Document A

Muslims controlled all routes of access to spices in the East from Europe. This presented a challenge for Christian and Jewish traders from the West, as there was perpetual tensions and outright warfare between Christian and Muslim powers. Muslims dominated not only land routes which spanned across the Middle East and Northern Africa to Pakistan and western India, but also maritime routes throughout the Indian Ocean. In 1453, Italian merchants were largely forced to stop trading spices through combined land and sea routes. In that year the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople, a city at the convergence of all land routes to the spice centers of the East, and began levying prohibitively expensive tariffs on goods transported through the city. In an effort to find new seaways to Asia, kingdoms sponsored exploratory expeditions. Some explorers discovered new water routes to China and India, re-opening trade of spices and other goods, while others claimed land and resources in the New World.