The Events that Led to the Treaty of Tordesillas

Abstract

The events leading to the Treaty of Tordesillas began when Columbus returned from his first voyage. Spain and Portugal competed in the attempt to obtain their desired rights of navigation and conquest in the Atlantic Ocean and to be the first Europeans to the Indies. The combined versions of what happened by Davenport (1917) and Nowell (1945) exemplify the historical narrative of these events. The present paper’s version of the narrative considers for inclusion ten items absent from these two previous accounts. Three of these ten new items are considered here to be highly probable: King João’s pony express, his 1488 threat of war with Spain over the marriage of his son, and Freire’s discovery not only of missing chancery records, presumably of King João’s southern Atlantic voyages, but also of contemporaneous records containing the ship’s biscuit data suggesting long Atlantic voyages. The other seven new items must await additional documentation if they are to be considered highly probable. Using some highly probable items as well as some deemed less than highly probable, the present article offers an explanation for the behavior of both King João and King Ferdinand in the latter’s ultimate agreement that the treaty should move the line of demarcation westward.