de Vattel: Of the Establishment of a Nation in a Country

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* NOW - Buy this resource online! Click here * Of the Establishment of a Nation in a Country§ 203. Possession of a country by a nation.§ 204. Its right over the parts in its possession.§ 205. Acquisition of the sovereignty in a vacant country.§ 206. Another manner of acquiring the empire in a free country.§ 207. How a nation appropriates to itself a desert country.§ 208. A question on this subject.§ 210. Colonies.
1. Those decrees being of a very singular nature, and hardly anywhere to be found but in very scarce books, the reader will not be displeased with seeing here an extract of them.

The bull of Alexander VI. by which he gives to Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Castile and Arragon, the New World, discovered by Christopher Columbus.

"Motu proprio" (says the pope), "non ad vestram, vel alterius pro vobis super hoc nobis oblatæ petitionis instantiam, sed de nostra mera liberalitate, et ex certa scientia, ac de apostolicæ potestatis plenitudine, omnes insulas et terras firmas, inventas et inveniendas, detectas et detegendas, versus occidentem el meridiem." (drawing a line from one pole to the other, at a hundred leagues to the west of the Azores.) "auctoritate omnipotentis Dei nobis in beato Petro concessa, ac vicariatis Jesu Christi, qua fungimur in terris, cum omnibus illarum dominiis, civitatibus, etc., vobis, hæredibusque et successoribus vestris, Castellæ et Legionis regibus, in perpetuum tenore præsentium donamus, concedimus, assignamus, vosque et hæredes ac successores, præfatos, illorum dominos, cum plena libera et omni moda potestate, auctoritate et jurisdictione, facimus, constituimus, et deputamus," The pope excepts only what might be in the possession of some other Christian prince before the year 1493; as if he had a greater right to give what belonged to nobody, and especially what was possessed by the American nations. He adds: "Ac quibuscunque personis eujuseunque dignitatis, etiam imperialis et regalis, status, gradus, ordinis, vel conditionis, sub excommunicationis latæ sententiæ pœna, quam eo ipso, si contra fecerint, incurrant, districtius inhibemus ne ad insulas et terras firmas inventas et inveniendas, detactas et detegendas, versus occidentem et meridiem...... pro mercibus habendis, vel quavis alia de causa, accedere præsumant absque vestra ac hæredum et successorum vestrorum præditcorum licentia speciali, etc. Datum Romæ apud S. Petrum anno 1493. IV. nonas Maji, Pontific. nostri anno primo." Leibnitti Codex Juris Gent. Diplomat. 203.

See ibid. (Diplom. 165), the bull by which pope Nicholas V. gave to Alphonso, king of Portugal, and to the infant Henry, the sovereignty of Guinea, and the power of subduing the barbarous nations of those countries forbidding any other to visit that country without the permission of Portugal. This act is dated Rome, on the 8th of January, 1454.
2. History of the English Colonies in North America.