Though Spain and Portugal largely respected the Treaty of Tordesillas, it would be ignored by other European powers-including Britain, France and the Netherlands-going forward. Spain claimed all lands to the west of the line Portugal all lands to the east, including the coast of Brazil, which at the time had not yet been officially “discovered.” (Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral would reach Brazil in 1500, prompting speculation by historians that in fact Portugal already knew of its existence from an earlier expedition, and had used that knowledge to push the treaty’s boundaries further west.) According to the Treaty of Tordesillas, a vertical line was drawn through the Atlantic Ocean about 345 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, located off the northwestern African coast and controlled at the time by Portugal.
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