To give efficiency to all the measures of colonization, what we should call a new department of administration was formed, and at the head of it was placed Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca.
Fonseca held this high and responsible position for thirty years.

He early conceived a great dislike of Columbus, who, in some transactions before this expedition sailed, appealed to the sovereigns to set aside a decision of Fonseca's, and succeeded.

For all the period while he managed the Indian affairs of Spain, Fonseca kept his own interests in sight more closely than those of Spain or of the colonists; and not Columbus only, but every other official of Spain in the West Indies, had reason to regret the appointment.
The king of Portugal and the sovereigns of Spain began complicated and suspicious negotiations with each other regarding the new discoveries.
Eventually, as has been said, they acceded to the pope's proposal and decree.

But, at first, distrusting each other, and concealing their real purposes, in the worst style of the diplomacy of that time, they attempted treaties for the adjustment between themselves of the right to lands not yet discovered by either.

Of these negotiations, the important result was that which has been named,--the change of the meridian of division from that proposed by the pope.