tion. And if any shall presume
to attempt the same, he ought to know that he shall thereby incur the
indignation of Almighty God and his holy Apostles, Peter and Paul.

Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's: In the year of the incarnation of our
Lord M.CCCC lxx.xxiii. The fourth day of the month of May; the first
year of our seat.

[1] Dated at Rome, May 4th, 1498. It was translated into English
by Richard Eden in 1555, and is printed in Old English and from
black-letter type, by Hart in his "American History Told by
Contemporaries." For the present work the English has been
modernized.

This famous bull was the result of rival claims, made by Spain
and Portugal, to lands discovered beyond the Atlantic. More than
half a century before Columbus found America, the Portuguese had
secured from Pope Eugenius IV a grant in perpetuity of all
heathen lands that might be discovered by them in further
voyages. The grant went so far as to include "the Indies," and
was confirmed by succeeding popes.

When Alexander VI issued his bull the America which Columbus had
found was believed to be not a new continent, but the Indies, and
the Portuguese, who had reached India by way of the Cape of Good
Hope, were threatening to send an expedition across the Atlantic
to take possession and dispute the Spanish claims. It was in
these circumstances, and for the purpose of reconciling the rival
states that Alexander issued the bull, John Fiske has said that,
"As between the two rival powers the Pontiff's arrangement was
made in a spirit of even-handed justice." The bull conferred on
the Spanish sovereigns all the lands already discovered, or
thereafter to be discovered in the western ocean, with
jurisdiction and privileges In all respects similar to those
formerly bestowed upon the crown of Portugal.

Alexander VI, the famous Borgia Pope, who was the father of
Caesar Borgia and Lucretia Borgia, has been accused, somewhat
loosely, of committing an act of foolish audacity in making this
grant. He has been represented as having partitioned the whole
American continent between Spain and Portugal. The accusation is
quite unjust. The bull merely granted such lands as had been
discovered, or might yet be discovered, and these lands were not
understood to be those of a new continent, but parts of India not
heretofore e