Treaty of Tordesillas
About the Treaty of Tordesillas
Spain and Portugal agreed a dividing meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, moving west the line Pope Alexander VI had set 100 leagues out in the 1493 bull Inter caetera. Portugal got Brazil, which jutted east of the line, Spain got most of the Americas. The treaty shaped the linguistic map of the Western Hemisphere permanently. It ignored every other European power, which simply ignored it in turn. England, France, and the Netherlands never accepted papal authority to divide the world.
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