DANNY BIRD highlights events that took place in May in history

4 MAY 1493

Pope Alexander VI divides the planet

A papal decree gives Spain sweeping rights to the New World

When Pope Alexander VI issued the papal bull titled Inter caetera on 4 May 1493, he gave Spain exclusive rights to colonise land not yet ruled by Christians in the New World. The Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, were granted unknown lands west of an imaginary line set 100 leagues (around 320 miles) west of the Azores and Cape Verde islands, in a ruling aimed to quell the intensifying rivalry between Spain and Portugal. The two kingdoms were vying for dominance in the wake of Christopher Columbus’s landmark voyage the previous year, and the pope – Spanish by birth – overwhelmingly favoured Ferdinand and Isabella.

The Portuguese were outraged. King John II, whose explorers had spent decades establishing control along Africa’s coastline while seeking a maritime trade route to India, saw his ambitions threatened. Unwilling to accept the pope’s terms, he entered negotiations with Spain. This ultimately led to the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which shifted the line 370 leagues (about 1,185 miles) west of Cape Verde – placing the as-yet unexplored Brazil within Portugal’s reach.

Far from the courts of Europe, the decree’s consequences had already begun to unfold. Spanish ships had reached uncharted shores where thick rainforests met the ocean. Coastal villages, home to numerous indigenous peoples, lay scattered along the edges of a vast continent unknown to Europeans. Their inhabitants had no knowledge of the invisible lines drawn to divide their ancestral lands.