South America -- Description and travel; South America -- History
This so completely overshadowed all that Portugal had accomplished that
an intense rivalry sprang up between the two powers. The Pope, as the
Vicar of Christ on earth, and accordingly the repository of the title to
all lands still occupied by infidel peoples, was appealed to to confirm
the discoveries to Spain. He issued a bull granting to His Most Catholic
Majesty the lands then, and such as might thereafter be, discovered in
the western sea, and to the Portuguese such as they might discover by
way of the African route. This was supplemented by a second to the
effect that only those lands lying west of a meridian of longitude a
hundred miles west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands should belong to
the Spaniards. Dissatisfied even with that division, the Portuguese
demanded a line still farther west, and, by a treaty signed at
Tordesillas in June, 1494, Spain agreed that it should be advanced in
that direction 370 leagues. This resulted eventually in giving Portugal
title to the then yet undiscovered country of Brazil.
Meanwhile, on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus set out on his
second expedition—this time with seventeen ships and fifteen hundred
men, among them his brothers Bartholomew and Diego and many adventurers
of noble rank, for there was no lack either of men or money now. “Their
dreams,” Professor Fiske tell us, “were of the marble palaces of
Quinsay, of islands of spices and the treasures of the mythical Prester
John. The sovereigns wept for joy as they thought that such untold
riches were vouchsafed them as a reward for having overcome the Moor at
Granada. Columbus shared these views and regarded himself as a special
instrument for executing the divine decrees. He renewed his vow to
rescue the Holy Sepulcher, promising within seven years to equip, at his
own expense, a crusading army of fifty thousand foot and four thousand
horse.” When the fleet arrived at Hayti and the company landed at the
place where the little colony had been left, it was found that it had
been annihilated. Not a whit dismayed by that, however, Columbus ordered
a town to be built and the island, which he named Española (Little
Spain), became the base of hundreds of exploring expeditions undertaken
by the hordes of adventurers that followed in his wake and soon overran
the neighboring islands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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