The treaty divided the unexplored New World, including South America, between Spain and Portugal. Portugal was prohibited to explore beyond a meridian drawn 1,000 miles (1,609 km) west of the Cape Verde Islands. Essentially, the eastern half of South America was reserved for Portugal. Peru, (along with what is now part of Ecuador, Bolivia, Columbia, Brazil, and Venezuela) was reserved for Spain. By 1530 the first Portuguese colonists were sent to Brazil to cultivate indigenous crops and to introduce sugarcane to the region.
In 1540 the first European expedition down the Amazon was led by Spaniard Francisco de Orellana (c. 1511-1546), starting down the Napo River in what is now Ecuador, and finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean in northern Brazil, territory reserved for Portuguese exploration. The Papal decree was difficult to interpret with the technology of the day, as Spain and Portugal both held different interpretations of where the line crossed the coasts of the New World. Other European nations also did not accept the Papal ruling, which prohibited them from any conquest of the territory divided among Portugal and Spain. The French formed a colony in what is now French Guyana, the Dutch in what is now Surinam.
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