This was the most notable of all voyages. It had taken
three years. It had been accomplished at a great cost both of
men and money. But it had established the fact that the earth
was round and that the new lands discovered by Columbus were
not a part of the Indies but a separate continent. From that
time on, Spain and Portugal devoted all their energies to the
development of their Indian and American trade. To prevent
an armed conflict between the rivals, Pope Alexander VI (the
only avowed heathen who was ever elected to this most holy
office) had obligingly divided the world into two equal parts
by a line of demarcation which followed the 50th degree of
longitude west of Greenwich, the so-called division of Tordesillas
of 1494. The Portuguese were to establish their colonies
to the east of this line, the Spaniards were to have theirs
to the west. This accounts for the fact that the entire American
continent with the exception of Brazil became Spanish and
that all of the Indies and most of Africa became Portuguese
until the English and the Dutch colonists (who had no respect
for Papal decisions) took these possessions away in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries.
When news of the discovery of Columbus reached the
Rialto of Venice, the Wall street of the Middle Ages, there
was a terrible panic. Stocks and bonds went down 40 and 50
percent.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257