COLONIAL SYSTEM OF PORTUGAL

Abstract

The great geographical discoveries of the late XV century. laid the foundation for a sharp struggle between Spain and Portugal for new, unknown lands and for sea routes to them. The dispute between these feudal states of the Iberian Peninsula about the "right" to seize all the newly discovered regions of the globe was transferred to the court of the pope. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued several bulls in a row, which each time set a new line for dividing the alleged possessions of Spain and Portugal from north to south across the Atlantic Ocean. All the space to the west of this line was considered Spanish, to the east - Portuguese. In the end, the line of demarcation in the Atlantic Ocean was established by the Tordesillian treatise on June 7, 1494, signed by Spain and Portugal. This line ran 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. All newly discovered lands east of this “Papal Meridian†were declared the possessions of Portugal, and to the west - the possessions of Spain1. However, the first round-the-world trip of Magellan (1519-1522) and the capture of the Philippine Islands by Spain again raised the question of delimiting the zones of domination of Spain and Portugal, but already in the Pacific. The Zaragoza treatise of 1529 established a line along the Pacific Ocean, dividing the domination zones on the globe between the two states of the Iberian Peninsula. True, Spain from the very beginning violated the conditions of the partition by not returning the Philippines captured by it in the Portuguese zone to Portugal.