Dividing the Globe: Tordesillas, the Name America, and the First Circumnavigation

Columbus's return set off a diplomatic dispute with Portugal, which regarded the 1493 papal bulls dividing the new discoveries as unfavorable to its interests. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed on 7 June 1494 between Castile and Portugal, resolved the conflict by establishing a demarcation line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands: lands to the east would belong to Portugal and lands to the west to Castile. This westward shift from the original papal line later allowed Portugal to claim Brazil, reached accidentally by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500, and the treaty — ratified by the pope in 1506 and later complemented by the Treaty of Zaragoza (1529), which drew an equivalent line in the Pacific — was never recognized by other European powers such as France, England, or Holland, who would later dispute this bilateral division of the world.