Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) is one of the most important documents in the history of international relations. It was an agreement between the Spanish monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, on the one hand, and the king of Portugal, John II, on the other, meant to establish a new demarcation line between the respective areas of expansion in the Atlantic. The treaty modified treaties and papal decisions of the previous decades. The new demarcation line left to Portugal an area of expansion in the eastern parts of the Atlantic, and to Spain the areas west of the demarcation line. The treaty caused the division of Latin America into two cultural areas: the Hispanic and the Luso-American. It was also the starting point for later agreements defining the areas of expansion of the two colonial powers in the Pacific until the Treaty of Madrid (1750)