ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses some new documents and to show their importance in order to arrive at a solution of the problem of the pre-Columbian discovery of America, in connection with the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Prince Henry the Navigator began by organizing in 1443 the monopoly of the trade and navigation of the newly discovered lands. In 1454 the Pope ratified this monopoly, forbidding all Christians to navigate towards the discovered lands. The aims of the Catholic sovereigns and King John II of Portugal were the same, to reach the Indies, the true East Indies, whence came the richest goods of the cosmopolitan trade. Columbus had convinced the Catholic sovereigns that Cuba was the country of the Indies, that is to say, that it was situated off the eastern coasts of Asia. A document has been recently published in Spain, in a collection, which throws much light on the political aims of the Portuguese monarch during the negotiations of Tordesillas.