Note 1 — Discovery of the Archipelago

During the previous century jealousy had run so high between Spain and Portugal with regard to their respective colonization and trading rights, that the question of demarcation had to be settled by the Pope Alexander VI., who issued a bull dated May 4, 1493, dividing the world into two hemispheres, and decreeing that all heathen lands discovered in the Western half, from the meridian 100 leagues W. of Cape Verd Island, should belong to the Spaniards; in the Eastern half to the Portuguese. The bull was adopted by both nations in the Treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494). It gave rise to many passionate debates, as the Spaniards wrongly insisted that the Philippines and the Moluccas came within the division allotted to them by Pontifical donation.