Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/223

This page has been validated.
THE DEMARCATION LINE
203

any island, a tower was to be erected to mark it.[1] This treaty was to be perpetual and the sanction of the Pope was to be asked for it.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Printed in Alguns Documentos, 142–43.
  5. 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.