Putin & Trump’s Treaty of Tordesillas

The carving knives are out

It is difficult to pinpoint a starting date of the age of European colonialism, but one key early date was 7 June 1494. On that date, the crown heads of Aragon and Castile (Spain) and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas.

The desire for the agreement arose because Columbus, looking for the eastern Spice Islands, had stumbled across the Antilles and claimed it for Castile. Portugal already had colonies in east Atlantic islands and the coast of Africa. Now Spain wanted in on the action. The treaty declared that all non-European lands would be divided between Spain and Portugal demarcated by a north-south line 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.

The terms of the treaty meant that Portugal would keep its east Atlantic and African colonies and anything else it could find east of the line of demarcation, with Spain getting everything it could find west of the line. The only exemptions from this division of the world were lands already owned by a Christian ruler, which effectively meant Europe. They literally drew a line on a map to divide the world in half.

Spain and Portugal thus declared, without asking anyone else, all the land, resources, and people of the world to be divided between them. It was a peaceable agreement. . . for them. When Portugal…