Obviously the number 1 thing is having an empire. Netherlands and Portugal had an empire in Africa and Asia. The commerce with them and north of Europe(via the

Obviously the number 1 thing is having an empire. Netherlands and Portugal had an empire in Africa and Asia. The commerce with them and north of Europe(via the Hanseatic League) is what made Netherlands the richest country per capita. North America was created under totally different circumstances than South America. For instance, Spanish and French went to Louisiana but could not control the Mississippi river. It was a very hard place to live filled with Mosquitoes that transmitted illnesses that killed most people. France exchanged that for a small piece of land(Guyane), and it was a good deal at the time. That this place could later become one of the most fertile places on Earth is only possible because of lots of scientific discoveries that happened later in time, like the combustion engine making possible moving enormous amount of land(creating dykes), DDT killing the mosquitoes, railroads for transporting the grain and the capital generated being reinvested in further development. We could not extract political narratives for comparing 20th century empires to 15th. Most people used in the West conquest to native population came from rail roads. Rail roads did not exist before 1850, way later to Spain and Portugal starting to lose territories in America.