Abstract
The country turned towards a maritime expansion to find new lands that would be rich in raw material in the fifteenth century. The Portuguese first of all settled down on the African coast in order to establish a staging post to go to India. Then, Vasco da Gama reached the East Indies at the very end of the fifteenth century, but establishments were only built in Asia at the beginning of the sixteenth century. However, a different colonizing policy was followed on the American continent at the same time.
Gradually the general Portuguese influence decreased in favour of other commercial powers that are colonial empires too, like the Dutch or the English. Moreover, it is its influence on its own colonies which decreased. More particularly Portugal distanced itself from Brazil as the former got richer without the help of its mother country. This actually led to its independence in 1822 (eighteen twenty two).
The 1885 (eighteen eighty five) Berlin conference limited the rights of Portugal on the African continent but the latter managed to stay the third colonial empire in the world, essentially thanks to Angola and Mozambique.
