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Question: History experts click here! or anyone who knows history on- Asia, Portugal, Italy,10 points for the BA listed!?
Asia and Italy were able to get all the goods, and Portugal and Spain were left out!.

Question- In history what did Spain and Portugal do to stop being left out!?


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Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Spain and Portugal looked for new ways to get to Asia!. Portugal traveled around Africa and Spain tried sailing west and instead of Asia they found the Americas!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

You must be talking about before the 15th century!. Spain and Portugal were finally able to harness the winds to their advantage (the eastern Atlantic was difficult to cross because of the wind patterns)!. Once they were able to harness them, they found routes to India and Southeast Asia (Portugal) and to the Americas (Spain and Portugal)!. They then controlled the raw materials (gold, silver, and foodstuffs) from the Americas and those materials became global commodities!. While their power diminished by the seventeenth century, they still wielded power in various parts of the world (Phillippines for Spain for example)!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

A lot has been already said, but there are many irrelevant issues!.

The key point is that for several centuries, up to the late 1400s, the commerce between the Far East (mainly China and India) and Europe came through the Silk Road, which was a trading land route that crossed central Asia!. Through the Silk Road, goods such as silk, spices and other things were brought to the shores of the Mediterranean!. The trade across the Mediterranean, between the Middle East and Europe, was monopolized by the Venetians (not by all Italians), and Spain and Portugal were completely cut out of that action (Portugal did not even have a Mediterranean port)!.

Early in the 1400s, the Portuguese started looking for a way to reach the Far East by going around Africa!. There were no charts showing how far south Africa went, and in fact it was not even obvious that there was a way around it!. So the Portuguese kept going out, establishing outposts and mapping the West coast of Africa (which is one reason why, for instance, Cabo Verde and Angola were colonized by the Portuguese)!. Eventually, in 1498, Vasco da Gama managed to round the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa!. That opened the way to the Far East!. After that, most of the trade started coming by sea, and the Portuguese had a large share of that, before others like the Dutch and the English started doing the same a century or two later!.

While the Portuguese were trying to get to China going eastward around Africa, Spain also wanted to find another way to get to the Far East, but they were behind in that race!. So Columbus came up with the idea of going west, instead of going east, Queen Isabela listened, and we know the rest!. So, for a while, Portugal monopolized the trade with China and Spain created an empire in the new world!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The answers above are correct and then there was the Treaty of Tordesillas in which a line of Demarcation split territory between Spain and Portugal!. Portugal would get Asia & Indies while Spain received North & South America!. Then, in 1494, one year after the Demarcation plan, Portugal thought it wasn't far and got a small piece of what is known Brazil today!.

Just some extra information you might find interesting or informative, maybe even useful!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I assume you mean trade from the 16th century onwards!. The simple answer is that they grabbed themselves an empire in the Americas!. Portugal ended up with Brazil and Spain found themselves with Florida, Mexico, Argentina and some other bits that escape me for the moment!.Www@QuestionHome@Com