«INTER CAETERA». — Thus begin two bulls sent by Alessandro VI dated 3 and 4 May 1493: the first, called the bull of donation, and the second, that of division (antedated, and actually sent at the beginning of June). Cristoforo Colombo, having returned from his first voyage across the ocean, notified the king of Portugal, Giovanni II, of his discovery in March of that year. He did the same on the 13th of that month, in Barcelona, with Ferdinando V and Isabella of Spain. A conflict then arose: Nicola V had granted the Portuguese kings exclusive rights of action in the lands discovered by them beyond Cape Bojador (Romanus Pontifex, 8 January 1454). In order to put an end to every claim by Portugal, Ferdinando asked Alessandro VI, in April 1493, for the same exclusivity for the Spanish discoveries. The Pope, concerned with the evangelization of those lands but unable to carry it out, and also wishing to preserve the friendship of the Catholic King, granted the first I.C., which reached Barcelona on 28 May. Its uncertainty, however, in dividing the zones did not satisfy them; the Spanish Kings therefore requested a more explicit bull, and thus the second I.C. was drawn up.
In this document, almost identical to the first in its text, a line of division from one pole to the other, passing 100 leagues west of the Azores, assigned the western lands to Spain and the eastern lands to Portugal. Giovanni did not accept this, and after various diplomatic negotiations agreed to move the line of division 370 leagues east of the Azores (Treaty of Tordesillas, 7 June 1494). Furthermore, both bulls recommended that the Catholic Kings send missionaries suited to the new lands.
The explanations of many canonists concerning the document of donation state that the papal act was an act of the Pope considered as a universal temporal monarch, according to the medieval doctrine of the Ostiense (d. 1271), Alvaro Pelayo (d. 1354), and others: after Christ, the infidels had been deprived of political dominion and of the true right of ownership, and the Pope, depositary of both, had transferred them to the Spanish Kings. Such was the view of Giovanni Palacio Rubios (16th century), Matia de Paz (d. 1517), and Giovanni Solórzano Pereira (1575–1653).
The theologians, on the other hand, following St. Thomas and Cajetan, attributed to the infidels true and absolute rights of public and private dominion, and in the I.C. saw an exercise of the Pope’s indirect temporal power, assigning to Spain zones of evangelization and commerce. Such was the view of Giovanni Mair (1469–1550), Bartolomeo Las Casas (1479–1565), Francesco De Vitoria (1486?–1546), Domenico Soto (1494–1570), Domenico Bañez (1528–1604), and Gregorio de Valencia (1551?–1603).
The clause of the I.C. recommending that the Kings send missionaries gave rise to certain anticanonical conclusions: the Pope, supreme shepherd, in potentia also of the infidels, was held to have constituted the Kings as his delegates, or vicars, even in spiritual matters, in the West Indies; the missionaries sent by them would have possessed ministerial licenses independently of any local ordinary. This theory, elaborated by religious men (Alfonso de la Veracruz [1504–84], an Augustinian, and Giovanni Focher [d. 1572], a Franciscan), passed to the Council of the Indies (c. 1622), to the secular councillors (Garci Pérez de Araciel, 1624), and Solórzano Pereira (1629–39) developed it in a regalistic sense.
Its practical application was disapproved by Propaganda (1634), and the doctrine was implicitly prohibited by the Holy Office (1642). This decree did not take effect in Spain, and the theory was treated together with Gallican and Febronian ideas in the 18th century. Filippo V, Carlo III, and Isabella II declared themselves papal vicars in the Indies. Dalmacio Vélez Sarsfield (1854) proposed that the presidents of the new South American Republics might consider themselves papal vicars in the missions existing within their districts. These theories, however, did not prevent the development of the Central and South American Church.