the smaller islands had not been visited, and no
settlement was made elsewhere than on Espaftola in
his lifetime, but nearly all that has been called the
West Indies came within the range of his explorations.
C H A P T E R V
SPANISH POSSESSION AND ITS EFFECT
I T was after the return of Columbus to Spain from
1 his first voyage to “ the Indies,” with his glowing
report of discoveries, that Pope Alexander V I .
obligingly issued his famous bull, running a line
across the face of the earth from north to south, a
hundred leagues west of the Azores and the Cape
Verde Islands, and declaring that all heathen
lands ” discovered and to be discovered west of that
line should belong to Spain and all east of it to
Portugal. B y that indefeasible title all these “ Indies
” of the west and the mainland thereabouts of
whatever extent became the exclusive property of
the Spanish monarchy, to have and to hold against
all comers. B y the treaty of Tordesillas the line of
division between the possessions of Spain and Portugal
was removed to three hundred and seventy
leagues west of Cape Verde, but the title still rested
upon the Pope’s bull. I t was this change of the
meridian of the infallible authority on rights of discovery
and possession that gave Portugal its ground
for claiming Brazil. I t was not until 1509 that the
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