How Did Spain Grow Their Empires?

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In the time period between 1500-1800 ad Spain and the Netherlands found great success in growing their empires. Spain had easier access to the ocean to trade, and the Netherlands had a more difficult time trading because they were farther away. The Netherlands did something about this that worked out in the short term, but it did not work out in the long run. Spain had much more success in the long run then the Dutch because of the land in which the focused. Spain focused on trading and conquering the Americas, but the Dutch traded with both Afro Eurasia, and the Americas. Spanish put 100% effort into the Americas, but with the Dutch it was a 50/50 split, and this is why Spain had it easier.
Spain's method of growing their empire turned out to be far superior to that of the GWC(Dutch west India Company) for 3 reasons. The first is that Spain had direct control over their trade and conquest force. They did not need to create a sovereign state. This was beneficial to them because the power was not split up; they stayed
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The GWC and the VoC were joint-stock companies that were non state actors. This meant that they could wage war against anyone they pleased. The VoC traded with lands in Europe, Africa, India, and Asia. The GWC was a company made for trading with the Americas. They were the first major joint stock companies, and as such faced some challenges. The biggest was the governing of the company. The GWC and the VoC were based out of the Netherlands, but traded with lands far away from there. This is the key reason that they became self governing. Another challenge they faced was that some people did not want to trade with them. To solve this they fought war with those people to trade with them. Despite all these innovations in politics and their interactions with people they still were not as successful as the