Portuguese Atlantic expansion was constrained by dependence on Genoese-Flemish commercial capital

Evidence

The Portuguese, however, seemed to have been on fairly firm ground, for at least by 1486 there is some indication that some of their seamen had sighted land west of the Azores. Verlinden is confident enough of this to conclude: “What is certain is that in 1486 the talk was no longer of one Island of the Seven Cities, but of the possibility of an archipelago or even a continent. Clearly, then, the period of the hypothetical or legendary island had passed.” … Thus, in 1487, the same year that (Verlinden points out) saw Pero da Covilhao and Afonso da Paiva pursuing Portuguese interests in India, Arabia, and Ethiopia, and Bartolomeu Dias round the Cape of Good Hope (all three contributions to the Portuguese commitment to the African route to the East), the Portuguese Crown had authorized its own exploration of a western route. … The Crown was apparently incapable of much more than that when it sought to act independently of its major commercial partners. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 546

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader thesis of Black Marxism that European commercial capital, not national crowns, drove early colonial projects.