Inter Caetera
The bull in which Alexander VI granted the kings of Castile all islands and mainlands found or to be found west and south of a line a hundred leagues beyond the Azores and Cape Verde, and charged them to bring the inhabitants to the Catholic faith.
The bull is addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella and dated at St Peter’s in Rome on 4 May 1493, in the first year of Alexander VI. It recounts the voyage of Christopher Columbus as the sovereigns’ envoys had reported it, praises their purpose of bringing the newly found peoples to the faith, and then, “out of the fullness of our apostolic power”, gives, grants and assigns the lands to them and their heirs, provided no Christian prince already possessed them. It orders the sovereigns to send learned and God-fearing men to instruct the inhabitants and forbids anyone else to go there without their licence.
The bull is addressed to the Spanish sovereigns alone. The peoples whose lands it assigns appear in it only as the sovereigns’ envoys had described them: peaceful, unclothed, believing in one creator in heaven and apt to receive the faith. See Christianity Crosses the Atlantic.
Cited in
- 1493, firm date