Tordesilhas Line

Categories: History stubs | History of Portugal | History of Spain | Lines of longitude

The lines drawn by the Treaty of Tordesillas dividing the globe between Spain and Portugal. The area including Africa is that belonging to Portugal, and the remainder is the Spanish sector.

The Tordesilhas Line or Tordesillas Line (Portuguese and Spanish spelling respectively) was estabilished by the Treaty of Tordesillas of June 17 1494 with papal endorsement, partitioning the non-Christian world then to be discovered between Portugal and Spain.

In the Western Hemisphere, the line passed through modern Brazil from around São Luís of Maranhão to Cananéia (most of current Brazil was then supposed to be Spanish territory).

Its extension into the Eastern Hemisphere should have passed near the Moluccas, but the Treaty of Saragossa of 22 April 1529 moved it to the east, giving the Moluccas to Portugal.

The line was made obsolete first by the Personal Union of the Crowns of Portugal and Spain from 1560 to 1640, by the expansion of Portuguese settlers into hinterland Brazil, and then by the decline of both Empires.

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