ncients.</ref> at Avignon. At this time the kings of Portugal and Castile agreed to set aside their own opposing claims to the archipelago and to help Luis in the enterprise to which the Pope had thus lent his support.[1] But Luis never entered into possession, and Portugal and Castile kept up the struggle for the islands. Papal bulls were issued, favorable now to one and now to the other party, and the question of ownership, which was argued before the Council of Basel in 1435, was not finally settled until 1479, when, by the treaty of Alcaqovas, Portugal ceded the islands to Castile.[2]
The second Castilian-Portuguese controversy concerned Africa, where Portugal was following up her conquest of Ceuta ( 1415) by other military expeditions in Morocco, and by sending caravels southward along the western coast and opening up a trade with Guinea. In 1441 slaves and gold-dust were first brought back to Portugal from beyond Cape Bojador. By 1454 trade with that region had greatly developed[3] so that Cadamosto, the Venetian, wrote that "from no traffic in the world could the like [gain] be had".[4]
The kings of Castile, basing their claims on the same grounds that they had employed in respect to the Canaries--possession by their ancestors, the Visigothic kings--asserted their right to the conquest of the lands of Africa[5] and to Guinea and the Guinea trade. They even imposed a tax upon the merchandise brought from those parts.[6]
The Castilian-Portuguese controversy over the Guinea trade began as early as 1454. On April 10 of that year the King of Castile, John II., wrote a letter[7] to the King of Portugal, Alfonso V., containing complaints and demands in respect to the Canaries, and also in respect to the seizure by a Portuguese captain
- ↑ An incomplete text of the bull and the letters from the kings of Portugal and Castile to the Pope are in Raynaldus, Annales Ecclesiastici, VI. 359-364. The full text of the bull is in C. Cocquelines, Bullarum Collectio, tom. III. ( 1741), pt. II. pp. 296 ff. A French translation (incomplete) is in M. A. P. d'Avezac, Îles de l'Afrique ( 1848), pt. II., pp. 152-153. A facsimile and transliteration of the letter of the King of Portugal to the Pope have been printed by Eugenio do Canto ( Lisbon, 1910). The sermon preached by Clement VI. on the occasion of the appointment of Luis to the lordship of the Canaries is extant, see L. von Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste, I. ( 1901) 91, note. For other references, see Ch. de La Roncière, Histoire de la Marine Française, II. ( 1900), 104-106.
- ↑ Summaries of the statement of the Bishop of Burgos at the Council of Basel, and of the bull of July 31, 1436, are in Alguns Documentos, pp. 3, 4. The article of the treaty of Alcaçovas by which the Canaries were awarded to Castile is to be found ibid., pp. 44-45, and see Doc. 3, introduction.
- ↑ Ch. de Lannoy and H. Vander Linden, L'Expansion Coloniale: Portugal et Espagne ( 1907), pp. 43, 44.
- ↑ Quoted in the introduction to Azurara, Guinea, II. xxii (ed. Beazley and Prestage, Hakluyt Soc., Vol. C., 1899).
- ↑ Bull of July 31, 1436, Algs. Docs., p. 4; bull of Jan. 5, 1443, ibid., p. 7.
- ↑ Navarrete, Viages, I. xxxvii-xxxix. Cf. Doc. 3, note 2.
- ↑ The letter is printed in Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, I. 141-151. A Portuguese translation made from the manuscript of the Historia is in Viscount de Santarem, Quadro Elementar ( 1842- 1876), II. 352-367.
