Page:European treaties bearing on the history of the United States and its dependencies.djvu/20

 ncients. at Avignon. At this time the kings of Portugal and Castile agreed to set aside their own opposing claims to the archipelago and to help Luis in the enterprise to which the Pope had thus lent his support. But Luis never entered into possession, and Portugal and Castile kept up the struggle for the islands. Papal bulls were issued, favorable now to one and now to the other party, and the question of ownership, which was argued before the Council of Basel in 1435, was not finally settled until 1479, when, by the treaty of Alcaqovas, Portugal ceded the islands to Castile.

The second Castilian-Portuguese controversy concerned Africa, where Portugal was following up her conquest of Ceuta ( 1415) by other military expeditions in Morocco, and by sending caravels southward along the western coast and opening up a trade with Guinea. In 1441 slaves and gold-dust were first brought back to Portugal from beyond Cape Bojador. By 1454 trade with that region had greatly developed so that Cadamosto, the Venetian, wrote that "from no traffic in the world could the like [gain] be had".

The kings of Castile, basing their claims on the same grounds that they had employed in respect to the Canaries--possession by their ancestors, the Visigothic kings--asserted their right to the conquest of the lands of Africa and to Guinea and the Guinea trade. They even imposed a tax upon the merchandise brought from those parts.

The Castilian-Portuguese controversy over the Guinea trade began as early as 1454. On April 10 of that year the King of Castile, John II., wrote a letter to the King of Portugal, Alfonso V., containing complaints and demands in respect to the Canaries, and also in respect to the seizure by a Portu­guese captain