The Doctrine of Discovery
Jan. 27th, 2023 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickToday I learned about the Doctrine of Discovery, which is how the Spanish claimed authority and ownership of The New World. (Yes, this is STILL, tangentially, about pirates.)
When we are small children, we are told "Columbus discovered America, or at least the West Indies." This is kind of weird because when he GOT HERE there were already PEOPLE HERE, but maybe I guess he "discovered" it for Spain, who previously didn't know about it.
And so I got to wondering how Spain figured that it "owned" the new world, like, basically by 1550 Spain had dominion over the West Indies and Central America. Where did they GET the dominion? Well, obviously, they just... took it by force of arms and conquest. That's like, WHAT CONQUISTADORS DO. It's right there in their name and everything. Hello, we're from Spain and we've come to take all your stuff. We'll probably also enslave or destroy you. Or... ¿Porque no los dos?
The Doctrine of Discovery is... how they justified doing what they wanted to do anyway. The foundations, such as they are, for the Doctrine of Discovery justification rest with the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella (who were Devout and Loyal Catholics) funded an explorer's expedition as what you can conceptualize as the Venture Capitalism of the time. They also wrapped up their conquest of Granada and in so doing threw out all the Jews (and also the Moors), which was the OTHER Big Historical Thing Spain did in 1492. (Spain used to be lots of little ... pieces like Granada and Castile and Aragon and Navarre and Leon but when Ferdinand Of Aragon and Isabella of Castile married, they merged all the pieces to form SPAIN. Grenada was the last hold out before "Spain" back then kinda looked like "Spain" now. In Spain, the Grenada thing is the Big Deal historically and the Columbus thing barely merits a mention which I'm starting to think overlooks the weight and impact that Life As A Colonial Power had on the development of Spain even to these modern times. But I digress.) By mid-March of 1493, Ferdie and Bella had ALSO heard back from that explorer guy whose expedition they'd backed in the previous year. He'd been looking for a better route (maybe) to India and/or the Spice Islands. Turned out he didn't manage that BUT he did find other lands across the ocean to the west.
Some timeline stuff here might be helpful. Columbus set sail in August 1492 and reached land in the New World about 30 days later. He dicked around the islands a bit, and then sailed homeward in Mid-January 1943. He set foot back in Palos de la Frontera, Spain on March 15, 1493 but had mailed off a letter (likely from Portugal, where he'd landed first) to the Spanish Court detailing his findings on March 4, 1493. The letter was published in Barcelona (where Ferdi and Bella lived) by April and a Latin translation of the letter was published in Rome in May of 1493.
Now, on the 4th of May, 1493, Pope Alexander VI (He was a Spanish-born Borgia, FATHER OF LUCREZIA, in the first year of his papacy.) issued a papal bull "Inter Caetera" on the matter of Columbus's discoveries. Basically, tho, this papal bull probably still had wet ink. Like, Pope Alexander VI was wasting ABSOLUTELY NO TIME on issuing an official ruling about this news. He was ON IT.
What did the Pope have to say? A lot. WOW A LOT. SO many words.
I'm going to put the transcript here (in English translation because I can't read Latin) in italics and then regular bold the important parts so you don't have to read ALL of it. (There's a lot of boilerplate and Rah Rah Religion surrounding the important parts.) Also, apparently the new technology of paragraphs had not gotten to the Vatican yet, so I added those for you to break up the wall o' text a bit.
(FROM) Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the illustrious sovereigns, our very dear son in Christ, Ferdinand, king, and our very dear daughter in Christ, Isabella, queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, and Granada, health and apostolic benediction. Among other works well pleasing to the Divine Majesty and cherished of our heart, this assuredly ranks highest, that in our times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.
Wherefore inasmuch as by the favor of divine clemency, we, though of insufficient merits, have been called to this Holy See of Peter, recognizing that as true Catholic kings and princes, such as we have known you always to be, and as your illustrious deeds already known to almost the whole world declare, you not only eagerly desire but with every effort, zeal, and diligence, without regard to hardships, expenses, dangers, with the shedding even of your blood, are laboring to that end; recognizing also that you have long since dedicated to this purpose your whole soul and all your endeavors--as witnessed in these times with so much glory to the Divine Name in your recovery of the kingdom of Granada from the yoke of the Saracens--we therefore are rightly led, and hold it as our duty, to grant you even of our own accord and in your favor those things whereby with effort each day more hearty you may be enabled for the honor of God himself and the spread of the Christian rule to carry forward your holy and praiseworthy purpose so pleasing to immortal God.
We have indeed learned that you, who for a long time had intended to seek out and discover certain islands and mainlands remote and unknown and not hitherto discovered by others, to the end that you might bring to the worship of our Redeemer and the profession of the Catholic faith their residents and inhabitants, having been up to the present time greatly engaged in the siege and recovery of the kingdom itself of Granada were unable to accomplish this holy and praiseworthy purpose; but the said kingdom having at length been regained, as was pleasing to the Lord, you, with the wish to fulfill your desire, chose our beloved son, Christopher Columbus, a man assuredly worthy and of the highest recommendations and fitted for so great an undertaking, whom you furnished with ships and men equipped for like designs, not without the greatest hardships, dangers, and expenses, to make diligent quest for these remote and unknown mainlands and islands through the sea, where hitherto no one had sailed; and they at length, with divine aid and with the utmost diligence sailing in the ocean sea, discovered certain very remote islands and even mainlands that hitherto had not been discovered by others; wherein dwell very many peoples living in peace, and, as reported, going unclothed, and not eating flesh. Moreover, as your aforesaid envoys are of opinion, these very peoples living in the said islands and countries believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and be trained in good morals. And it is hoped that, were they instructed, the name of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, would easily be introduced into the said countries and islands. Also, on one of the chief of these aforesaid islands the said Christopher has already caused to be put together and built a fortress fairly equipped, wherein he has stationed as garrison certain Christians, companions of his, who are to make search for other remote and unknown islands and mainlands. In the islands and countries already discovered are found gold, spices, and very many other precious things of divers kinds and qualities.
Wherefore, as becomes Catholic kings and princes, after earnest consideration of all matters, especially of the rise and spread of the Catholic faith, as was the fashion of your ancestors, kings of renowned memory, you have purposed with the favor of divine clemency to bring under your sway the said mainlands and islands with their residents and inhabitants and to bring them to the Catholic faith. Hence, heartily commending in the Lord this your holy and praiseworthy purpose, and desirous that it be duly accomplished, and that the name of our Savior be carried into those regions, we exhort you very earnestly in the Lord and by your reception of holy baptism, whereby you are bound to our apostolic commands, and by the bowels of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, enjoy strictly, that inasmuch as with eager zeal for the true faith you design to equip and despatch this expedition, you purpose also, as is your duty, to lead the peoples dwelling in those islands and countries to embrace the Christian religion; nor at any time let dangers or hardships deter you therefrom, with the stout hope and trust in your hearts that Almighty God will further your undertakings.
And, in order that you may enter upon so great an undertaking with greater readiness and heartiness endowed with benefit of our apostolic favor, we, of our own accord, not at your instance nor the request of anyone else in your regard, but out of our own sole largess and certain knowledge and out of the fullness of our apostolic power, by the authority of Almighty God conferred upon us in blessed Peter and of the vicarship of Jesus Christ, which we hold on earth, do by tenor of these presents, should any of said islands have been found by your envoys and captains, give, grant, and assign to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castile and Leon, forever, together with all their dominions, cities, camps, places, and villages, and all rights, jurisdictions, and appurtenances, all islands and mainlands found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered towards the west and south, by drawing and establishing a line from the Arctic pole, namely the north, to the Antarctic pole, namely the south, no matter whether the said mainlands and islands are found and to be found in the direction of India or towards any other quarter, the said line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west and south from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde*. With this proviso however that none of the islands and mainlands, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, beyond that said line towards the west and south, be in the actual possession of any Christian king or prince up to the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ just past from which the present year one thousand four hundred ninety-three begins. And we make, appoint, and depute you and your said heirs and successors lords of them with full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind; with this proviso however, that by this our gift, grant, and assignment no right acquired by any Christian prince, who may be in actual possession of said islands and mainlands prior to the said birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, is hereby to be understood to be withdrawn or taking away. Moreover we command you in virtue of holy obedience that, employing all due diligence in the premises, as you also promise--nor do we doubt your compliance therein in accordance with your loyalty and royal greatness of spirit--you should appoint to the aforesaid mainlands and islands worthy, Godfearing, learned, skilled, and expeienced men, in order to instruct the aforesaid inhabitants and residents in the Catholic faith and train them in good morals. Furthermore, under penalty of excommunication "late sententie" to be incurred "ipso facto," should anyone thus contravene, we strictly forbid all persons of whatsoever rank, even imperial and royal, or of whatsoever estate, degree, order, or condition, to dare without your special permit or that of your aforesaid heirs and successors, to go for the purpose of trade or any other reason to the islands or mainlands, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, towards the west and south, by drawing and establishing a line from the Arctic pole to the Antarctic pole, no matter whether the mainlands and islands, found and to be found, lie in the direction of India or toward any other quarter whatsoever, the said line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west and south, as is aforesaid, from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde; apostolic constitutions and ordinances and other decrees whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding. We trust in Him from whom empires and governments and all good things proceed, that, should you, with the Lord's guidance, pursue this holy and praiseworthy undertaking, in a short while your hardships and endeavors will attain the most felicitious result, to the happiness and glory of all Christendom. But inasmuch as it would be difficult to have these present letters sent to all places where desirable, we wish, and with similar accord and knowledge do decree, that to? copies of them, signed by the hand of a public notary commissioned therefor, and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical officer or ecclesiastical court, the same respect is to be shown in court and outside as well as anywhere else as would be given to these presents should they thus be exhibited or shown. Let no one, therefore, infringe, or with rash boldness contravene, this our recommendation, exhortation, requisition, gift, grant, assignment, constitution, deputation, decree, mandate, prohibition, and will. Should anyone presume to attempt this, be it known to him that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety-three, the fourth of May, and the first year of our pontificate.
This is A LOT of words and a lot of flowery bullshit, but basically it's like this:
Yo, Ferdi and Bella, as you know, I'm IN FAVOR of MOAR CATHOLICS. So, btdubs, is God. Good job on your recent efforts to this end in Granada. Also, I just heard that Columbus found New Lands and New Peoples while exploring on your dime. If you give me the souls of those peoples FOR CATHOLICISM, as OF COURSE you totally will, being such GOOD CATHOLICS as you undoubtedly are, I will 100% back your EXCLUSIVE claim to these lands (and their untold riches) with the full power of the HRCC and the threat of excommunication for the disobedient.
At this time, there were no Protestants, that didn't get started until Martin Luther in 1517. (Henry VIII did the C of E in 1534.) There were Muslims and Jews around a little, I guess, but they weren't in Granada anymore, see above. The Eastern Orthodox split from the HRCC in 1054 but that was, y'know, over towards Constantinople. Basically, in most of mainland Europe, Roman Catholicism was THE Jesus-based religion and if the HRCC said you can't play then you were going to go to hell FOR SURE. That's why the threat of excommunication was a good threat. I mean, these days people would be all LOL, GFY! as they ran their fingers through piles of glittering loot stolen from the kingdoms of Central and South America, but I guess back then people took salvation a bit more seriously.
With their new, official, EXCLUSIVE license-to-plunder-and-convert freshly issued by GOD'S SUPREME AUTHORITY ON EARTH, Spain commenced to extracting riches (by force, if necessary) from the New World and giving the native peoples (by force, if necessary) an unwanted and cumbersome religion in "exchange". (The riches were kinda the point of the colonies for the colonial powers. Strip the riches, send them home. The religion thing was more particular to the Spanish because by all accounts Ferdi and Bella were 100% True Believers who also brought us The Spanish Inquisition in their excess of zeal. The separation of Church and State is *very* fucking important because when both the Church and the State are in the hands of True Believers, you get shit like The Spanish Inquisition and The Doctrine Of Discovery.) The extracted riches, obviously, were gathered up and neatly packed onto boats to be sent back to Spain. This is where the PIRATES come in to play.
In the Pirate TV Show, they're hunting the Urca de Lima. It's a major plot point running through the entire four seasons of the show, the gold from the Urca de Lima. Turns out the Urca was A REAL SPANISH SHIP that ran aground off the coast of Florida in 1715 during a hurricane. (It was part of a fleet of Spanish ships, the rest of which sank off the coast of Florida during the hurricane. The Urca was carrying chocolate and vanilla and incense, not gold. The Spanish salvaged the wreck in fairly short order but the wreck of the Urca still is offshore near Fort Pierce, Florida in not terribly deep water and you can go visit it if you dive and stuff.)
Wikipedia helpfully shares that in 2015, Queens Jewels, LLC and their founder Brent Brisben discovered $4.5 million in gold coins off the coast of Vero Beach, Florida; the coins come from the 1715 Fleet shipwreck site known as the Corrigans wreck. So, we know that Spain took A LOT of riches from the New World, because even in 2015, 4.5 million was a nice chunk of change and that was just from the one boat in the one fleet. (We may talk a while later about the price inflation that happened in Spain from 1492 onward due to the massive amounts of precious metals coming in from the New World and its fucking knock-on effects that reverberate in that country's overall lack of industry TO THIS DAY, but not today. It's outside the scope of today's discussion.)
Most of these treasure-laden Spanish boats passed through or near the Caribbean because it's ON THE WAY from the east coast of Central America to Spain. Fact is, you'd have a lot of trouble sailing your treasure-laden Spanish boat FROM MEXICO TO SPAIN without going through the Caribbean. Here's a picture:
The Caribbean also has a whole pile of tiny little islands (so lots of places for pirates to hide for ambushes/pursuit as needed). You have to blow up the map a bit to see the tiny little islands but trust me there are shitbuckets of them. Here's a picture of "that space between Cuba and Florida" on the straight line route back to Spain. I see some islands.
The Caribbean has decent weather most of the year (excepting hurricanes) and if it's got both Boats Laden With Treasure and also non-treasure merchant boats coming through all the time, there's not really an off season due to winter. Oh, and since it's colonies, there's not a real effective Rule of Law going on. So you could, maybe, just... take what you wanted. There's lots to choose from.
Pirates in the Caribbean was basically guaranteed by circumstances, is where I'm going with this.
*The Azores and Cape Verde are island groups off the coast of Portugal and Senegal (Africa), respectively. They are NOWHERE NEAR the New World. The line described by this papal bull makes THE ENTIRE NEW WORLD Spanish except for a little pointy-out tit in South America that is currently Brazil. A year after this papal bull, Portugal and Spain signed a new treaty (Torsedillas) revising the line to be further west and THIS PAPAL BULL AND THAT TORSEDILLAS TREATY is why Brazil now speaks Portuguese instead of Spanish like the entire rest of South America. The relevant lines are shown on the image below to help clarify your understanding of this shit:
When we are small children, we are told "Columbus discovered America, or at least the West Indies." This is kind of weird because when he GOT HERE there were already PEOPLE HERE, but maybe I guess he "discovered" it for Spain, who previously didn't know about it.
And so I got to wondering how Spain figured that it "owned" the new world, like, basically by 1550 Spain had dominion over the West Indies and Central America. Where did they GET the dominion? Well, obviously, they just... took it by force of arms and conquest. That's like, WHAT CONQUISTADORS DO. It's right there in their name and everything. Hello, we're from Spain and we've come to take all your stuff. We'll probably also enslave or destroy you. Or... ¿Porque no los dos?
The Doctrine of Discovery is... how they justified doing what they wanted to do anyway. The foundations, such as they are, for the Doctrine of Discovery justification rest with the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella (who were Devout and Loyal Catholics) funded an explorer's expedition as what you can conceptualize as the Venture Capitalism of the time. They also wrapped up their conquest of Granada and in so doing threw out all the Jews (and also the Moors), which was the OTHER Big Historical Thing Spain did in 1492. (Spain used to be lots of little ... pieces like Granada and Castile and Aragon and Navarre and Leon but when Ferdinand Of Aragon and Isabella of Castile married, they merged all the pieces to form SPAIN. Grenada was the last hold out before "Spain" back then kinda looked like "Spain" now. In Spain, the Grenada thing is the Big Deal historically and the Columbus thing barely merits a mention which I'm starting to think overlooks the weight and impact that Life As A Colonial Power had on the development of Spain even to these modern times. But I digress.) By mid-March of 1493, Ferdie and Bella had ALSO heard back from that explorer guy whose expedition they'd backed in the previous year. He'd been looking for a better route (maybe) to India and/or the Spice Islands. Turned out he didn't manage that BUT he did find other lands across the ocean to the west.
Some timeline stuff here might be helpful. Columbus set sail in August 1492 and reached land in the New World about 30 days later. He dicked around the islands a bit, and then sailed homeward in Mid-January 1943. He set foot back in Palos de la Frontera, Spain on March 15, 1493 but had mailed off a letter (likely from Portugal, where he'd landed first) to the Spanish Court detailing his findings on March 4, 1493. The letter was published in Barcelona (where Ferdi and Bella lived) by April and a Latin translation of the letter was published in Rome in May of 1493.
Now, on the 4th of May, 1493, Pope Alexander VI (He was a Spanish-born Borgia, FATHER OF LUCREZIA, in the first year of his papacy.) issued a papal bull "Inter Caetera" on the matter of Columbus's discoveries. Basically, tho, this papal bull probably still had wet ink. Like, Pope Alexander VI was wasting ABSOLUTELY NO TIME on issuing an official ruling about this news. He was ON IT.
What did the Pope have to say? A lot. WOW A LOT. SO many words.
I'm going to put the transcript here (in English translation because I can't read Latin) in italics and then regular bold the important parts so you don't have to read ALL of it. (There's a lot of boilerplate and Rah Rah Religion surrounding the important parts.) Also, apparently the new technology of paragraphs had not gotten to the Vatican yet, so I added those for you to break up the wall o' text a bit.
(FROM) Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the illustrious sovereigns, our very dear son in Christ, Ferdinand, king, and our very dear daughter in Christ, Isabella, queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, and Granada, health and apostolic benediction. Among other works well pleasing to the Divine Majesty and cherished of our heart, this assuredly ranks highest, that in our times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.
Wherefore inasmuch as by the favor of divine clemency, we, though of insufficient merits, have been called to this Holy See of Peter, recognizing that as true Catholic kings and princes, such as we have known you always to be, and as your illustrious deeds already known to almost the whole world declare, you not only eagerly desire but with every effort, zeal, and diligence, without regard to hardships, expenses, dangers, with the shedding even of your blood, are laboring to that end; recognizing also that you have long since dedicated to this purpose your whole soul and all your endeavors--as witnessed in these times with so much glory to the Divine Name in your recovery of the kingdom of Granada from the yoke of the Saracens--we therefore are rightly led, and hold it as our duty, to grant you even of our own accord and in your favor those things whereby with effort each day more hearty you may be enabled for the honor of God himself and the spread of the Christian rule to carry forward your holy and praiseworthy purpose so pleasing to immortal God.
We have indeed learned that you, who for a long time had intended to seek out and discover certain islands and mainlands remote and unknown and not hitherto discovered by others, to the end that you might bring to the worship of our Redeemer and the profession of the Catholic faith their residents and inhabitants, having been up to the present time greatly engaged in the siege and recovery of the kingdom itself of Granada were unable to accomplish this holy and praiseworthy purpose; but the said kingdom having at length been regained, as was pleasing to the Lord, you, with the wish to fulfill your desire, chose our beloved son, Christopher Columbus, a man assuredly worthy and of the highest recommendations and fitted for so great an undertaking, whom you furnished with ships and men equipped for like designs, not without the greatest hardships, dangers, and expenses, to make diligent quest for these remote and unknown mainlands and islands through the sea, where hitherto no one had sailed; and they at length, with divine aid and with the utmost diligence sailing in the ocean sea, discovered certain very remote islands and even mainlands that hitherto had not been discovered by others; wherein dwell very many peoples living in peace, and, as reported, going unclothed, and not eating flesh. Moreover, as your aforesaid envoys are of opinion, these very peoples living in the said islands and countries believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and be trained in good morals. And it is hoped that, were they instructed, the name of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, would easily be introduced into the said countries and islands. Also, on one of the chief of these aforesaid islands the said Christopher has already caused to be put together and built a fortress fairly equipped, wherein he has stationed as garrison certain Christians, companions of his, who are to make search for other remote and unknown islands and mainlands. In the islands and countries already discovered are found gold, spices, and very many other precious things of divers kinds and qualities.
Wherefore, as becomes Catholic kings and princes, after earnest consideration of all matters, especially of the rise and spread of the Catholic faith, as was the fashion of your ancestors, kings of renowned memory, you have purposed with the favor of divine clemency to bring under your sway the said mainlands and islands with their residents and inhabitants and to bring them to the Catholic faith. Hence, heartily commending in the Lord this your holy and praiseworthy purpose, and desirous that it be duly accomplished, and that the name of our Savior be carried into those regions, we exhort you very earnestly in the Lord and by your reception of holy baptism, whereby you are bound to our apostolic commands, and by the bowels of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, enjoy strictly, that inasmuch as with eager zeal for the true faith you design to equip and despatch this expedition, you purpose also, as is your duty, to lead the peoples dwelling in those islands and countries to embrace the Christian religion; nor at any time let dangers or hardships deter you therefrom, with the stout hope and trust in your hearts that Almighty God will further your undertakings.
And, in order that you may enter upon so great an undertaking with greater readiness and heartiness endowed with benefit of our apostolic favor, we, of our own accord, not at your instance nor the request of anyone else in your regard, but out of our own sole largess and certain knowledge and out of the fullness of our apostolic power, by the authority of Almighty God conferred upon us in blessed Peter and of the vicarship of Jesus Christ, which we hold on earth, do by tenor of these presents, should any of said islands have been found by your envoys and captains, give, grant, and assign to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castile and Leon, forever, together with all their dominions, cities, camps, places, and villages, and all rights, jurisdictions, and appurtenances, all islands and mainlands found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered towards the west and south, by drawing and establishing a line from the Arctic pole, namely the north, to the Antarctic pole, namely the south, no matter whether the said mainlands and islands are found and to be found in the direction of India or towards any other quarter, the said line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west and south from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde*. With this proviso however that none of the islands and mainlands, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, beyond that said line towards the west and south, be in the actual possession of any Christian king or prince up to the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ just past from which the present year one thousand four hundred ninety-three begins. And we make, appoint, and depute you and your said heirs and successors lords of them with full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind; with this proviso however, that by this our gift, grant, and assignment no right acquired by any Christian prince, who may be in actual possession of said islands and mainlands prior to the said birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, is hereby to be understood to be withdrawn or taking away. Moreover we command you in virtue of holy obedience that, employing all due diligence in the premises, as you also promise--nor do we doubt your compliance therein in accordance with your loyalty and royal greatness of spirit--you should appoint to the aforesaid mainlands and islands worthy, Godfearing, learned, skilled, and expeienced men, in order to instruct the aforesaid inhabitants and residents in the Catholic faith and train them in good morals. Furthermore, under penalty of excommunication "late sententie" to be incurred "ipso facto," should anyone thus contravene, we strictly forbid all persons of whatsoever rank, even imperial and royal, or of whatsoever estate, degree, order, or condition, to dare without your special permit or that of your aforesaid heirs and successors, to go for the purpose of trade or any other reason to the islands or mainlands, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, towards the west and south, by drawing and establishing a line from the Arctic pole to the Antarctic pole, no matter whether the mainlands and islands, found and to be found, lie in the direction of India or toward any other quarter whatsoever, the said line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west and south, as is aforesaid, from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde; apostolic constitutions and ordinances and other decrees whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding. We trust in Him from whom empires and governments and all good things proceed, that, should you, with the Lord's guidance, pursue this holy and praiseworthy undertaking, in a short while your hardships and endeavors will attain the most felicitious result, to the happiness and glory of all Christendom. But inasmuch as it would be difficult to have these present letters sent to all places where desirable, we wish, and with similar accord and knowledge do decree, that to? copies of them, signed by the hand of a public notary commissioned therefor, and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical officer or ecclesiastical court, the same respect is to be shown in court and outside as well as anywhere else as would be given to these presents should they thus be exhibited or shown. Let no one, therefore, infringe, or with rash boldness contravene, this our recommendation, exhortation, requisition, gift, grant, assignment, constitution, deputation, decree, mandate, prohibition, and will. Should anyone presume to attempt this, be it known to him that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety-three, the fourth of May, and the first year of our pontificate.
This is A LOT of words and a lot of flowery bullshit, but basically it's like this:
Yo, Ferdi and Bella, as you know, I'm IN FAVOR of MOAR CATHOLICS. So, btdubs, is God. Good job on your recent efforts to this end in Granada. Also, I just heard that Columbus found New Lands and New Peoples while exploring on your dime. If you give me the souls of those peoples FOR CATHOLICISM, as OF COURSE you totally will, being such GOOD CATHOLICS as you undoubtedly are, I will 100% back your EXCLUSIVE claim to these lands (and their untold riches) with the full power of the HRCC and the threat of excommunication for the disobedient.
At this time, there were no Protestants, that didn't get started until Martin Luther in 1517. (Henry VIII did the C of E in 1534.) There were Muslims and Jews around a little, I guess, but they weren't in Granada anymore, see above. The Eastern Orthodox split from the HRCC in 1054 but that was, y'know, over towards Constantinople. Basically, in most of mainland Europe, Roman Catholicism was THE Jesus-based religion and if the HRCC said you can't play then you were going to go to hell FOR SURE. That's why the threat of excommunication was a good threat. I mean, these days people would be all LOL, GFY! as they ran their fingers through piles of glittering loot stolen from the kingdoms of Central and South America, but I guess back then people took salvation a bit more seriously.
With their new, official, EXCLUSIVE license-to-plunder-and-convert freshly issued by GOD'S SUPREME AUTHORITY ON EARTH, Spain commenced to extracting riches (by force, if necessary) from the New World and giving the native peoples (by force, if necessary) an unwanted and cumbersome religion in "exchange". (The riches were kinda the point of the colonies for the colonial powers. Strip the riches, send them home. The religion thing was more particular to the Spanish because by all accounts Ferdi and Bella were 100% True Believers who also brought us The Spanish Inquisition in their excess of zeal. The separation of Church and State is *very* fucking important because when both the Church and the State are in the hands of True Believers, you get shit like The Spanish Inquisition and The Doctrine Of Discovery.) The extracted riches, obviously, were gathered up and neatly packed onto boats to be sent back to Spain. This is where the PIRATES come in to play.
In the Pirate TV Show, they're hunting the Urca de Lima. It's a major plot point running through the entire four seasons of the show, the gold from the Urca de Lima. Turns out the Urca was A REAL SPANISH SHIP that ran aground off the coast of Florida in 1715 during a hurricane. (It was part of a fleet of Spanish ships, the rest of which sank off the coast of Florida during the hurricane. The Urca was carrying chocolate and vanilla and incense, not gold. The Spanish salvaged the wreck in fairly short order but the wreck of the Urca still is offshore near Fort Pierce, Florida in not terribly deep water and you can go visit it if you dive and stuff.)
Wikipedia helpfully shares that in 2015, Queens Jewels, LLC and their founder Brent Brisben discovered $4.5 million in gold coins off the coast of Vero Beach, Florida; the coins come from the 1715 Fleet shipwreck site known as the Corrigans wreck. So, we know that Spain took A LOT of riches from the New World, because even in 2015, 4.5 million was a nice chunk of change and that was just from the one boat in the one fleet. (We may talk a while later about the price inflation that happened in Spain from 1492 onward due to the massive amounts of precious metals coming in from the New World and its fucking knock-on effects that reverberate in that country's overall lack of industry TO THIS DAY, but not today. It's outside the scope of today's discussion.)
Most of these treasure-laden Spanish boats passed through or near the Caribbean because it's ON THE WAY from the east coast of Central America to Spain. Fact is, you'd have a lot of trouble sailing your treasure-laden Spanish boat FROM MEXICO TO SPAIN without going through the Caribbean. Here's a picture:
The Caribbean also has a whole pile of tiny little islands (so lots of places for pirates to hide for ambushes/pursuit as needed). You have to blow up the map a bit to see the tiny little islands but trust me there are shitbuckets of them. Here's a picture of "that space between Cuba and Florida" on the straight line route back to Spain. I see some islands.
The Caribbean has decent weather most of the year (excepting hurricanes) and if it's got both Boats Laden With Treasure and also non-treasure merchant boats coming through all the time, there's not really an off season due to winter. Oh, and since it's colonies, there's not a real effective Rule of Law going on. So you could, maybe, just... take what you wanted. There's lots to choose from.
Pirates in the Caribbean was basically guaranteed by circumstances, is where I'm going with this.
*The Azores and Cape Verde are island groups off the coast of Portugal and Senegal (Africa), respectively. They are NOWHERE NEAR the New World. The line described by this papal bull makes THE ENTIRE NEW WORLD Spanish except for a little pointy-out tit in South America that is currently Brazil. A year after this papal bull, Portugal and Spain signed a new treaty (Torsedillas) revising the line to be further west and THIS PAPAL BULL AND THAT TORSEDILLAS TREATY is why Brazil now speaks Portuguese instead of Spanish like the entire rest of South America. The relevant lines are shown on the image below to help clarify your understanding of this shit:
