Treaty of Tordesillas divides the non-European world
- Date
- 7 June 1494
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Iberia; Atlantic world
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
Signed on 7 June 1494 by the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and the Kingdom of Portugal, the Treaty of Tordesillas drew an imaginary meridian from pole to pole 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Lands discovered east of the line were reserved to Portugal; those to the west to Spain.
Brokered to defuse rivalry unleashed by Columbus's voyage and adjusting an earlier papal demarcation, the treaty effectively partitioned the newly encountered and as-yet-unknown world between the two Iberian powers. Its westward shift placed the eastern bulge of South America in the Portuguese sphere, laying the legal basis for Portuguese Brazil, while Spain claimed most of the Americas. The agreement shaped the linguistic, religious and political map of Latin America for centuries and exemplified European assumptions that the globe could be apportioned among Christian monarchs without regard to its existing inhabitants.
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Empires active in 7 June 1494
- Inca Empire1438 CE – 1533 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Aztec Empire1428 CE – 1521 CE
- Songhai Empire1464 CE – 1591 CE
- Malacca Sultanate1400 CE – 1511 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Founding of the Iroquois Confederacy and the Great Law of Peacec. 1450 (scholarly estimate; oral tradition as early as 1142)
- Sonni Ali seizes Timbuktu and forges the Songhai Empire1468 CE
- Inca imperial expansion under Pachacuti1438 CE
- Formation of the Aztec Triple Alliance1428 CE
- Kublai Khan founds the Yuan dynasty and conquers Song China1271 CE (conquest completed 1279)
- Rise of Timur (Tamerlane) and his Central Asian empirec. 1370 CE (empire to 1405)
Further reading
The wider story
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.
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