João II of Portugal
João II ruled Portugal from 1481 to 1495 and broke the power of its nobility. Born in Lisbon in 1455, the son of Afonso V, he effectively directed government from his teens and commanded at the capture of Asilah in 1471. He inherited a crown that had granted away so much land and jurisdiction to the great houses that royal authority was nominal in much of the country. At the cortes of Évora in 1481 he required the nobles to swear an oath acknowledging royal justice in their lands, and the Duke of Braganza, the richest man in Portugal, refused. Correspondence with Castile was intercepted, and the duke was tried and beheaded at Évora in 1483. The following year the king stabbed his own brother-in-law, the Duke of Viseu, to death in his chamber for conspiracy. Around eighty nobles were executed or fled, and their estates returned to the crown. Isabella of Castile called him simply the Man. He pursued exploration systematically. He reorganised the Guinea trade under royal monopoly from the fortress of São Jorge da Mina, sent Diogo Cão to the Congo, and dispatched Bartolomeu Dias, who rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 and proved the Indian Ocean reachable. He sent Pêro da Covilhã overland to gather intelligence on the Indian spice trade. He rejected Columbus's proposal, judging his distance estimates wrong, which they were. After 1492 he negotiated the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, moving the dividing line west — which is why Brazil is Portuguese. He died in 1495, probably poisoned.
- Lived: 1455 CE – 1495 CE
- Nationality: Portuguese
- Roles: king, head_of_state
