnavegación" (in Deutsch).
  2. ↑ Hannard (1991), page 7; Milton, Giles (1999). Nathaniel's Nutmeg. London: Sceptre. pp. 5 and 7. ISBN 978-0-340-69676-7.
  3. ↑ R. A. Donkin, "Between east and west: the Moluccas and the traffic in spices up to the arrival of Europeans", p. 29, Volume 248 of Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, DIANE Publishing, 2003 ISBN 0-87169-248-1
  4. ↑ Hannard, Willard A. (1991). Indonesian Banda: Colonialism and its Aftermath in the Nutmeg Islands. Bandanaira: Yayasan Warisan dan Budaya Banda Naira.
  5. ↑ Duarte Barbosa; Mansel Longworth Dames; Fernão de Magalhães. El libro de Duarte Barbosa: una relación de los países ribereños del Océano Índico y de sus habitantes. New Delhi: ISBN 81-206-0451-2
  6. ↑ The expedition of García Jofre de Loaísa (1525–1526) aimed to occupy and colonize the Moluccas. The fleet of seven ships and 450 men included the most notable Spanish navigators: Juan Sebastián Elcano, who lost his life on this expedition, and the young Andrés de Urdaneta.
  7. ↑ Among the records of the commission, preserved in the Portuguese national archive of Torre do Tombo, is a letter written by Lopo Homem, Portuguese cartographer and cosmographer, alluding to the dispute between the two kingdoms over the sovereign rights of each.
  8. ↑ d'Anghiera, Pietro Martire (1555). "¶ Repartición y división de las Indias y el Nuevo Mundo entre los españoles y los portugueses.". rgn=div2;view=fulltext Las decadas del nuevo mundo o de la India occidental con las nauigaciones y conquistas de los Spanyardes, con la descripcion particular de las mas ricas y grandes tierras e ilandes recientemente encontradas en el oceano occidental pertenecientes a la herencia de los reyes de Spayne. ... ... de la que se desprende que, en la actualidad, la mayor parte de los países de la Unión Europea se encuentran en vías de desarrollo, y que la mayor parte de los países en vías de desarrollo se encuentran en vías de desarrollo (in español). Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. pp. 242-. Retrieved 2018-07-13. {{cite book}}: Check |url= value (help)
  9. ↑ Bergreen, Laurence. Sobre el confín del mundo: La aterradora circunnavegación del globo por Magallanes. 2003. E-book.
  10. ↑ Brotton, Jerry. "Una historia del mundo en 12 mapas". Google Books. July 13, 2018.
  11. ↑ As an example of this partiality, Charles V's principal adviser, Jean Carondelet, owned a globe by Franciscus Monachus that showed the islands in the Spanish hemisphere.
  12. ↑ Antonio Galvano, Richard Hakluyt, C R Drinkwater Bethune, Los descubrimientos del mundo: from their original unto the year of our Lord 1555, The Hakluyt Society, 1862, based on the 1601 English translation of the Portuguese edition published in Lisbon, 1563
  13. ↑ Luis Filipe F. R. Thomaz, La imagen del Archipiélago en la cartografía portuguesa del siglo XVI y principios del XVII, Persee, 1995, Volume 49, p. 56
  14. ↑ Roland Charon, "The linear league in North America", Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70 (1980) 129–153, pp. 142, 144, 151.
  15. ↑ Emma Helen Blair, The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, part 3
  16. ↑ Delaney, John. "Líneas de demarcación". Strait Through: Magellan to Cook & the Pacific (in español). Princeton University Library. Retrieved 2018-04-20.
  17. ↑ Tan, Samuel K. (2008). A History of the Philippines. UP Press. pp. 51–52. ISBN 9789715425681. Retrieved 2018-04-20.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Schnakenbourg Éric. Digital Encyclopedia of European History (ed.). "The Treaty of Tordesillas, June 7, 1494". Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  19. ↑ Achón Insausti José Angel (April 30, 2020). Elkano Fundazioa (ed.). eus/eu/blog/ozeanoa-elkanoren-aurretik-eta-ondoren-4-4/ "Ozeanoa, Elkanoren aurretik eta ondoren (4/4)" (in euskara). Retrieved October 2, 2021. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

Bibliography

Retrieved from "https://en.hispanopedia.com/index.php?title=Treaty_of_Zaragoza&oldid=2208"