Spanish Conquest of the Americas: The Treaty of Tordesillas

Sources

Henry the Navigator. In the middle of the fifteenth century Prince Henry of Portugal subsidized several expeditions down the western coast of Africa. In 1455 Henry, who was known as “the Navigator,” appealed to Pope Nicholas V to confer the title to all of the countries that his agents discovered on these voyages to Portugal. In return Henry promised to spread the Christian faith to nonbelievers and bring them under the authority of the Church. Nicholas, anxious to expand the religion beyond Europe, issued a papal bull called the Romanus Pontifex. This decree gave Portugal title to those African “provinces, islands, ports, districts and seas... which have already been acquired and which shall be acquired in the future.” The Pope warned that any European monarch who encroached upon or interfered with Portugal’s rights would be excommunicated from the Church. Excited by the stories of the Portuguese discoveries in Africa, other explorers set out in their wake. One of those adventurous entrepreneurs was Christopher Columbus, who persuaded King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile to bankroll an excursion to locate a western route to Asia. By opening up trade to Asia, Columbus hoped to enrich both himself and the coffers of Spain. Like the Navigator before him, Columbus also believed that the Spanish could fulfill their Christian duty by taking the Gospel to the people of Asia and ultimately conquer Jerusalem. After considerable debate Isabella and Ferdinand sanctioned Columbus’s plan and instructed him to stake a claim for Spain to all lands that he discovered on his voyage.

Inter Caetera Divinae. Reports of Columbus’s landfall in the Caribbean immediately provoked questions about the title to the newly discovered lands. Portugal suggested that it held title to the territory under the Romanus Pontifex. In 1493, however, Spanish lawyers convinced Pope Alexander VI to issue the Inter Caetera Divinae, a series of papal bulls that confirmed Spain’s title to the lands discovered by Columbus. The first bull declared that Columbus had discovered a new land and a new people and recognized Ferdinand and Isabella’s title to all of the land in the area. The second bull directed Spain to convert the native inhabitants of this land to Christianity. In the decree Alexander declared: “Among other works well pleasing to the Divine Majesty and cherished of our heart, this assuredly ranks highest, that in our times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.” The second bull also established a line that ran from pole to pole, one hundred leagues west of the Azores. The Inter Caetera Divinae endowed Portugal with dominion over all of the undiscovered lands east of the imaginary line and gave Spain title to the lands west of the boundary.

Treaty of Tordesillas. A few months later, in the Treaty of Tordesillas, Spain and Portugal agreed to move the line of demarcation to 270 leagues to the west of the Cape Verde Islands. Pope Alexander approved of this amendment. Despite this concession to Portugal, the Spanish later discovered that the treaty conveyed to them almost all of North and South America while Portugal received only a small portion of what is now eastern Brazil. In the sixteenth century the Spanish moved out from Columbus’s bases in the Caribbean islands and colonized Central America, South America, and Mexico. In addition they established mission and military outposts in the southern region of North America from Florida around the Gulf of Mexico and westward across the present states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. In expanding their imperial dominion over the Indian tribes of the region, the Spanish left a lasting legacy of the Christian faith, Iberian culture, and the Spanish language. However, in totality, the Spanish conquest was a tragedy for the native inhabitants of North America. Spanish lawyers devised a legal precedent that Europeans and Americans would use to justify the wholesale taking of the continent from the Indians. The Inter Caetera Divinae and the Treaty of Tordesillas were essential elements of the legal argument for the European conquest of the Americas. In perfecting their title Spanish conquistadores ruthlessly exerted their claim over the native peoples of the Americas. They annihilated whole communities of Indians and attempted to coerce the survivors of the Spanish conquest to renounce their traditional religion and culture. In their place the agents of Spain moved to impose their own system of social and political order over the lands and peoples of the Americas.

Sources

Wilcomb E. Washburn, Red Man’s Land, White Man’s Law: The Past and Present Status of the American Indian (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971);

Robert A. Williams, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1990).