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When the Pope divided the world into two

In 1917 the British government issued the Balfour declaration, promising the establishment of a national home in Palestine for Jewish people. A year back they had secretly promised the French that they would divide the Arab teritorries and that the Brits would keep Palestine. Going back another year the British had an agreement with the ruler of Mecca that he would rule Palestine if he led a revolt against the Ottomans, which he promptly did. All of this happened before the Ottomans were defeated in the First World War, which means that the Brits promised a land, which technically didn’t even belong to them, to three people including themselves.

Spanish and Portugal Empires in the 15th century.
Pic credit: Google

There are several instances in history when a country has claimed a land which they were not inhabitants of. Hundereds of years ago, even before the rise of Britain, as a superpower, two countries were fighting to claim the lands which they newly discovered and one person tried to resolve this conflict by dividing the ‘New World’ between these two countries. It was the Pope. 15th century was marked by great expeditions

15th century was the beginning of the Age of Discoveries. Europe was finally out of the shadows of the crusades, into the Renaissance period, rediscovering it’s culture, art and philosophy. During this time two of the most powerful European empires, Portugal and Spain were taking the lead in discovering new sea routes to map the world. One of the reasons for so many voyages in the 15th century was out of curiosity to discover new lands or to ascertain the fact that the earth was round. But, another important reason was trade. With several stories from travellers like Marco Polo about huge amount of wealth in the east, western Europe was now trying to find a sea route round the African continent to reach Asia. Although trading between Europe and Asia wasn’t a new thing, but with Constantinople, Egypt and most of the Middle East under the Ottomans, the land route became pretty difficult.

So, the Portuguese tried to go east and Spain which was a Christian empire under King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile, went towards the west. A major victory for the Portuguese came in the year 1446 with the discovery of Cape Verde, which is an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and also the westernmost point of Africa. This was the discovery that made people believe that they would be able to reach India, if they were able to go round Africa.

Cabo Verde also called Cape Verde.

Portuguese and Spainiards were doing there separate voyages pretty smoothly, till 1493, when Christopher Columbus returned from his American exploration. He was a Italian explorer who wanted to find a route to the East Indies particularly the Spice Islands (Indonesian archipelago), through sailing west. He first went to King John II of Portugal to sponsor his voyage but the King refused him. Finally it were the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella who sponsored his voyage. Though Columbus did discover new land, or shall we say new for Europe, because the land was already inhabited by people, it wasn’t the East Indies which he intended to go to. He landed at Bahamas, one of the islands in the West Indies.

Upon his return, Portugal and Spain entered into conflict to claim the newly discovered land. King John II sent a threatening letter to the Spanish Monarchs, reminding them of the Treaty of Alcáçovas signed in 1479 that granted all lands south of the Canary Islands to Portugal. The Spanish Monarchs knew that they would not be able to match the Portuguese in terms of military power, so they found a diplomatic way out of this conflict. This is where the Pope comes into the scene.

Line of Demarcation (1493) and the new meridian after Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) Pic Credit: Google

The Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella reached Pope Alexander VI, who himself was of spanish descent, to issue a papal bull– a public decree– called Inter caetera. This bull granted all the lands west of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues( about 300 miles) west of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde to Spain. This was called the Line of Demarcation. The bull did not mention anything of the Portugal lands, which made the Portuguese King quite unpleased. In order gain rights over the lands east to the Line of Demarcation the Portuguese King started negotiations with the Catholic Monarchs. Funnily enough, the next year, that is in 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed between Portugal and the Spanish Crown to move the Line of Demarcation 270 leagues west, without even consulting the Pope. It is bewildering to think that actual land, home to millions of people, was getting divided between two foreign empires like a piece of cake.

All these bulls issued by the Pope or the treaties signed between empires dividing the world might be just an interesting piece of history to ponder over now. But back in the day they were actually setting the stage for colonisation of these “undiscovered” lands.

Posted on by Anamika

Legend of the Wandering Lake

A picture of Lop Nur dried basin acquired on October 28, 2001 by NASA Earth Observatory.

Marco Polo, the thirteenth century Venetian merchant, crossed the Lop Desert in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region of China, on his way to meet the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, Kublai Khan. Marco, in his travel records, describes the desert as inhabited by spirits. He says, “when travellers are on the move by night, and one of them chances to lag behind or to fall asleep, when he tries to gain his company again he will hear spirits talking, and will suppose them to be his comrades. And in this way many have perished.”

The Lop Desert and the bigger Taklamakan Desert spread westward to the Lop city was part of the famous Silk Road. Thus, many travellers including the famous Chinese travellers Faxian and Hiuen Tsang crossed the Lop Desert on their journey to India. Apart from being part of the Silk Road there are many other interesting things about this desert. One of them is the Lop Nur lake, also known as the Wandering Lake. Since the area is dominated by endless desert a water body in the middle of it is already a point of interest.

But this lake doesn’t seem to greet every traveller going past the desert. Some ancient merchants/travellers have mentioned about a salty lake in their travel records, but some didn’t. Marco Polo, for example, didn’t mention any lake. Later explorers suggest that the reason Marco didn’t mention any lake in his travel records was because he probably didn’t see any lake. But, how is that possible? Hundreds of years ago people travelling through a desert will definitely look for a water body, especially when the vast Gobi desert awaits you, if you are travelling to China. Going through the same route, the travellers must have met Lop Nur, unless the lake was wandering/ changing its position.

Imperial maps from the 17th century, Qing Dynasty show the lake at the same position as the present day Lop Nur dried basin. But, Nikolay Przhevalsky, a Russian geographer on his expedition to central Asia in 1867 found the lake at Kara– Koshun, which is south west to the lake’s current position.
Sven Hedin, a Swedish explorer and geographer, went on an expedition to the Tarim river basin, in 1900-1901. In 1937, he published a book, entitled The Wandering Lake, documenting his journey to the Tarim basin and explaining why and how the Lop Nur changed its position.

Pic: Wikipedia. Map of Lop Nur by Folke Bergman, a Swedish explorer, 1935.

The Tarim basin in an endorheic basin, spread across more than a million square kilometres and dominated mostly by the Taklamakan Desert. An endorheic basin system is one which doesn’t allow outflow of water to external water bodies, such as rivers or oceans. They are landbound and water is instead drained into lakes or swamps which equilibrate through evaporation. Within the Tarim basin is located the Lop Nur Lake, a terminal lake with no natural outlet for the water accumulating in it through the Tarim river. Here comes the tricky part. It’s not actually the lake changing its position but the Tarim river changing its course. Rivers tend to change their course over the time, due to sediment deposition. Since, Tarim river is the major source of water for Lop Nur, when the river changes its course the terminal lake changes its position too. This resulted in Lop Nur altering its location between the Lop Nur dried basin, the Kara-Koshun dried basin and the Taitema Lake basin.

Lop Nor, also called the “the heart of the heart” of Asia, doesn’t exist anymore. It has dried up mostly due to climate change, human settlements and nuclear testings. But this wonder of nature was once the only friend of faraway travellers amidst boundless desert and had surely tricked many of them too because of its wanderings.