The Treaty of Tordesillas was signed in June 1494 to settle a dispute between Portuguese and Spain over newly discovered land in the world. The treaty has a long history which dates back to ancient times when the new areas of land were being discovered by the geographers and discoverers like Christopher Columbus. The land-owning dispute arose when Columbus returned form his voyage. It was 1480s when all the land which was located south of the Canary Island was given to Portuguese. Much of the land discovered later was given to Spain. Portuguese King felt that he had been deprived of their rights of owning these lands and protested that too little land had been given to Portuguese and hence the treaty was signed to settle this dispute.
The Treaty of Tordesillas was preceded by a legislation document titled Intel Caetera Papal Bull which was passed in 1493. This legislation made demarcation of the lands owned by Portuguese and Spain by a circle passing through the 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Island and through the poles. This demarcation gave entire New World to Spain, and India and Africa to Portuguese. The Treaty of Tordesillas shifted this demarcation circle to 370 leagues and hence the Kings of the two territories made an agreement that the lands to the east would belong to Portugal while the lands to the west would belong to Spain. Nevertheless, Portugal was given much smaller piece of land as compared to Spain but the Kings agreed to the treaty as not much exploration of the lands were done at that time. Portugal did expand its territory later by shifting the line farther.
The manuscripts of the treaty can be found at Archivo General de Indias in Spain and at Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo in Portugal.
Treaty of Tordesillas
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