Essays in Historical Criticism/The Demarcation Line of Pope Alexander VI.

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Essays in Historical Criticism
by Edward Gaylord Bourne
The Demarcation Line of Pope Alexander VI.
4147598Essays in Historical Criticism — The Demarcation Line of Pope Alexander VI.Edward Gaylord Bourne

THE DEMARCATION LINE OF POPE
ALEXANDER VI.

 




THE DEMARCATION LINE OF POPE
ALEXANDER VI.
[1]

The history of the Line of Demarcation established by Pope Alexander VI., separating the Spanish and Portuguese fields of discovery and colonization, has received comparatively little attention from English writers.[2] So far as I have been able to learn, no satisfactory or reasonably complete single account of the subject from beginning to end exists in the language. In view of the approaching period of Columbian anniversaries and the reawakened interest in all things pertaining to the discovery of the New World, a brief history of this curious yet momentous transaction will be appropriate.

Columbus, upon his return from his first voyage, landed near Palos, March 15, 1493. He promptly despatched a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella giving an account of his discoveries.[3] They replied March 30, and by the middle of April, Columbus was in Barcelona in the presence of the Catholic sovereigns. On the 3d of May, Pope Alexander VI., in response to their request, issued his first Bull granting the sovereigns exclusive rights over the newly discovered lands. Evidently no time was lost. Why this appeal to the Pope, and why such haste, are questions which at once suggest themselves.

The pretensions of the later Popes of the Middle Ages to the sovereignty of the world are well known to historical students. It became not uncommon for the Popes to grant all territory wrested from the infidels to the victorious Christian prince. Among the many examples of the exercise of this divine sovereign right, the papal grants to Portugal in the latter half of the fifteenth century form important links in the chain of events under discussion. Nicolas V.,[4] June 18, 1452, authorized Alphonso V. of Portugal to attack and subdue any or all Saracen, pagan, and other infidel communities whatsoever, to reduce their inhabitants to perpetual servitude, and to take possession of all their property. Any one who attempted to infringe or defeat this grant would incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed Peter and Paul Apostles.[5] After a short interval, Jan. 8, 1454, Nicolas issued a Bull in which, after reviewing with praise the zeal of Prince Henry in making discoveries and his desire to find a route to southern and eastern shores even to the Indians, he granted to King Alfonso all that had been or should be discovered south of Cape Bojador and Cape Non toward Guinea and "ultra versus illam meridionalem plagam" as a perpetual possession. Intruders would be visited with excommunication.[6]

These rights were confirmed by Sixtus IV., in a Bull issued June 21, 1481, which granted to the Portuguese Order of Jesus Christ spiritual jurisdiction in all lands acquired from Cape Bojador "ad Indos." This Bull also contained and sanctioned the treaty of 1480 between Spain and Portugal, by which the exclusive right of navigating and of making discoveries along the coast of Africa, with the possession of all the known islands of the Atlantic except the Canaries, was solemnly conceded to Portugal.[7]

Enough has been cited to show that the appeal to the Pope was natural. I venture to conjecture that in these papal grants to Portugal we may find a clew to the real cause why Columbus failed to enlist the support of the Portuguese King John II., for his project to reach the Indies by sailing westward. Our scanty sources give us two or three different reasons, such as that Columbus made excessive demands upon the king, and that the king hesitated by reason of the great effort and heavy expense already incurred in the conquest of Guinea.[8]

The Portuguese had come to consider it only a question of time when they should reach the Indies by sailing around Africa, and the exclusive use of that route was secured to them by papal Bulls and a treaty with their only rivals. Is it not likely then, that the real reason why they had no encouragement for Columbus was that they thought it not worth while? They had a sure thing of the African route and only time was needed to develop it. Why then waste time and money on a mere possibility?[9] Spain, on the other hand, had no chance at all at the Indies, unless they could be reached, as Columbus proposed, by sailing westward.

Returning now to our second query, why so prompt an appeal to the Pope? Columbus recorded in his journal, March 9, 1493, that in their interview, King John of Portugal had affirmed that by the treaty of 1480 this new conquest would belong to him. Columbus promptly replied that he had not been in the direction of Guinea. We can feel almost certain that this remark of King John's was reported by Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella,[10] and that they felt prompt action to be necessary. Apparently King John took some definite action to formulate and maintain his claim, for Raynaldus states that a contention arose between the sovereigns of Castile and Portugal over the new realm.[11]

Further, the instructions given to the Spanish ambassador to the Pope, as Herrera reports them, are quite explicit in stating that the discoveries had been made without the slightest encroachment on the possessions of Portugal.[12] It was also stated that some learned men were of opinion that by reason of the admiral having taken possession of the new countries, there was no need of the Pope's confirmation or donation, yet as obedient children to the Holy See and pious princes their Catholic Majesties desired his Holiness to grant them the lands already discovered or that should be discovered. The Bull was issued with the consent of the whole Sacred College.[13][14]

Traces of this contention between Portugal and the Spanish sovereigns are to be found in the Bull of May 3, 1493, of which the following are the essential points.

After briefly reciting the zeal of the Catholic sovereigns in extending the gospel, which was signally shown by their promotion of the voyage of Columbus,[15] and enjoining upon them perseverance in the work, the Pope grants them full possession of all lands discovered and to be discovered, which are not under the dominion of Christian princes. "Further, because some of the kings of Portugal have acquired rights in parts of Africa through the Apostolic See, we grant you and your successors exactly the same rights just as fully as if here expressed in detail."[16] It is clear from this passage that King John's attitude, and back of that, the earlier papal Bulls to Portugal, were the occasion of this appeal to the Pope.

In this first Bull there is no reference to any dividing line. The Spaniards can discover and hold any lands hitherto unknown and not in the possession of a Christian prince.

But no sooner was this Bull promulgated than it was superseded by another in which the unlimited grants and the whole passage of some twenty lines, referring to the previous grants to Portugal and bestowing the same rights on Spain in the newly discovered lands, were omitted. Humboldt remarked that only the Papal Archives could reveal the secret of that change in twenty-four hours.[17] There is little reason now to expect light from that quarter.[18]

It is possible that when the Bull of May 3 appeared the ambassador or some representative of King John protested, and declared that the rights of the king of Portugal were based on decrees and that they must be respected, and not obscured or diminished.[19] It seems more likely, however, that the protest issued from the representatives of Ferdinand and Isabella who pressed for a delimitation of the Spanish possessions from the Portuguese to avoid future contests.[20]

By the new Bull of May 4,[21] a line was to be drawn from the North to the South Pole, one hundred leagues west and south of any one of the islands known as the Azores and Cape Verd Islands.[22] All lands discovered and to be discovered to the west and south of this line whether toward India or any other direction, not in the possession of any Christian prince at Christmas, 1492, should belong exclusively to Spain. No one else could frequent them either for trade or any other reason without special permission of the Spanish sovereigns.[23] This Bull apparently met the instructions of the Spanish and Portuguese envoys, but it did not satisfy the home governments.

To reach the Indies was the prime object of both Spain and Portugal. The Bull of Sixtus IV. to Portugal had mentioned the Indies by name, and unless Spain received a grant to all parts of the Indies reached by sailing west, not yet occupied by a Christian prince, her efforts might prove in vain. Probably the Pope was asked to remedy this defect, for on September 25, 1493, he issued a new Bull which made the full rights before granted apply in detail to all lands already found or that shall be found sailing west or south, which are in the western, or southern, or eastern regions, or India.[24] The Spaniards now had free scope for their western expeditions. There is no hint as yet of a demarcation line on the other side of the globe. That King John was dissatisfied with the Bulls of May 3 and 4 appears from the letter of Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus of September 5, 1493.[25] He protested at Rome that their Catholic Majesties broke in upon his limits, but the Pope replied that he had drawn a boundary line.[26] After the Bull of September 25 he was even more displeased. Rumors came to Spain that he had despatched an expedition to the New World.[27] Envoys were sent back and forth and it was learned that he objected to the Spaniards sailing south of the Canaries and proposed an east and west demarcation line on that parallel.[28]

King John would not submit the matter to arbitration, and brought heavy pressure to bear upon the Pope to make a change, but in vain; apparently the trouble would have ended in war, just what the establishment of the boundary was designed to avoid, had not the flourishing condition of Spain restrained him. He particularly protested against being confined to so narrow a space in the great ocean as would be bounded by a line only 100 leagues west of his own islands.[29]

This was a real grievance. Experience had shown the Portuguese pilots that a direct southerly course down the African coast was subject to delays by calms, adverse currents, and unfavorable winds. Vasco de Gama recommended that Cabral on his voyage to India in 1500 should sail south-west until he reached the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, when he should sail due east, availing himself of the trade winds. This course would be safer and quicker.[30] The Spanish sovereigns felt it safe to concede something, for Columbus had estimated the distance from the Canaries to the new lands as something over 900 leagues. Three plenipotentiaries from each kingdom met at Tordesillas, and June 7, 1494, signed the treaty of that name. The new dividing line was drawn 370 leagues[31] west of the Cape Verd Islands, a point according to their information almost exactly halfway between the Cape Verd Islands and the new discoveries.

Within ten months each party must despatch one or two caravels which should meet at the Grand Canary; along with them should be sent pilots, astrologers, and mariners; thence all should proceed to the Cape Verd Islands and measure off by leagues or degrees 370 leagues. If the line ran through any island, a tower was to be erected to mark it.[32] This treaty was to be perpetual and the sanction of the Pope was to be asked for it.[33] But Alexander VI. made no further effort to satisfy both sides. The treaty was also despatched to Columbus at the earliest opportunity to secure his assent as it affected his privileges, but he never assented to it and always relied upon the original line in preferring his claims.[34] Nor did the new arrangement receive papal sanction until the Bull of Julius II., obtained at the instance of King Emmanuel of Portugal, was granted January 24, 1506.[35] The last Bull on these matters is that of Leo X. on November 3, 1514. During the year he had received a glowing account of Portugal's eastern discoveries and a splendid embassy from the King Emmanuel with presents of eastern products.[36] In response he issued a Bull filling forty-five printed pages which included and confirmed all the previous Bulls giving Portugal rights in the east. More than that it grants to Portugal all past and future conquests and discoveries, not only from Cape Bojador to the Indians but everywhere else even in parts then unknown.[37] Curiously enough no reference is made to Alexander's Demarcation Bulls.

The second part of my subject, the determination of the line, was beset with difficulties. The primary difficulty lay in the fact, that if the line ever should be taken to determine disputed boundaries it would have to be located with exactness, and to measure longitude with accuracy was entirely beyond the science of the time.[38]

There were no chronometers; the modern chronometer dates from 1748. Their astronomical tables were very defective, and the very first step, agreement as to length of a degree on a great circle, could not be reached, as the first accurate measurement was not made until 1669. Probably these difficulties did not exist for Pope Alexander.

Humboldt suggested that the Demarcation Line was placed 100 leagues west of the Azores in order that it might coincide with the meridian of magnetic no-variation, whose existence Columbus had discovered on his first voyage. Columbus noted other physical changes 100 leagues west of the Azores. On this hypothesis, it would always have been possible for the mariner to know when he crossed the Demarcation Line. Here would have been a genuine "scientific frontier."[39] But the line was moved and thus a dispute opened which Contarini, in 1525, believed would never be settled.[40]

Ferdinand and Isabella took up the matter promptly. The eminent cosmographer Jayme Ferrer was asked in August, 1493, to bring his charts and instruments to Barcelona. In February, 1495, he sent on a rude method of determination.[41] In April of that year the convention of pilots, astrologers, and mariners provided for in the treaty of Tordesillas was appointed for July. After agreeing upon a method of calculation each party was to proceed to the determination of the line. If either party found land where the line ought to fall, word was to be despatched to the other, who within ten months after receiving word must send to mark it.[42] All maps made thereafter must contain the line.[43]

The first appearance of the Demarcation Line on a map that is preserved is on the so-called Cantino Map, of 1502, where it cuts off the portion of the newly discovered Brazil, east of the mouth of the Amazon, as belonging to Portugal.[44]

The Demarcation Line next plays a part of controlling importance in the history of the first voyage around the world. The most telling argument that Magellan advanced in favor of his expedition, and as it seems to me, beyond doubt the decisive one with Charles V., was that the Moluccas or the Spice Islands, the pearl of the precious Indies, lay within the Spanish half of the world. This appears clearly in the account of Maximilianus Transylvanus, a source of the highest value on this point, as he was son-in-law to a brother of Christopher Haro.[45] He tells us that Magellan and Christopher Haro an India merchant having been unjustly treated by the king of Portugal, came to Spain; "and they both showed Cæsar[46] that it was not yet quite sure whether Malacca was within the confines of the Spaniards or the Portuguese, because, as yet, nothing of the longitude had been clearly proved, yet it was quite plain that the Great Gulf and the people of Sinae lay within the Spanish boundary. This, too, was held to be most certain, that the islands which they call the Moluccas, in which all spices are produced, and are thence exported to Malacca, lay within the Spanish western division, and that it was possible to sail there; and that spices could be brought thence to Spain more easily, and at less expense and cheaper, as they came direct from their native place."[47] According to Correa, Magellan told the officials of the House of Commerce in Seville, that Malacca and Maluco, the "islands in which cloves grow, belonged to the Emperor on account of the Demarcation Line," and that he could prove it. They replied that they knew he was speaking the truth, but it could not be helped because the Emperor "could not navigate through the sea within the demarcation of the king of Portugal. Magellan said to them: 'If you would give me ships and men I would show you navigation to those parts, without touching any sea or land of the king of Portugal.'"[48]

As has been already remarked, to get at the land of spices was the prime object of all the age of discovery. As the papal grants to Portugal of the exclusive use of the eastern route to the Indies made it an object for Ferdinand and Isabella to promote the projects of Columbus to reach the land of spices and thus led to the discovery of America, so the establishment of the Demarcation Line, coupled with the same unfailing attraction exerted by the land of spices, after the new world was found not to be the Indies, led Charles V. to welcome Magellan's plan to find an all Spanish route to these precious islands and to prove that they belonged to Spain, and thus opened the way for another of the greatest exploits in the history of the race.[49] The value of the spice trade and the consequent strength of this inducement may be gathered from these facts. Navarrete prints a document of the year 1536 which estimated that an annual income of 600,000 ducats could be derived from the Moluccas if a regular factory were established there for the development of the spice trade.[50] The value of the gold and silver that Spain derived yearly from America is variously estimated, but the contemporary estimates fall short of this estimated value of the spice trade.[51] The "Victoria," the surviving ship of Magellan's expedition, reached Seville September 8, 1522, having justified all the heroic leader's assertions to the satisfaction of the Spanish authorities.[52]

The question of the proprietorship of the Moluccas now became a pressing one, for Portugal had no intention of allowing Spain to steal in at the back door of her treasure house. February 4, 1523, Charles V. sent two ambassadors to the king of Portugal to propose an expedition to determine the line of Demarcation and in the mean while the observance of a closed season at the Moluccas.[53] They asserted the Spanish ownership of the Moluccas.[54] The king of Portugal refused the terms proposed.

January 25, 1524, plenipotentiaries were appointed and by February 19, it was agreed that each side should appoint three astrologers and three pilots as scientific experts, and three lawyers as judges of documentary proofs, to meet in convention in March on the boundary of Spain and Portugal between Badajos and Yelves. Meanwhile neither side should send vessels to the Moluccas until the end of May.[55]

At this famous assemblage, known as the Badajos Junta, we find among the Spanish experts Ferdinand Columbus and Sebastian del Cano who had accompanied Magellan, and as advisers, Sebastian Cabot and Juan Vespucci, the nephew of Amerigo.

The first session opened April 11, on the bridge over the Caya, the boundary line, and thereafter the meetings were held alternately in Badajos and Yelves, dragging along till May 31. Even the street urchins followed with curious eyes the men who were dividing the world.[56] The lawyers could not agree as to priority of possession,[57] while the scientific experts could not agree upon the longitude of the Moluccas within 46 degrees, one-eighth of the earth's surface. The Spanish judges reported the Moluccas inside their line by thirty degrees.[58] Apart from the insuperable difficulties of calculating the longitude exactly, no agreement could be reached as to the starting point. The Spaniards asserted that the measurement ought to begin at San Antonio, the most westerly of the Cape Verd Islands, for, as the line had been moved at the king of Portugal's request and not so far west by thirty degrees as he had desired, it was only reasonable to take the westernmost island. The Portuguese quibbled; as the treaty said "islands" and that the expedition to fix the line should sail from the Canaries to the Cape Verd Islands, the only starting point that fulfilled the conditions was the meridian passing through the two islands Sal and Buena Vista, which were first encountered in coming from the Canaries, in other words the most easterly of the group. In fact the Portuguese were in a strait; if the line were pushed westward they might lose the Moluccas, if eastward they might lose Brazil.[59] Their policy was obstruction and delay, so they rejected all Spanish maps and proposed four astronomical methods of determining the longitude. This would take time.

May 31, Ferdinand Columbus read the decision of the Spanish judges, that the line be drawn three hundred and seventy leagues west of San Antonio and be represented on all maps made thereafter.[60] As the Spaniards calculated the longitude they thus secured not only the Moluccas but also Sumatra, while Portugal was acknowledged to have the rightful possession of Brazil for two hundred leagues west of the eastern extremity.[61]

In 1526 another vain attempt was made at a settlement, and in the mean time war between the representatives of the two nations had broken out in the Moluccas. By 1529 the two royal houses had become united by a double marriage and a second Spanish expedition had been unfortunate, so to settle the difficulties Charles V. by the treaty of Saragossa gave up his claim to the Moluccas to Portugal for 350,000 ducats, but retained the right of redemption.[62] On the other hand, if the line should ever be accurately fixed and the Moluccas be found within Portugal's division, Spain was to repay the 350,000 ducats. Meanwhile a new Demarcation Line, more accurately described, was to be drawn seventeen degrees or 297 leagues east of the Moluccas. The Pope was to be asked to sanction this treaty.[63]

Spain relinquished the Moluccas but retained the Philippines which were then of no value, and they became the western extremity of their Empire, "las Islas del poniente."[64] As long as Spain held her continental colonies in the New World the Philippines were in Spanish eyes a part of America and in their commercial relations an appendage to New Spain or Mexico. In 1844 the Philippines were transferred ferred to the eastern hemisphere by dropping from the Manilan calendar the 31st of December.[65] Before that change people in the Philippines had lived on Spanish time, fifteen hours slow, and the day was dropped or added in the voyage between Hongkong and Manila instead of at the meridian of 180°. Leaving now the antipodes we may return to the controversies on this side of the globe.

After the Badajos Junta the Spaniards drew the line about as it is marked on the maps of 1527 and 1529, or roughly speaking from near Para to a point about one hundred miles east of Montevideo, while the Portuguese drew it from the same point so that it ran parallel for a part of its course with the river Parana. Thus the region now occupied by the most of Uruguay and the Argentine States of Entre Rios and Corrientes was disputed territory.

Both estimates gave Portugal far more than she was entitled to according to a modern scientific determination which makes it fall about one hundred and fifty miles west of Rio de Janeiro.[66]

But as Spain's main interest was in Peru there was no immediate collision, and the union of the two countries from 1580 to 1640 still further postponed the conflict.

In 1680, Lobo, the Portuguese governor of Rio de Janeiro, founded the settlement of Sacramento on the north bank of the River Plate in the disputed territory; the governor of La Plata prepared to expel the intruders, but before hostilities had gone far the home governments entered into negotiations. It was agreed to appoint a commission of experts like that of 1524 to meet as then in Badajos and Yelves to determine the exact location of the line of Demarcation. In case no settlement could be reached they were to submit the matter to the Pope. At this convention Spain and Portugal took positions exactly the reverse of what they maintained in 1524. Now that the Moluccas were no longer at stake the Portuguese insisted on taking the westernmost of the Cape Verd Islands as the starting point, while the Spaniards thought it equitable to take the centre island of the group. They could not agree upon maps. According to the Portuguese map, that of Teixeira, the new colony was on their side if the measurement began at San Antonio (the westernmost of the Cape Verd Islands), but not if they measured from the Spanish starting point. According to D'Avezac's conclusions the Spanish calculation at this time was very nearly correct, although a disinterested judge would pronounce in favor of beginning the measurement from the western extremity of the Cape Verd group. The Spaniards proposed to submit the matter to the Pope and Cardinals in full consistory or to the Academies of London and Paris, but Portugal refused.[67]

A scientific settlement in which both parties could acquiesce seemed hopeless, so finally the two sovereigns in 1750 agreed in consigning to oblivion the rival claims growing out of the Demarcation Line and began all over again, declaring Alexander's Bull and the treaty of Tordesillas and others based thereon all null and void. Spain secured unquestioned possession of the Philippine Islands, while the boundaries of Brazil were drawn for the most part as they exist to-day, partly on the basis of possession and partly on that of the physical configuration of the country.[68]

The execution of this treaty in turn gave rise to conflicts, and in 1761 it was abrogated. So far as Spain and Portugal are concerned the story closes with the boundary treaty of 1779.[69]

A brief glance may now be given to the attitude of other nations toward the demarcation lines. In regard to England it is, I think, not without significance that Henry the Seventh's letters patent to John Cabot seem intentionally to avoid flagrant conflict with the rights of Spain, for Cabot was commissioned to explore "all parts, regions and bays of the Eastern, Western, and Northern Sea." Spain's field of discovery by the Demarcation Bull lay south and west of the line, but Cabot is not authorized to go in a southerly direction from England. We may say, then, that although Cabot's voyage did not respect the rights of Spain in full, the king evidently desired to respect them in spirit so far as he could without relinquishing the enterprise altogether.

Richard Hakluyt in his Discourse concerning Western Planting which was written in 1584 at Ralegh's request to interest Elizabeth in colonial expansion, devotes a long chapter to "An Aunswer to the Bull of the Donation of all the West Indies graunted to the Kinges of Spaine by Pope Alexander the VIth, whoe was himselfe a Spanairde borne."[70] In 1613 the Spanish Secretary of State protested against the English settlements in Virginia and the Bermudas on the ground that they infringed upon the possessions of the king of Spain "whose title . . . was indisputable by the Conquest of Castile, and by the Pope's Bull of Donation."[71] The question came up in the House of Commons in 1620 and 1621 when title by papal grant was derided.[72]

In 1531 Francis I. prohibited the Norman vessels from voyages to Brazil or Guinea, where the king of Portugal claimed to be sovereign.[73] The municipal council of Rouen protested in vain. This royal decision was secured by the Portuguese ambassador by bribing Admiral Chabot. Again in 1537 and 1538 the Portuguese secured new ordinances prohibiting voyages to Brazil and Malaguette under pain of confiscation and bodily punishment.[74] Baron Saint Blancard vigorously protested, maintaining the freedom of the seas, and that trade with the peoples of the New World could not be monopolized by one nation any more than trade with the peoples of the Old World.[75]

The same contention is made even more clearly by the French author of one of the relations in Ramusio's Navigationi: "The Portuguese have no more right to prevent the French resorting to these lands, where they have not themselves planted the Christian faith, where they are neither obeyed nor loved, than we should have to prevent them from going to Scotland, Denmark, or Norway because we had been there before them."[76] If this doctrine could have prevailed it would have changed the history of the New World. That it did not prevail was owing in a large part to the papal Bulls.

The Portuguese rights in the Indian Seas, then represented by Spain, were contested by Grotius in 1609, in a tract entitled "Mare Liberum seu de Jure quod Batavis Competit ad Indica Commercia," which maintained the doctrine of the freedom of the seas asserted by these French writers.[77]

This sketch may be concluded with a brief glance at some of the more important results of Pope Alexander's attempt to divide the undiscovered heathen parts of the world between Spain and Portugal.

The most striking result was entirely unexpected and contrary to the design of the Bull. Designed, in the interest of Spain, to exclude Portugal from discovery and colonization in the west, it secured Portugal a title to Brazil which her only formidable rival could not impeach. Another result, also undesigned, but of great importance, was the promotion of geographical knowledge. The establishment of the Demarcation Line led to Magellan's voyage, and the efforts to determine it gave a powerful impulse to the progress of geodesy.[78] Third, the earlier bulls to Portugal, and Alexander's, formed the corner stone of the old colonial system with its rigorous monopoly of commerce for the mother country, from the evils of which the civilized world is not yet free.[79]

Men now smile when they read or hear of the attempt of Alexander Sixth to divide the undiscovered world between Spain and Portugal, but what single act of any Pope in the history of the Church has exercised directly and indirectly a more momentous influence on human affairs than this last reminder[80] of the bygone world sovereignty of the Holy See?


  1. Read before the American Historical Association in Washington, in December, 1891.
  2. Since the first publication of this paper in the Yale Review, May, 1892, two learned discussions of this subject have been published in English. Henry Harrisse's The Diplomatic History of America. Its first chapter, 1452–1494. B. F. Stevens, London, 1897, and Dr. S. E. Dawson's The Lines of Demarcation of Pope Alexander VI. and the Treaty of Tordesillas, A. D. 1493 and 1494. Trans. of the Royal Soc. of Canada, V, 1899–1900. The Copp-Clark Co., Toronto. In preparing my essay for republication I have in general made only such changes as seemed necessary. I am indebted to both Mr. Harrisse and Mr. Dawson for some suggestions and corrections.
  3. Mr. Harrisse believes that Columbus sent on an account of his voyage earlier while in Portugal. Diplomatic History, 12. Gomara states that a messenger was immediately despatched to Rome with an account of the discoveries. Hist. General de las Indias, I, leaves 29 and 30. Antwerp Ed. of 1554.
  4. Following Barros, almost all writers mention a Bull of Martin V., e. g., Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo Mundo, 159. Barros says that Prince Henry asked Martin V. for a grant of all the land he should discover from Cape Bojador to the Indies: "que . . . lhe aprouvesse conceder perpetua doaçao a Coroa destes Reynos de toda a terre que se descubrisse per este nosso Mar Oceano do Cabo Bojador té as Indias inclusivé." Da Asia de João de Barros, Dec. I, Lib. I, cap. ii. No such Bull of Martin V. has come down to recent times, and it is altogether probable that Barros wrote Martin V. when he should have written Nicolas V. If such a Bull had been promulgated by Martin V. it would have been included in the great Bull of Leo X. of Nov. 3, 1514, see p. 203. Prince Henry requested Pope Eugene IV. to grant indulgences in favor of those who perished in his expeditions. Azurara, Cronica de Guiné, cap. xv. The Bull of Jan. 5, 1443, was granted in response to this request and granted both the indulgences and the possession of territories wrested from the infidels. Alguns Documentos do Archivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo Acerca das Nauegações e conquistas Portugezas, Lisbon, 1892, 7. As a precedent for the Demarcation Bulls the grant of the Canaries to Louis of Spain by Clement VI., Nov. 15, 1344, is important. The Bull is translated by D'Avezac in his Iles de l' Afrique, Paris, 1848, part 3, 152–53. The original text and accompanying documents may be read in Theiner's ed. of the Annals of Baronius and Raynaldus, XXV, 341–46. This grant was more like a feudal investiture than the later grants to Portugal.
  5. "Illorumque personas in perpetuam servitutem redigendi . . . concedimus facultatem." It will be a surprise to many to learn that the revival of human slavery thus received full papal sanction. The first African slaves were brought to Portugal in 1442. The system was in its infancy. What might not the world have been saved if the Vicar of God had forbidden instead of authorizing it! The Church is credited with promoting the abolition of slavery in the Middle Ages. It is difficult to see how she can be cleared of having powerfully contributed to renew it. This Bull of Nicolas V. was repeated and sanctioned by the Bull of Leo X., Nov. 3, 1514, which is in the Bullarum Collectio quibus Serenissimis Lusitaniae, Algarbiorumque Regibus Terrarum Omnium . . . jus Patronatus a summis Pontificibus liberaliter conceditur. . . . Omnes ex legali Archivo deductae, et in hoc volumen redactae . . . jussu serenissimi Petri Secundi Lusitaniae Regis. Ulyssipone, Anno 1707. This Bull of Leo X. is not in Mainard's Bullarium, Rome, 1741.
  6. See pp. 178–9 for a translation of part of the passage and for a reference to a translation of the Bull. Nicolas, the next day, issued a Bull in reference to the extension of Christianity in these regions. Raynaldus, Annales XVIII, 423.
  7. Bullarum Collectio, 45; Alguns Docs., 47–55. The treaty of 1480 which Harrisse, 3, quotes from a MS. is printed in Alguns Docs., 42–43. Innocent VIII. added his confirmation, Sept. 12, 1484. Raynaldus, Annales XIX, 349.
  8. Historie del Signor Don Fernando Colon, ch. xi.
  9. Two criticisms were passed on this conjecture when first offered. One, that the Portuguese could not then have been confident of reaching India. On this point it is decisive to refer to the Fra Mauro Map of 1459 (see Ruge, Gesch. des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, 80, and Winsor, Nar. and Crit. Hist., 2, 41), to the citation from Barros, and to the Bull of Jan. 8, 1454 pp. 194–5 supra, and to Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo Mundo, Lib. II, cap. xix. The second criticism was: What then of the story that King John of Portugal secretly tried to avail himself of Columbus' ideas by sending a caravel westward? (Historie, cap. xi.) This presents a difficulty, but I cannot see that it shuts out the conjecture. Ruge, 232, declares this statement of the Historie destitute of historical credibility.
  10. In the Historie Columbus is credited with having suggested the appeal to the Pope: "Per più chiaro e giusto titolo delle quali di subito i re catolici per consiglio dell' ammiraglio procacciarono di haver dal sommo pontefice l'approbatione e donatione della conquista di tutte le dette Indie." Historie, etc., ch. xlii.
  11. The statement introduces the text of the Bull of May 3, 1493, and may have been based on documents in the Papal Archives: "Exorta vero mox post Christophori Columbi reditum lis est inter Castellanum et Lusitanum Reges de Oceani novique orbis imperio; nam Lusitanus inventas à Columbo insulas ad se spectare contendit, negabat vero Castellanus, etc." Raynaldus, Annales Eccles., Tom. XIX, 420.
  12. Herrera, Historia General, Decade I, Lib. II, ch. iv. Harrisse questions this. Dip. Hist., 37.
  13. Herrera, Ibid.
  14. Harrisse found in the Archives of the Frari at Venice the letter which Alexander VI. sent with the Bulls on the 17th of May, 1493, to Francis de Spratz, the nuncio at the court of Spain. It refers to several documents, but all it says of the Demarcation Bull is the following: "Praeterea aliud breve super concessione dominii et bonarum illarum nuper ab hominibus Regiis inventarum per nos facta prefatis Regibus." Bibliotheca Vetusta Americana, Additions, 2.

    Raynaldus, XIX, 421, § 19, prints the letter of the Pope to Ferdinand and Isabella accompanying the Bulls. It is dated May 3, and calls attention to the existing rights of Portugal. These of course were specified in the Bull of May 4.
  15. "Dilectum filium Christophorum Columbum, virum utique dignum et plurimum commendandum, ac tanto negotio aptum."
  16. A condensed paraphrase. The original is extended and emphatic. The Bull is printed in Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viajes y descubrimientos, II, 23–27. The passage cited occurs on p. 26.
  17. Kritische Untersuchungen, (Ideler's translation of the Examen Critique) II, 37.
  18. Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetusta, 2, says: "Whilst in Rome we vainly endeavored to discover diplomatic documents relating to the difficulties which arose between Spain and Portugal at the time of the discovery of America. Father Augustin Theiner wrote afterwards to us: 'Je n'ai pas manqué de parcourir dans les archives secrètes du Vatican les registres originaux d'Alexander VI, pour voir s'il y avait d'autres pièces relatives qui auraient pu échapper à l'attention de Raynaldi mais je n'ai rien trouvé."
  19. Gomara asserts that King John had asked for a Bull: "Hizo gran sentimiento el Rey don Juan segundo de tal nombre en Portugal quando leyo la bula y donacion del Papa, aunq̃ sus embaxadores lo avian suplicado assi a su Santidad." Gomara, I, leaf 142, obverse. Further, according to Gomara, Ferdinand and Isabella despatched a courier to Rome, but the negotiations were carried on by their ambassadors at Rome, "y sus embaxadores que pocas meses antes avian ydo a dar el para bien, y obediencia al Papa Alexandre Sexto segun usança de todos los Principes Christianos, le hablaron y dieron las Cartas del rey y reyna con la relacion de Colon," Gomara, I, leaves 29 and 30. Now John II. of Portugal, in 1492, had sent the Commendador Mór d' Aviz D. Pedro da Silva as an ambassador on the death of Innocent VIII, and to present his obedience to Alexander VI. Santarem, Relaçôes Diplomaticas, III, 162. If the Spanish special ambassadors remained until May, 1493, it is not unlikely that the Portuguese representative did likewise.

    It will be remembered that as the Portuguese rights extended east "ad Indos," and embraced lands not yet found, and as the new lands were supposed to be the Indies, the grant of May 3 was in downright conflict with the earlier ones to Portugal.
  20. This is the view of Harrisse and Dawson. See Diplomatic History, 27–39, and Dawson's Essay, 484 ff. Raynaldus says of the Bull of May 4: "Tertio diplomate Alexander ad contraversias, quæ inter Castellanos ac Lusitanos oboriri possent dum classibus Oceanum sulcabant, dirimendas Indias orientales occidentalesque discrevit." Tomus, xix, 421. The possibility of disputes might have suggested itself to the Pope.

    The second Bull of May 3 I have not discussed. It was a brief grant to Spain of the same rights for her discoveries which had been conferred on Portugal for hers. The rights of Portugal are there summarized. The Latin text and English translation of this Bull are printed by Dawson. Harrisse also gives a translation of it on pp. 20–24 of his Diplomatic History.
  21. Printed in full in Fiske's Discovery of America, II, 580–593, with Richard Eden's translation. It is also in Navarrete, Calvo's Recueil, Poore's Constitutions and Charters, and Dawson. Besides Eden's translation there is one in the English edition of Sportono's Codice diplomatico Colombo-Americano and in Dawson. Eden's translation is reproduced in Hart's American History told by Contemporaries, I, 40–43.
  22. "Quae linea distet a qualibet insularum, quae vulgariter nuncupantur de los Azores y Cabo Verde, centum leucis versus Occidentem et Meridiem." The Azores and the Cape Verd Islands were supposed to be in the same longitude. What is meant by "versus Occidentem et Meridiem" has puzzled everybody. How a meridian line could be southwest from any given point has baffled explanation. May it not have been simply a confusion of thought resulting from the fact that the lands discovered by Columbus lay to the south of west from Europe or the Azores, and that the Pope evidently thought of the discoveries as to be prosecuted west and south? With this thought in mind he had used the terms "versus Occidentem et Meridiem" appropriately a few lines before. The tendency of such documents to formal repetition, combined with inadvertence and this idea of the southwesterly direction of the new lands, may account for a repetition that makes nonsense.
  23. This lays the corner stone of the old colonial system.
  24. A Spanish translation will be found in Navarrete, II, 404–406. Dawson gives Solorzano's Latin translation as it is supposed to be and an English version.
  25. Navarrete, II, 108.
  26. Herrera, Dec. I, Lib. II.
  27. Navarrete, II, 109.
  28. Herrera, Dec. I, Lib. II. ch. viii.
  29. Muñoz, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, Lib. IV, cap. xxviii.
  30. These instructions entitled "Esta hé a maneira que parece à Vasco de Gama que deve teer Pedro Alvarez em sua yda, prazendo Nosso Senhor," were first published by Varnhagen from the Portuguese Archives. The following essential passage is given on p. 422 of the first volume of his Historia Geral do Brazil: "E se ouverem de gynar, seja sobre a banda do sudueste, e tanto que neles deer o vento escasso devem hyr na volta do mar até meterem o Cabo de Boôa Esperança em leste franco, e dy em diante navegarem segundo lhe servyr o tempo, e mais ganharem, porque corao forem nadyta parajem nam lhe myngoará tempo, com ajuda de nosso senhor, com que cobrem o dito Cabo," quoted from D'Avezac, Considérations Géographiques sur l'Histoire du Brésil, Note D, Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog., Août et Septembre, 1857, 246. As no such document can now be found in the Portuguese Archives, Harrisse boldly declares these instructions spurious. Discovery of North America, 683, n. In Alguns Documentos, however, there are fragments of a series of very detailed instructions to Cabral in regard to the management of the business of the expedition when he should reach India. See pp. 97 ff. If portions of this body of instructions have become lost the absence of the original manuscript of the instructions printed by Varnhagen from the Archives is not conclusive against their authenticity. They may well have formed the first part of the extant instructions the beginning of which is missing.

    The discovery of America was destined to follow as a consequence of the Portuguese voyages, even if Columbus had never lived. The authenticity of these instructions might be given up without weakening that conclusion. Whether Cabral discovered Brazil in consequence of these instructions or by accident does not matter. A glance at a map of ocean currents will show that either such instructions or such an accident would be inevitable if voyaging down the coast of Africa were kept up. The true glory of Columbus lies in his persistence and resolution in acting upon his intellectual convictions. It is true he was misled by miscalculations of the size of the earth. Every one else, however, had the same supposed facts, but Columbus was ready to act on them, and had they been true, how much simpler to sail due west 3,000 miles than around Africa 12,000 to 15,000 miles?
  31. John II. had asked for 200 leagues more. "Quexose de los Reyes Catolicas que le atajavan el curso de sus descubrimientos, y riquezas. Reclamo de la bula, pidiendo las otras trezientas leguas mas al poniente." Gomara, I, leaf 142, obv. Gomara adds that Ferdinand and Isabella out of generosity, and because King John was a relative, with the approval of the Pope, gave him two hundred and seventy more leagues at Tordesillas. Whether "con acuerdo del Papa" refers to an official approval of Alexander's that I have not found, or merely to a private consent, or to the Bull of Julius II., it is difficult to say.
  32. The first proposition to establish "a meridian in a permanent manner by marks graven on rocks, or by the erection of towers." Humboldt, Cosmos, II, 277, n.
  33. The treaty is printed in Navarrete, II, 130–143, in Calvo, Recueil Complet de Traités de l'Amérique Latine, VI, 19-36, and in Alguns Documentos, 80–90. In Calvo's text the spelling is modernized. The treaty went into full operation June 20, 1494. Up to June 20, any lands found between 250 and 370 leagues west of the Cape Verd Islands were to belong to Spain.
  34. See the Discovery of North America, 56, and Diplomatic History of America, 80–84. Harrisse quotes from Columbus' deed of entail (Mayorazgo) of 1498. Navarrete, II, 226, and from his will, 1505, Ibid., II, 313. For translations, see Ford's Writings of Columbus, 83 and 244. In these documents the treaty of Tordesillas is entirely ignored. The change in the line deprived Columbus of his royalty of one-tenth of the products of Brazil. See the Contract in Navarrete, II, 7.
  35. Printed in Alguns Documentos, 142–43.
  36. See Roscoe's Leo X., I, 428–32, and for the original correspondence, pp. 521–26. The reference is to Bohn's large edition, 1846. The Bulls of Julius II. and Leo X. were secured by Portugal and given in return for homage to the Pope. Mr. Fiske quotes from a small volume entitled Obedientia potentissimi Lusitaniae regis—ad Julium Pont. Max., Rome, 1505. The newly found lands were laid at the Pope's feet, "Accipe tandem orbem ipsum terrarum. Deus enim noster es." Discovery of America, I, 458.
  37. Bullarum Collectio, 50, "tam a Capitibus de Bojador et de Naon, usque ad Indos, quam etiam ubicumque, et in quibuscumque partibus, etiam nostris temporibus forsan ignotis." This Bull really supersedes the Demarcation Bull and practically simply establishes the validity of the rights of discovery and conquest. It is not referred to by any Spanish authorities so far as I have noted.
  38. Peschel's Die Theilung der Erde Unter Papst Alexander VI. und Julius II., Leipzig, 1871, discusses, in an interesting manner, the scientific difficulties and the progress of geodesy.
  39. Humboldt, Untersuchungen, II, 37. This hypothesis is accepted by Dawson as amounting to a "certainty," p. 493. Harrisse, on the other hand, declares it "scarcely admissible." Diplomatic History, 38. The evidence is against Humboldt and Dawson. Columbus first records the variation of the needle in his journal under date of September 17, when, according to the sum of the distances traversed each day, he had gone at least 350 leagues west of Gomera in the Canaries. As the middle of the Azores lies about five degrees west of Gomera, the spot where the variation of the compass was first noticed would be from 250 to 270 leagues west of the Azores, according to the varying estimates of the length of a degree made by the geographers of the day. The estimates ranged roughly from 16 to 20 leagues to the degree. It was only in the account of his third voyage, 1498, that Columbus says that in his voyage to the Indies he noticed changes in the sea and sky and the variation of the needle one hundred leagues west of the Azores (Navarrete, I, 254). The discrepancy is not strange, perhaps, in view of the lack of means for measuring longitude, but the location of these phenomena—exactly 100 leagues west of the Azores—in 1498 looks a little like an afterthought. Possibly Columbus stretched a point to bring forward evidence in favor of the original line. Again, if the distance of 100 leagues from the Azores was chosen for scientific reasons, why do we hear of no objection to the removal of the line to 370 leagues west of the Cape de Verde Islands, which would sacrifice these scientific advantages? The distance 100 leagues may have occurred to the Pope as a reasonable margin of protection to Portugal, or it may have been adopted from the suggestion of Ferdinand and Isabella. Herrera tells us that the ambassador sent to the Pope in the first instance received the following instructions: "The ambassador was directed to let him know, that the said discovery had been made, without encroaching upon the crown of Portugal, the admiral having been positively commanded by their Highnesses not to come within 100 leagues of the mine, nor of Guinea, or any other part belonging to the Portugueses, which he had done accordingly." Dec. I, Lib. II, ch. iv., John Stevens' version.
  40. Relazione di' Gasparo Contarini, Albèri, 1 ser. II, 48.
  41. Navarrete, II, 98. Ferrer decided that the 370 leagues were equivalent to 23 degrees on the equator.
  42. Nothing seems to have come of this proposed convention. Herrera says of the agreement of April, "It does not appear to have been performed." Yet see Harrisse's notes 90 and 92, Diplomatic History.
  43. Navarrete, II, 170–173.
  44. Harrisse calculated the longitude of the line on this map where it is labelled, "Este he omarco dantre castella y Portuguall," as 62° 30′ west of Paris. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, II, 108. Mr. Winsor gives a sketch of the map.
  45. Through his relationship to Haro and the fact that he heard the reports of the survivors of Magellan's expedition he had every facility for getting at the facts. See Guillemard's Magellan, 140.
  46. Charles V.
  47. Letter of Max. Transylvanus to the Archbishop of Salzburg, quoted from the version given by Lord Stanley in his First Voyage Round the World, 181. This statement quite likely came from Haro himself. A Spanish version of Max. Transylvanus' letter is in Navarrete, IV, 249–284.
  48. Quoted from the translation of the passages of the Lendas da India, II, ch. xiv (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), given by Lord Stanley, First Voyage, 244–46. Compare also the "Contract and Agreement made by the King of Castile with Fernan Magellan," which is given in abridgment in Lord Stanley's First Voyage, 29. "Since you Fernando de Magallanes . . . wish to render us a great service in the limits which belong to us in the ocean within the bounds of our demarcation. . . . Firstly, that you are to go with good luck to discover the part of the ocean within our limits and demarcation. . . . Also, you may discover in any of those parts what has not yet been discovered, so, that you do not discover nor do anything in the demarcation and limits of the most serene King of Portugal, my very dear and well beloved Uncle and brother, nor to his prejudice; but only within the limits of our demarcation." The original document is in Navarrete, IV, 116–121.
  49. The only practicable way to test the Spanish claim to the Moluccas was to reach them from the west, for "they considered it a very doubtful and dangerous enterprise to go through the limits of the Portuguese, and so to the east." Max. Transylvanus, in Lord Stanley's First Voyage, 188.
  50. Navarrete, V, 165.
  51. Gomara, Historia General de las Indias, Antwerp ed., 1554, I, leaf 300, states that in the years, 1492–1552, the Spaniards had got over $60,000,000 of gold and silver from America. Contarini, in 1525, estimated the annual income of Spain from the mines of gold and silver at 500,000 ducats. He says of the king: "Ha poi il re dell' oro, che si cava dall' Indie, venti per cento, che può montare circa a cento mila ducati all' anno." Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti, Albèri, 1st ser., II, 42. Contarini estimated Charles' revenue from his low country provinces at 140,000 ducats a year. Ibid., 25. The value of a ducat was about $2.34. Humboldt estimated the average annual supply of the precious metals from America was, 1492–1500, $250,000; 1500–1545, $3,000,000. Essai sur la Nouvelle Espagne, III, 428, second edition, from McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, art. "Precious Metals," ed. of 1869. According to Soetbeer's researches, the annual production from 1493 to 1520 was silver, $2,115,000; gold, $4,045,500. From 1521 to 1544, silver, $4,059,000; gold, $4,994,000. Nasse, in Schoenberg, Handbuch der Polit-Oekonomie, I, 361 (1885).
  52. The cargo consisted of 533 quintals of cloves which cost 213 ducats. According to Crawford the quintal was worth at that time in London 336 ducats, making the value of the cargo over 100,000 ducats. The cost of the expedition was only 22,000 ducats. Thus Peschel, Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, 644, n. 4. Guillemard, Life of Magellan, 310, puts the value of the cargo at about one quarter of Peschel's estimate. In either case the value of the spice trade is vividly illustrated. Apparently Guillemard takes too low a value for the maravedi. In the sale of the Moluccas it was stipulated that the ducats be equivalent to 375 maravedis. Navarrete, IV, 393.
  53. Navarrete, IV, 302–305.
  54. On what has been called Schöner's Globe, of 1523, more exactly the Rosenthal Gores, the line is drawn near the middle of the Peninsula of Malacca. Nordenskiöld dates these gores from 1540. Winsor, Christopher Columbus, 589, the gores are reproduced on p. 590. The Demarcation Line is drawn as the Spaniards drew it, after the Badajos Junta, a valid argument that these gores were made later than May, 1524.
  55. Navarrete, IV, 320–326.
  56. "Acontecio que passeando se un dia por la ribera de Guadiana Francisco de Melo, Diego Lopes de Sequiera, y otros de aquellos Portugueses, les pregunto un niño que guardava los trapos, que su madre lavava, si eran ellos los que repartian el mundo con el emperador, y como le respondieron que si, alço la camisa, mostro las nalguillas, y dixo, pues echad la raya por aqui en medio. Cosa fue publica, y muy reida en Badajos, y en la congregacion de los mesmos repartidores." Gomara, I, leaf 141, reverse. Gomara's account of the conference was translated by Richard Eden, and may be read in Edward Arber's First Three English Books on America, 271–274. Hakluyt moralizes over the small boy's jest: "But what wise man seeth not that God by that childe laughed them to scorne, and made them rediculous and their partition in the eyes of the world." "Discourse concerning Western Planting," Doc. Hist. Maine, II, 141–42.
  57. As the Pope's Bull provided for lands "to be found" as well as for those already discovered ("inventas et inveniendas, detectas, et detegendas"), it sanctioned the establishment of a right of possession by discovery.
  58. Navarrete, iv, 367.
  59. Gomara says the Portuguese realized the mistake of the removal of the line westward by the treaty of Tordesillas. I, leaf 139, seq. Arber, I, 274.
  60. The line, according to this decision, is traced on the map of 1527 once attributed to Ferd. Columbus, and also on the map of 1529. See Kohl's Die Beiden Aeltesten General-Karten von Amerika. In Guillemard's Magellan there is a reduction of the map of 1529.
  61. "Conforme a esta declaracion se marcan, y devan marcar, todos los globos y mapas, que hazen los buenos cosmografos, y maestros, y a de passar poco mas o menos la raya de la reparticion del nuevo mundo de Indias por las puntas de Humos, o de buê Abrigo, como ya en atra parte dixe, y assi parecera muy claro que las yslas de las especias, y aun la de Zamotra caen y pertenecen a Castilla. Pero cupo-le a el la tierra, que llaman del Brasil, donde esta el Cabo de Sant Augustine. La qual es de punta de Humos a punta de buen Abrigo, y tiende costa ocho cientas legues norte sur, y dozientas por algunas partes leste oeste." Gomara, I, leaf 141, reverse.
  62. Navarrete, IV, 393.
  63. He seems to have done so: "Accordados os Reis desta maneira derão conta ao Papa Clemente VII. que além de o approuvar o louvou muito." Colleção de Noticias para a Hist. e Geog. das Nações Ultramarinas, Lisboa, 1825, III, Parte I. Noticia do Brazil, 7.
  64. To the Portuguese, on the other hand, the Azores have been the Western Islands, and the Philippines the Eastern Islands.
  65. Guillemard, Magellan, 227. Those who find it difficult to reconcile our acquisition of the Philippines with the preservation of the Monroe Doctrine cannot fail to be reassured by the reflection that when the doctrine was promulgated the islands were a part of Spanish America.
  66. As calculated by D'Avezac, Bulletin de la Société de la Géog., Août et Septembre, 1857, map at the end. In the number of Mars et Avril, 1858, Varnhagen contests this calculation.

    Where the line really should have been drawn is mainly a question of curiosity, as it ceased to have political importance before its location was so determined. The discussions of D'Avezac and Varnhagen I have summarized in an appendix to this essay as published in the Report of the American Historical Association for 1891, 128–129. Elaborate calculations of the problem are made by Harrisse in his Diplomatic History, by Dawson, and by August Baum in his inaugural dissertation, Die Demarkationslinie Papst Alexander VI. und ihre Folgungen, Cologne, 1890.
  67. Dissertacion Historica y Geographica Sobre el Meridiano de Demarcacion entre los Dominios de Espana y Portugal, etc., por Don Jorge Juan, y Don Antonio de Ulloa, etc., Madrid, 1740, 46–68; Calvo, Recueil Complet, I, 205–18; MS. memoir of Lastarria, extracted in L'Art de Vérifier les Dates, edited by the Marquis of Fortia, 3d series, XIII, 6–8; the part of this work relating to Brazil was published separately as Histoire de l'Empire du Brésil depuis sa découverte jusqu'à nos jours, par David Bailie Warden. Calvo includes a text of Juan and Ulloa's Dissertacion, which is rare, in his Recueil Complet des Traités, etc., de l'Amérique Latine, I, 190–293. Calvo's text is inaccurate, and was evidently set up from a hasty MS. copy. In one place eight lines have fallen out, and he can only conjecture, "Es probable que aqui se omitio por inadvertencia una clausula ó algunas palabras."
  68. The text of the treaty of 1750 is in Martens, Supplément au Recueil des traités de paix, I, 378-422, and in the Statement by the United States of Brazil to the President of the United States of America. New York, III. It is summarized in Baum and in L'Art de Vérifer les Dates, XIV, 148–149.
  69. Baum, 52.
  70. Documentary History of Maine, II, 129–151. This essay of Hakluyt's is included in Goldsmid's edition of the Voyages.
  71. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, I, 16. An elaborate answer seems to have been prepared.
  72. Debates of House of Commons, 1620 and 1621, I, 250–51, cited from Bancroft's History of the United States, I, 10.
  73. Francis I. is said to have remarked, in reference to the Demarcation Line: "Je voudrais bien qu'on me montrât l'article du testament d'Adam qui partage le Nouveau-Monde entre mes frères, l'Empereur Charles V. et le Roi de Portugal, en m'excluant de la succession." Bernal Diaz relates this anecdote.
  74. Pigeonneau, Hist. du Commerce de la France, II, 150–54. In 1539, Chabot was disgraced and Francis I. withdrew his prohibitions, but he was never active on the side of the voyagers. See Pigeonneau, 134–70.
  75. "Dictus Rex Serenissimus [Portugaliæ] nullum habet dominium nec jurisdictionem in dictis insulis; imo gentes eas incolentes plurimos habent regulos quibus more tamen et ritu silvestri reguntur, et ita ponitur in facto. Etiam ponitur in facto probabili quod dictus serenissimus Rex Portugaliæ nullam majorem habeat potestatem in dictus insulis quam habet Rex Christianissimus, imo enim mare sit commune, et insulæ præfatæ omnibus apertæ, permissum est nedum Gallis sed omnibus aliis nationibus eas frequentare et cum accolis commercium habere." Cited from D'Avezac, from Varnhagen, Historia geral do Brazil, 443, or French ed., I, 441.
  76. Pigeonneau, Hist., II, 153, from Ramusio, IV, 426. The author is supposed to have been Pierre Crignon.
  77. As the reputation of Grotius grew, and his great work, De Jure Belli et Pacis (1625), established him as an authority, the "learned" Selden undertook to confute his doctrine in his Mare Clausum, which was designed to uphold England's sovereignty of the narrow seas. But time and progress were with Grotius, and the range of territorial waters has since narrowed with the growth of commerce and the march of civilization.
  78. Humboldt, Cosmos (Harper's ed.), II, 277, says: "The papal lines of demarcation . . . exercised great influence on the endeavors to improve nautical astronomy, and especially on the methods attempted for the determination of the longitude." For various efforts of scientific men to get the longitude of places to determine the line in South America, see Juan y Ulloa, Dissertacion, 68–94; Calvo, Recueil, I, 217–229; L'Art de Vérifier les Dates, 3d ser., XIII, 8.
  79. "Quibuscumque personis cujuscumque dignitatis . . . districtius inhibemus ne ad insulas et terras firmas, inventas et inveniendas . . . pro mercibus habendis, vel quavis alia de causa accedere præsumant absque vestra ac hæredum et successorum vestrorum prædictorum licentia speciali." Alexander's Bull of May 4, 1493.
  80. "Dieser Federstreich war die letzte Erinnerung an die Kosmische Autorität des römischen Papsttums." Gregorovius, Gesch. der Stadt Rom, 7, 326.