The political division of Australia 1479–1829

Abstract

“He does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies” Twelfth Night 3. 2. 77–79 probably referring to the Spanish map published by Hakluyt in 1582, showing the East Indies on the enlarged map of the world. Three signatories fixed the four early Lines of Demarcation separating the feuding maritime powers as they expanded abroad: Portugal, Spain and the Papacy which acted as arbitrator and peace maker in Christendom. Two of the early Lines affected Australia. All of the southern hemisphere was included in the Portuguese sphere in the first arrangement made in 1479. The next two Lines drawn, the 1493 Papal Line and the 1494 Tordesillas Line, only divided the Atlantic, and are not directly relevant. It was just as well they were not projected through the Poles. The contemporary globes based on Ptolemy were a quarter too small. They lacked the Americas and the Pacific. The discovery of this vast error ushered in a new colonial race to occupy the added portion, nec...