The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed June 7, 1494, was intended to settle a conflict between Spain and Portugal over lands newly discovered by Christopher Columbus and other late 15th-century voyagers.

In 1493, after reports of Columbus' discoveries had reached them, the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella enlisted papal support for their claims to the New World in order to inhibit the Portuguese and other possible rivals. To accommodate them, the Spanish-born pope Alexander VI issued bulls setting up a line of demarcation from pole to pole about 320 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands (Bull Inter caetera "all lands east of 38° west longitude belongs to Portugal and those west of that belong to Spain."). Spain was given exclusive rights to all newly discovered and undiscovered lands in the region west of the line. Portuguese expeditions were to keep to the east of the line. Neither power was to occupy any territory already in the hands of a Christian ruler.

King John II of Portugal was dissatisfied because Portugal's rights in the New World were insufficiently affirmed, and the Portuguese would not have sufficient room at sea for their African voyages. Meeting at Tordesillas (in northwestern Spain), Spanish and Portuguese ambassadors reaffirmed the papal division, but the line itself was moved to 1,185 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands ("The pope's line of 1493 is moved to 46° 37' ").

Pope Julius II finally sanctioned the change in 1506. The new boundary enabled Portugal to claim the coast of Brazil after its discovery by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500.

No other European powers facing the Atlantic Ocean ever accepted this papal disposition or the subsequent agreement deriving from it.

Columbus, Christopher, 1451-1506
De Insulis in Mari Indico repartis
In Carolus Verardus: Historia Baetica
Basle: I.B. [Johan Bergman de Olpe], 1494

Christopher Columbus drafted a short official letter describing his 1492 discoveries of places and people on his return voyage to Spain in early 1493. This famous letter was quickly published and printed in Spanish at Barcelona (only a single copy is known to survive). A year later an illustrated Latin edition appeared in Basel. The front (and curiously “most important” in the eyes of the publisher) part of this book contains a prose piece by Verardus on Ferdinand’s 1492 capture of Granada from the Moors. This edition contains four other woodcuts that purport to illustrate the Columbus voyage and the New World. In fact, the illustrationsare mostly imaginary and were probably adapted from drawings illustrating the Mediterranean.

Cady, Annie Cole
The American continent and its inhabitants.
Philadelphia, 1893.

de la Cosa, Juan, 1460?-1510
Manuscript map of the New World
Spain, ca. 1500

Juan de la Cosa was a Spanish navigator and geographer. He served as master of the Santa Maria on Columbus’ first voyage in 1492-1493 and navigator aboard the Niña on the second voyage (1493). He also acted as pilot on expeditions to the north coast of South America in 1499-1500, 1500-1502, 1504-1507, and 1507-1508. He was killed by Indians near Cartagena, Columbia, in 1510.

This is the first map to show the western hemisphere. On the north, English flags along the coast and an inscription acknowledge John Cabot’s discoveries of 1497-1498 while sailing under the English flag. To the south, the Spanish flags commemorate the discoveries of Vincent Yanez Pinzon in 1499 along the coast of South America. In the Caribbean itself, the discoveries up to the year 1500 are accurately shown. Cuba is depicted as an island, although Sebastian de Ocampo did not “officially” circumnavigate it until 1509.

The figure depicted at the extreme left covers a space where a westward passage might be found and shows St. Christopher bearing the Christ child on his shoulders. Some say that this is a likeness of Columbus himself as the “Christ Bearer.”

The eastern part of the map shows Portuguese and Spanish flags next to the appropriate island groups or coasts in the middle and south areas, but is somewhat confusing in the north where English flags are present on Iceland and in the Baltic.

Another, slightly smaller section of the map, shows the rest of Africa and Asia. On it Portuguese ships sail around Africa and on to the East Indies, acknowledging the voyages of Vasco da Gama. The original map was drawn on oxhide and measures 3 feet 2 inches by 5 feet 9 inches.

Waldseemüller, Martin, 1470-1521?
Cosmographiae introductio
[Facsimilie of the 1507 edition].
New York: United States Catholic Historical Society, 1907.

Waldseemüller was one of the early “cosmographers” (intellectuals who attempted to explain the workings of the cosmos), and his writings were widely read in late 14th and early 15th century Europe. Few books were as important and as influential in the history of Europe’s conceptualization of the New World as Waldseemüller’s. For some commentators, the importance of the volume rests in the fact that “America” appears in it for the first time as a way of designating the New World.

The work was written to accompany a small terrestrial globe and a large world map printed from 12 woodcut plates (when assembled the map measured 8 by 4 ½ feet). It was the first major cartographic re-mapping of the world. The world map that Waldseemüller drew was the first map to incorporate the discoveries of the Spanish and the Portuguese explorers. Waldseemüller innovated in yet another way as well: he had the world map printed in sheets and sold separately as prints, so that beyond the volume, the map had a life of its own. The result was a relatively large and wide diffusion of the new view of the world. Even after Waldseemüller’s death there were numerous reprints and re-editions of the map. Only a single copy of the original large map and two copies of the gores for the small globe are known to survive.

The United States Library of Congress has reached an agreement with the present owner to purchase the map for 10 million dollars.

Porcacchi, Tommasso, ca. 1530-1585
L’Isole Piu Famose del Mundo.
Venice: G. Angelieri for S. Galignani & G. Porro, 1576.

Second edition of “The Most Famous Islands of the World,” engraved by Girolamo Porro, who depicted islands and coastal areas and two world maps. This edition contains seventeen more maps than the first edition; six relate to America.

The new laws of the Indies for the good treatment of the Indians, Promulgated by the Emperor Charles the Fifth, 1542-1543.
[A facsimile reprint of the original Spanish edition].
London: Chiswick Press, 1893.

Though Castilian law constituted the basic private law in the colonies, the special conditions that prevailed in the Americas required that the Spanish crown legislate public law specifically for the Indies. The Laws of Burgos issued on Dec. 27, 1512, by Ferdinand II of Aragon regulated relations between Spaniards and the conquered Indians who were often severely treated.

The New Laws Indies sought to correct the inadequacies of the previous code, limiting the partition of the lands among the conquerors and protecting the spiritual and material welfare of the indigenous peoples. The laws were largely prompted by the writings of Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (1474-1569), later known as the Apostle of the Indies, who argued for the fair and just treatment of the Indians. The Kislak Foundation has in its collection an early six-page manuscript letter written to the Council of the Indies decrying their unjust and cruel treatment at the hands of the Spanish Conquistadors.

Unfortunately, the Laws met with armed resistance from the American colonists and were reissued in a weaker version in 1552.

The original work is rare: only two recorded copies survive in the United States. Eighty-eight copies were privately printed for the noted bibliophile, Henry Stevens, 13 of which were on vellum, of which this is copy 7. The sheets are unbound in a folder of printed boards with velvet ties and metal buckles, and enclosed in a book form case of marbled board and leather spine, the whole contained in a marbled box.

Ogilby, John, 1600-1676
America: being the latest and most accurate description of the new world.
London, printed by the author, 1671.

After: Arnoldus Montanus, 1625?-1683, De nieuwe en onbekende weereld, Amsterdam, 1671.

Gage, Thomas, 1603?-1656
New survey of the West-Indies.
London, 1655.

Thomas Gage originally belonged to the Dominican Order and served as a missionary priest in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama. After his return to England in 1625, he joined the Church of England and wrote this book that was the first to give a description of the vast regions from which all foreigners had been excluded by the Spanish. In the book, Gage describes Mexico and the wealth of South America and urges the mastery of Spanish territories in the New World by the English.

Picard, Bernard, 1663-1733
Cérémonies et coutumes.
Amsterdam: Chez J.F. Bernard, 1723.

The Arawak, or Taino Indians of the Greater Antilles, were culturally more advanced than the Carib Indians to the south. This volume describes the religious ceremonies and social customs of the natives of the West Indies and adjacent shores. The Taino Indians of the Greater Antilles practiced a ritual rubber ball game and carved magnificent stone and wooden idols of substantial size. The allegorical scene shows a village festival in front of a huge arched shed or shrine containing several anthropomorphic idols on platforms. While these fanciful figures, such as the hydra-headed standing personage, could reflect a shaman’s hallucinogenic visions, they do not resemble surviving Taino sculpture.