In establishing trading empires, the Portuguese wanted to generate a monopoly over the Indian Ocean. Part of the East Indies would be theirs, as wished in the quote taken from an opera about the Portuguese arrival in India as shown above. The first-hand peaceful trading-relationships would soon turn into the conquest of several territories in India by the Portuguese, leading to Portuguese colonization. As soon as Da Gama returned from his first voyage, new expeditions were send out to the East Indies, with many missionaries and priests on board that were driven by their crusading-mentality. This glorified period, that is praised for its fundamental contribution to the intensified linkage between the East and the West and the expansion of the trading empire, however overshadows the cultural aspects that made it’s way to India as well. But as contemporaries argue, Vasco da Gama’s voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to India was far more momentous, because it caused direct economic impact and cultural exchange. However, the discovery of the Americas by Columbus has received far more attention than the discovery of the sea-route to the East Indies. The trade from the Mediterranean was now expanded to the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. The Early Modern period in the Mediterranean is marked by its European expansion.
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