The competition for trading advantages started with overseas expansion at the end of the sixteenth century. It started with the increase in the supply of silver in Europe. That caused for prices to change, which caused inflation. All of this caused furhter economic instabilit. The most visible evidence of the economic expansion in early modern Europe was the overseas trading posts. The Spanish issued trading licenses only to Spanish merchants. Spain once traded all over the globe. They traded in East Asia for the lucrative silver market. In the Phillippines, silk was exchanged for American bullion. The silk was then shipped back through Mexican ports. In Central America, South America, the East coast of North America, and the West coasts of North America, colonies began to form. With the colonies came the search for gold and silver. The English tried to take over Spanish trade routes by attacking them. English colonies began to trade with Brazil, which opened offices to Rio de Janeiro. During the eighteenth century, the Anglo-French started a spice monopoly in the Far East. In the mid-eighteenth centery, European capitalist imported and exported cotton textiles, tea, and spices through Europe. The West Indian sugar industry brought about the use of slaves to work on plantations. Other eighteenth century slave routes were more direct. The Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Dutch all engaged in the slave trade between Africa, Central, and South America. The Spanish tried to retain a monopoly on the trade between Cadiz and their South American ports. Trade began to flourish in Europe and the East, but it could not compete with the trade of sugar and slaves.
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