Shortly after the return of Columbus from his first
voyage, Pope Alexander VI, in response to a request by Ferdinand and Isabella,
issued a bull granting these sovereigns exclusive rights over the newly
discovered lands. In order that the Spanish possessions should be clearly
marked off from the Portuguese, the pope laid down an imaginary line of
demarcation in the Atlantic, three hundred miles west of the Azores. All new
discoveries west of the line were to belong to Spain; all those east of it, to
Portugal. [23] But this arrangement, which excluded France, England, and other
European countries from the New World, could not be long maintained.
[23] In 1494 A.D., the demarcation line was shifted about
eight hundred miles farther to the west. Six years later, when the Portuguese
discovered Brazil, the country was found to lie within their sphere of
influence.
FERDINAND MAGELLAN, 1480(?)-1521 A.D.
The demarcation line had a good deal to do in bringing
about the first voyage around the globe. So far no one had yet realized the
dream of Columbus to reach the lands of spice and silk by sailing westward.
Ferdinand Magellan, formerly one of Albuquerque's lieutenants but now in the
service of Spain, believed that the Spice Islands lay within the Spanish sphere
of influence and that an all-Spanish route, leading to them through some strait
at the southern end of South America, could be discovered.
