Western Civilization I / Unit 16 WC1 1526 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading a Map of Tordesillas and the Two Sea Routes
The idea
The exam's map for this period shows the Atlantic with a north-south line, or the two sea routes to Asia, and asks what the line divided or which power sailed which way. The method is the line first: everything east of Tordesillas to Portugal, everything west to Spain, with Brazil the exception that proves the line's position. Then the routes: Portugal south around Africa to India, Spain west across the Atlantic and, after Magellan, the Pacific.
In practice
Four questions. A line through the Atlantic with Brazil's bulge on its eastern side: Tordesillas, which is why Brazil is Portuguese. A route hugging Africa to the Cape and up to India with forts marked: Portugal's, Goa and Malacca among the forts. A route from Seville to the Caribbean and on to Mexico and Peru: Spain's, with silver flowing back. A route from Acapulco across the Pacific to a port in the Philippines: the Manila galleon, a witness name, carrying silver to China. A fifth: a Dutch route around the Cape after sixteen oh two follows Portugal's and takes its posts.
Where people slip
The line moved: the pope's first line of fourteen ninety-three ran nearer the Azores, and Tordesillas pushed it west. A map dated fourteen ninety-three and one dated fourteen ninety-four show different lines, and only the second gives Portugal Brazil.
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