Nullified the 1750 Treaty of Madrid, reshaping colonial boundaries between Spain and Portugal in South America.
Key Facts
- Date signed
- 12 February 1761
- Parties
- Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire
- Treaty repealed
- Treaty of Madrid (1750)
- Preceding conflict
- Guarani War of 1756
- Spanish monarch
- King Charles III (acceded 1759)
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Practical difficulties in demarcating borders between vast, undeveloped Spanish and Portuguese territories in South America during the 1750s, compounded by the Guarani War of 1756, led King Charles III of Spain—after his 1759 accession—to call for a wholesale revision of colonial treaties with Portugal.
On 12 February 1761, representatives of the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire signed the Treaty of El Pardo, formally annulling every provision of the 1750 Treaty of Madrid and abandoning its framework for dividing South American colonial possessions.
By voiding the Treaty of Madrid, the Treaty of El Pardo removed the agreed territorial settlement that had attempted to rationalise Spanish and Portuguese borders in South America, leaving the boundary question unresolved and necessitating future diplomatic negotiations between the two empires.
Political Outcome
The Treaty of Madrid (1750) was fully repealed; the colonial boundary framework between Spanish and Portuguese South America was dissolved.
Colonial borders governed by the Treaty of Madrid (1750)
Treaty of Madrid nullified; South American borders left undefined pending new agreements