<P> The Republic of Venice had become a formidable power, and a key player in the Eastern spice trade . Other powers, in an attempt to break the Venetian hold on spice trade, began to build up maritime capability . Until the mid-15th century, trade with the east was achieved through the Silk Road, with the Byzantine Empire and the Italian city - states of Venice and Genoa acting as a middle man . </P> <P> In 1453, however, the Ottomans took Constantinople and so the Byzantine Empire was no more . Now in control of the sole spice trade route that existed at the time, the Ottoman Empire was in a favorable position to charge hefty taxes on merchandise bound for the west . The Western Europeans, not wanting to be dependent on an expansionist, non-Christian power for the lucrative commerce with the east, set out to find an alternate sea route around Africa . </P> <P> The first country to attempt to circumnavigate Africa was Portugal, which had, since the early 15th century, begun to explore northern Africa under Henry the Navigator . Emboldened by these early successes and eyeing a lucrative monopoly on a possible sea route to the Indies the Portuguese first crossed the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 on an expedition led by Bartolomeu Dias . Just nine years later in 1497 on the orders of Manuel I of Portugal, four vessels under the command of navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, continuing to the eastern coast of Africa to Malindi to sail across the Indian Ocean to Calicut, on the Malabar Coast . in south India--the capital of the local Zamorin rulers . The wealth of the Indies was now open for the Europeans to explore; the Portuguese Empire was the earliest European seaborne empire to grow from the spice trade . </P> <P> It was during this time that Spanish and Portuguese explorers first set foot on the New World . Christopher Columbus was the first to do so in 1492 while sailing westward across the Atlantic Ocean on an expedition to the indies . Instead of reaching Asia, Colombus discovered America, landing on an island in what is now The Bahamas . Believing to have in fact reached India, the crew named the natives "Indians", a name which has continued in use to this day, to describe Native Americans . Just eight years later in 1500, the Portuguese navigator, Pedro Álvares Cabral while attempting to reproduce Vasco da Gama's Atlantic route to the Cape and India was blown westwards to what is today Brazil . After taking possession of the new land, Cabral resumed his voyage across the Atlantic to the southern tip of Africa and India, finally arriving there in September 1500--opening for the first time a route from the New World to Asia--and returning to Portugal by 1501 . </P>

Who secured a monopoly over the spice trade