496 ROYAL SOCIETY OF (^ANADA 



VI. — The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. 



l'i» to the year 14!» 1 the Portuguese hud made no discoveries be- 

 yond the Cape of Good Hope. In seventy years of continued effort 

 alonfr the coast of Africa they had succeeded in reaching the turning 

 p(«int towards the cast and south of Asia. It ^vus not until 1497 that 

 Vasco de Oiima led the way to India by sea — up to 1494 all the discov- 

 eries had been southwards. vSuccessive iwpes had, upon sol icitxition, con- 

 firmed these discoveries and had also adjudged to Portugal the seas and 

 lands discovered or to be discovered from Cape Bojador southward and 

 eastward as far as the Indies, "usque ad Indos." Spain had admitted 

 tlicse claiuis by treaty in 1479, and had bound herself to refrain from 

 interference. Portugal, in the meantime, had sent agents overland to 

 Arabia and India who had reported upon the wealth of these regions, 

 and was prepïiring with confidence to open up the eastern trade \vhen 

 the return of Columbus from his first voyage dissipated her dreams of 

 monopoly ; for lie was supposed to have touched the eastern shore of 

 the long coveted land of spices. It was a bitter disappointment to the 

 King and he at once laid claim to more than the Bulls or the treaty 

 would warrant. Columbus in the interview at Valparaiso assured King 

 John that he had strictly followed the orders of his sovereigns and had 

 avoided the regions conceded to Portug^al, and the same statement was 

 made at Rome when Spain applied for a Bull of confirmation. It was 

 made ^vith truth ; for, whatever theories a few scholars may have held, 

 no one before Columbus seriously attempted to go to the Indies by the 

 west, and all the Bulls, as well as the treaty, had been drawn solely in 

 contemplation of voyages by the south and east. 



The objective point of both nations still lay open to further dis- 

 coveries, though from opposite directions, for neither "usque ad Indos" 

 or "versus Indiam,'" carried an inclusive grant of tlie coveted regions 

 tc either party. As Mr. Ilarrisse properly points out, the Pope had not 

 concerned himself with the other side of the world in laying down his 

 line of demarcation ; but it was, in fact, left to be decided by discovery. 

 With commendable desire to avoid war the two nations entered into 

 negotiation, and the first proposition of Portugal was that the line 

 should run east and west along the parallel of latitude of the Canary 

 Islands, and that the activities of Spain should be confined to the 

 regions north of that line. This was to attribute to the word ''south- 

 ward" of the Portuguese Bulls an absolute jueaning that it would not 

 bear. An attempt was also made to strain the meaning of "usque ad 

 huios,'' and mak(î it cover the Indies whose eastern maryin Columbus 



