Given that academics desperate to publish will beat even the most trivial subject to death, I am surprised that there isn't more on this. But I don't think it's that great a mystery.

The third reason is clearly initially correct. The motivation for striking out to the west was to break the trade route monopoly in the east. It wasn't just the Ottomans, it was the Venetians and, to a lesser extent, the Genoese. That's also, in part, why the Italians never expanded into/discovered America.

But the second reason explains why the Ottomans never got in the game even after the New World became a hot topic. First, you'll note that all of the countries that became players in the New World were Atlantic littoral states. That's not a coincidence. The Ottoman Empire, apart from being about 50% farther away from the New World than, say, the British, didn't have reliable Atlantic access. Of course, starting from Basra and circumnavigating Africa first is even worse. Observing that the Ottomans could have captured Morocco and set up a big forward naval base on the extreme edge of their territory in order to facilitate claiming a slice of North and South America kind of explains why they didn't do it.

By the time the economic potential of the new world became clear, Ottoman power was in decline. The Spanish had enough trouble bringing treasure ships back from the Americas. The Ottomans would have found it impossible, regardless of the strength of the Ottoman navy. Getting treasure convoys throught the strait against rapacious Spanish opposition would have been nearly impossible. Sailing them the length of the Mediterranean would have been almost as bad. The Spanish, you'll recall, were willing to go to considerable lengths to protect their American interests. They would certainly have closed the strait to prevent the Ottomans from muscleing in on their new empire.

So by the time the Ottomans realized the New World's potential, they were not in a position to exploit it. They must have realized that even if they were able to establish a colony, they wouldn't be able to either support it or repatriate any value from it if it were viable.

As anonymous said, the Ottoman empire was not really geographically set up to go that way. In addition to what was already said, the Ottoman navy was based largely on galleys, which are wonderfully cost-effective for short-ranged amphibious warfare in the Mediterranean but aren't really designed to cross oceans.

Also, the prevailing currents and winds of the Mediterranean make it much more difficult for a power in the east to project naval power westward rather than the reverse. (This might explain why the Ottomans had such trouble consolidating their hold over Morocco.)

I don't think that the Ottomans were as capable of creating a trans-Atlantic empire as suggested. First of all, the Ottomans would not have been able to extend and protect their conquests in the Old World while at the same time pursuing the same in the New World. The Ottomans needed not only all of their attention, but also all of their strength to attack or defend against neighborly powers such as the Venetians, Spanish/Austrians, Russians, and Persians as well as to constantly hold down upstart vassals such as the North African states, Mamluks in Egypt, and Fakhreddine's proto-Lebanese to name a few.

The Ottomans did indeed have an impressive navy in the 15th and 16th centuries, but it was a Mediterranean fleet, not an ocean-going blue water navy. Even as late as 1571, the Turkish navy that was defeated at Lepanto was comprised entirely of rowed, galley-style ships. Such navies were fine for raiding Italy but would never have been able to make it past Gibraltar, much less able to protect treasure fleets across the Atlantic and back to Istanbul(Morocco would not have been the final destination, the treasure had to make it back to the capital). Portuguese and Spanish galleons as well as English privateers would have eaten the over-extended Turkish fleet alive.

Also, the European conquest and settlement of the New World was undertaken largely by ambitious individuals and chartered companies, not by the central government itself(which was content to take a percentage of the winnings). Not to get too Bernard Lewisy, but this was not how the Ottoman Empire operated, where conquests were undertaken by the Sultan's centrally controlled "slave armies." Theirs was not a system that tolerated risk taking or initiative on the scale necessary to explore and conquer on the other side of the planet.

Finally, there's the simple matter of timing. When Selim I was conquering Egypt in 1517, the Spanish already possessed the Caribbean and Cortez was already in New Spain, defeating the Aztec Empire. 20 years later almost all of Latin America had already been claimed and the French, English, and Dutch were scouting out North America. The Ottomans would have had to have acted very quickly in order to snatch up any New World real estate before the Europeans gobbled it all up.

Well, when the New World became a hot topic there was still room for the Ottoman Empire to try to grab at least a few bits. The Spaniards were not more powerful, and even though Ottomans were in relative decline in the 17th and 18th centuries, they were still significant enough and they didn't collapse before the 19th century.

Whereas the Ottoman Empire's unstable borders might explain part of it, the fact is this was the case for any European power of the time as well. The internal dissensions are a projection of modern nationalist narratives into the past, they weren't a fact before the 19th century, even for the Christian populations of the Empire - and in the case of North Africa for example, they simple have never been true.

At the same time, the "Lewisy" argument above doesn't hold: France was also a case of a "dirigist" state, like the Ottomans, yet it went to America. And like other powers of the time, the Ottomans also had their share of adventurous merchants and admirals. Not just Piri Reis, mentioned above, but names like Barbarossa or countless other Moriscos whose names escape me for the moment definitely could have played a role.

Mentioning the Ottoman navy's structure or that they didn't annex Morocco to explain the fact they didn't sail the Atlantic actually has it backwards. Nothing could have prevented them from developing the transatlantic ships if needed. It's not like they didn't know they existed or didn't have the means for them. Plus again, historical facts are, they didn't have any kind of trouble with Morocco. They just didn't bother.

It's interesting that Italians are brought and indeed, the underlying idea about the lack of vision about the New World's importance can be further supported by the case of France too. France, even as it had colonies there, didn't even realize the full potential of its territories in North America. As it was warring for them against Britain as late as the 18th century, France deemed it not interesting enough economically to pour more resources in defending those territories because they had essentially been a source of fur trade so far, much less important than other possessions from which it imported spices.

Well I'm glad they didn't. Otherwise all the Amerindians squaws would be wearing burkas! And the English colonists would be dhimmis.

Even your punditry is better than your trolling Matthew.

Very interesting thread. Questions to the knowers of all things Ottoman:

1.) How much overseas colonization did they do elsewhere? Along the African coast, for example, and in Asia? I might be completely off the mark here, but I have the impression it wasn't all that much either.

2.) Is there a (known) reason to it being called the "Ottoman" empire instead of "Osman" in English, despite the fact that the latter seems a lot closer to Uthman? How was it pronounced in Turkish?

At least in modern Turkish, it's Osmanli. Presumably it has to do with some cranky 18th century scholar's idiosyncratic nomenclature, which since then has become the Way Things Have Always Been Done.

"Well I'm glad they didn't. Otherwise all the Amerindians squaws would be wearing burkas! And the English colonists would be dhimmis."

Not at all. If the Ottomans had colonized, you would have ended up with a hybrid culture combining Anglo style no-holds-barred capitalism and MENA style cronyism. In other words, the entire continent of North America would have turned into Dubai.

"The Spaniards were not more powerful,"

Well, this is kind of a silly statement. Yes, the Spaniards were more powerful in, for example, Spain.

While the Ottoman Empire might well have been "more powerful" overall than Spain, it wasn't more powerful than Spain in the Western Mediterranean or in the Atlantic. It's all about force projection.

BTW, can we please have a thread on what a fucking idiot Paul Wolfowitz has turned out to be? I used to think he was intelligent, though misguided. Unfortunately, I was completely wrong. This bloody pinhead just goes from strength to strength.

I remember stumbling upon a similar question in a book on old China, and why it didn't build a vast empire overseas. Logistics, know-how, manpower, pop surplus, everything in order. So the answer was also along the lines of, they just didn't bother. It was explained as part and parcel of Chinese mentality. In the same way, I think the European colonial empires could also be explained by European mentality.

Also, it really is true that, in the context of the times, Spain got it all. I mean everything. They stumbled on the Aztecs, tripped over the Incas, and wound up with enough gold to choke even Midas. Not to mention that even today Mexico is a rich source of silver.
Up in North America, the French and the English squared off over some semi-fertile, rock-strewn real estate off of which they got - beaver skins. And a convenient place to exile their heretics of course, which is certainly a not-to-be-underestimated Good Thing. Still, not quite the same thing as silver and gold.
In the long run, of course, things turned out somewhat differently, but of course all those sixteenth and seventeenth and eighteenth century guys were dead by then, which just proves that Keynes was right.

Actually Spain got screwed even in the short run.

The net result of importing large amounts of silver and gold was, as you might expect, inflation. Spain wasn't producing any more goods because of its conquests, it just had more money to pay for what goods there were. In fact, it's even worse than that because Spanish colonies were actually pretty expensive to maintain in terms of goods and services e.g., ships, manufactured goods, soldiers, etc. So Spanish colonies in the New World were probably a net drain on the Spanish economy.

Of course, it's a little more complicated than that. The Spanish also got tomatoes. Plus, they were able to spend some of their gold and silver to import stuff from other countries. In fact, they did that a lot. So much so that the Spanish economy didn't develop as quickly as others in this critical period. Arguably, Spain is only now fully recovering from the effects of their New World empire.

"Even your punditry is better than your trolling Matthew."

Nonsense. I troll droll.

yeah, I always enjoy talking about the uselessness of gold. Essentially, they printed a lot of money and nothing else.

Colonies were usually not that profitable, especially those that required a contingent of soldiers to keep in check.

"Also, it really is true that, in the context of the times, Spain got it all. I mean everything. They stumbled on the Aztecs, tripped over the Incas, and wound up with enough gold to choke even Midas. Not to mention that even today Mexico is a rich source of silver.
Up in North America, the French and the English squared off over some semi-fertile, rock-strewn real estate off of which they got - beaver skins. And a convenient place to exile their heretics of course, which is certainly a not-to-be-underestimated Good Thing. Still, not quite the same thing as silver and gold.
In the long run, of course, things turned out somewhat differently, ...."

Tip: tobacco.

Also, sugar.

Spain really screwed themselves on the gold question. If they had allowed the export of gold then they would have been buying things from elsewhere - reducing or eliminating the inflation. Their rigid adherence to governmental trade interference condemned them to failure. They als embarked on an expensive series of wars in Europe.
On the main question, I just think that the Ottomans were far too busy trying to advance their holdings in the south and east of Europe - and defeating the infidel there - than to try to create or extend their holdings elsewhere. This was shortly before their first go at Vienna, which they would have regarded as a much greater prize than regions so distant from them.
It probably never even entered their consideration to try to colonise the Americas.

Dear alle,

The Ottomans didn't do any overseas colonization at all. Not in Asia, nor in Africa. It was a land-based empire whose fleet was essentially a "lake" fleet - Black Sea & Med.

As for "Ottoman" vs. "Osman" ... that goes to European renderings of the name. The English (& French) took it from the written Ottoman sources that, of course, use the orginal Arabic term "Uthman", which the English/French then rendered as "Ottoman", whereas others - like the Germans - took it from the spoken Ottoman, where the word was pronounced "Osman".

Ottoman itself was/is a hybrid language of, mainly, a mixed Turkic/Persian grammar (and that's Turkic NOT Turkish) and a vocab comprised of Turkic basic words and loads of Persian and Arabic loanwords. On top of that the words are often pronounced differently from the way they're written (a famous example is "bey" which is actually written "bek", and ... errr ... "Uthman/Osman").

Damn, why haven't I learned Turkish. It's such a cool language, everything goes "öli bülüli böl". Is it hard?

Pirate galleys were perfectly capable of operating from Morocco in the Atlantic- they got as far as Iceland and kidnapped a tenth of the population, so there was no logistical reason why they couldn't have crossed to the Americas. However, the motives for going and the type of ship was rather different: compare the amount of cargo a galley could carry with that of a merchant ship and the crew-cargo ratio which meant that sailing-ships had economies of scale galleys didn't. There's also the reason for going at all- even after the world turned out to be much larger than Columbus thought, it was still worth sailing round the Cape of Good Hope to the East for spices rather than importing them through the Middle East [that might have been a cause of the decline of the Ottoman empire too] and the American colonies provided specie to pay for them.
There's a very interesting book, Gunpowder and Galleys, by John Guilmartin, mainly about sixteenth century Mediterranean naval warfare, which also deals with some of these factors in passing.

Did the raids on Iceland, Ireland and other North Atlantic targets involve galleys? The famous expeditions in the 1620s by the renegade Dutchman Murat Reis seem to have involved a captured Danish pilot, and you might have expected them to use a Danish vessel as well. Everything I've read about galleys (John Pryor's works, mostly) suggest that they have a very limited range, constrained by the oarsmen's need for fresh water, and that they swamp very easily in any kind of rough sea. Corsairs are resourceful fellows, and no doubt some of them managed to pull off a few long-range stunts with captured or customized vessels, but I'm not sure the main force of the Ottoman navy really had the makings for trans-oceanic expeditions. Did they get much beyond the Red Sea in the Indian Ocean?

Re Ottoman versus Uthman, I would presume the influence there is perhaps tied in part to spoken Arabic's tendency to render th as t (or z).

As to the Galleys and High Seas:
Pirate galleys were perfectly capable of operating from Morocco in the Atlantic- they got as far as Iceland and kidnapped a tenth of the population, so there was no logistical reason why they couldn't have crossed to the Americas.

Utter bollocks.

Those were not galleys, but a different form of ship, present in the Western Maghreb, and as often as not siezed European models as well.

The galleys could not do Atlantic faring, and even the long trip to Iceland - an exceptional event - hardly indicates an ability to cross the Atlantic.

One of the traps of history is to look at the present day realities and drag them back in time. Because the Americas loom so large in the present day we assume that they had the same value back in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Ottomans did not expand to the Americas because they saw no value there. What did the Americas offer? Gold? The Sultans were swimming in gold and jewels. Fur? Again the Northern Slavs provided more than enough fur. Land? The Ottomans had plenty of that too, they owned the Balkans and all of Northern Africa.

Remember the Americas were “found” because the Europeans were looking for new routs to Asia. The Spanish and the Portugese stumbled upon “virgin” lands trying to find the spice islands. Now the Spanish got lucky as they were able to steal Aztec Gold and Inca Silver. But most of that boon was squandered in the Wars of Religion. While Gold and Silver get top billing it was much more prosaic goods that had the bigger impact in the long run. Maize and Potatoes turned out to be much more important than all the treasures of the Mesoamericans.

The Columbian exchange changed the axis of the European world. Since Roman times Europe was centered on the ocean in the “middle” of the land, the Mediterranean. The Empire of Osman was a classical Mediterranean power. Goods flowed from the Silk Road and from India though the Middle ocean which the Empire owned. The colonial powers were Atlantic powers with deep draft Navies. They developed those Navies out of necessity to get around the Ottomans. The Portugese circumnavigated Africa to bypass the “infidels.” The Sultan had no need to bypass his Infidels as his plan was to go right through them via Vienna.

In the early 16th century the Ottomans were the great power of the age, only Spain came close. From Suleyman’s majestic perch the bickering divided Europeans were not much of a threat. They were busy tearing into each other over Religious obscurantism. Some nut in Germany was causing the Christians to go absolutely insane or at least crazier than normal. Why should Suleyman worry about some far-flung outpost of the mad Europeans?

Again look at the history, as late as the late 17th century the British put such a low value on their North American possessions that they let a small Guerilla rebellion detach a significant portions of those possessions in to a new nation. This after they had just fought the French to wrest North America (and other areas) from the France. So much for the value of the Americas. The Ottomans did not go west because their focus was East and South, their focus was a Mediterranean one not an Atlantic focus. To have an Atlantic focus, they would have to have pulled up stakes and centered the empire in Morocco not in Anatolia. Only in Morocco would they have unfettered access to the Atlantic. Why bother, why leave the comforts of Istanbul for the wilds of the North African coast? Why pick up stakes again? Why leave their heartlands of Anatolia to evil Shia Iranians?

By the time the value of the Americas became clear the Empire of Osman was in terminal decline, corrupt conservative leaders were more concerned with maintaining their power than the good of the Empire. Sultans and Viziers were killed when they tried to reform the rotting structures of Ottoman rule. By the time the USA finally arrived on the world stage as a true “Great Power” ,1898 , the Ottomans had been the “sick man of Europe” for several generations.

Why doesn't a trip to Iceland- more or less comparable as far as distance is concerned- not indicate an ability to cross the Atlantic? There were rather more attractive targets to loot across the atlantic than in Iceland, I'd have thought. The Spaniards took galleys across the Atlantic for local use in the Caribbean and certainly galleases- large galleys with superior sailing ability to the Mediterranean galley- were meant for Atlantic use as much as Mediterranean. They were part of the famous spanish Armada against England- though given their fate there, you could argue that they weren't very well suited to the Atlantic either.
If the difference between ottoman galleys and the ships of the Moroccan seacoast were so different, then the pertinent question is: Why didn't the Moroccans conquer the Americas?

James comment is well taken.

Re TS:
Why doesn't a trip to Iceland- more or less comparable as far as distance is concerned- not indicate an ability to cross the Atlantic?

Because, mate, it's not the same fucking problem.

A voyage north to Iceland need not involve a similar open ocean distance, far from sight of land and abililty to put ashore at night, or for water.

The navigational, logistic and other issues are entirely motherfucking different as the slightest bit of reflexion should show, rather like claiming sailing the Atlantic versus coasting down from New England to Texas are the same thing, you cretin.

There were rather more attractive targets to loot across the atlantic than in Iceland, I'd have thought.

That rather presumes (i) knowledge of said targets, (ii) ability to launch an open ocean raid.

Both assumptions are false.

The Spaniards took galleys across the Atlantic for local use in the Caribbean and certainly galleases- large galleys with superior sailing ability to the Mediterranean galley- were meant for Atlantic use as much as Mediterranean.

Quoi?

I am unaware of any galley - proprement dit - cross-Atlantic voyaging on an independent basis.

They were part of the famous spanish Armada against England- though given their fate there, you could argue that they weren't very well suited to the Atlantic either.

See supra re different fucking problem, but yes, they were not suited for the bloody Atlantic, as all evidence indicates - as open deep ocean sailing is a rather different challenge.

If the difference between ottoman galleys and the ships of the Moroccan seacoast were so different, then the pertinent question is: Why didn't the Moroccans conquer the Americas?

The Moroccans, you stupid idiot, didn't have the proper ships. The rather smallish ships were not acquired until later, and the Moroccan state(s) were generally not stable enough to sustain both control over their extensive land-based territories, and develop a navy. Further, they were oriented to the then rather more profitable cross-Saharan gold trade, which they controlled.

The Iberians launched there open ocean research, African first in part trying to get around this monopoly.

Learn some proper history.

Not to hijack this too much, but re Spain all you'se who answered me are projecting your 21st century liberal minds onto 16th, 17th, and 18th century mercantilists.
Back then, EVERYONE was a mercantilist, and believed that maximizing one's gold and controlling its export was the key to wealth. In the history of economic thought, the first one to question this was
David Hume, in the eighteenth century. It took a long long time for his initial criticism of mercantilism to become received wisdom.
So, as I said, in the context of the times, which means in the minds of all those people back then, Spain got the real goods. Everyone else got leftovers. Spain didn't even understand what it was doing to itself by importing and hoarding all that gold and silver. And they were not unusual in that at all. They were just following the received wisdom of their time, which is not the received wisdom of the twenty-first century. Obviously.

pantom,
I did not say that they knew they were doing the wrong thing - or even that the theory existed then. The understanding today that they were doing the wrong thing is not complicated by the motives behind mercantilism. The Ottomans, at least in part, fell down the same trap. The Middle East was enormously wealthy (both economically and socially) while they allowed free trade. The attempt to stop it drove the exploration that ultimately helped to destroy them - or at least make them irrelevant.

It seems we may have a consensusy broad picture -- galley issues aside.

1. Ottomans had no incentive to colonize/explore Americas as the main motivation for it was to ..... bypass the Ottomans; which they had obviously no reason to do.

2. Ottoman shipping was not long-haul shipping so the infrastructure for exploration was lagging.

3. Over time the intrinsic value of America (gold, agricultural commodities like maize, potatoes, cotton, tobaocco, molasses, territorial/population aggrandizement), as well as the advantages of European circumnavigation of Africa and the globe to India shifted world wealth and trade away from the Middle East region.

4. MENA decline progresses exponentially.

5. Vicious cycle progresses.

To quote Shakespeare “Once again into the breach dear friends!” Some people really need to brush up on their history. Galleys in the North Atlantic? Talk about a suicide run. Galleys were perfect for Naval warfare in the days of sail in the Mediterranean. Look at a map, the Med is a for all practical purposes a large inland sea. It’s crenelated coast is perfect for small vessels fighting very close to land. That is why the Ottomans and the there opponents all used galleys. When the Atlantic powers first brought in their big deep draft ships into the Med they actually came out of the fray worse for ware. The deep draft ships were worthless fighting in the close quarters of the shores of the Med. The galleys could out maneuver the deep draft ships close to shore forcing their larger opponents to retreat to deep water.

Now let your eye drift to the Atlantic, notice that it is a much bigger ocean. There is no way you are getting across that expanse of blue in dinky little galley. You need a deep draft ship that can carry a large amount of supplies. The Galleons of the Atlantic were major departure in seafaring for Europe, invented by the Portuguese for the purpose of unlocking the death grip on trade the Ottomans had. Once Atlantic trade was set up , these ships became the absolute requirement for a colonial power to own. The Spanish, the English, the Portuguese, the French and the Dutch all had these deep draft ships. They were tough ruggedly built ships that could take major abuse. Even then the North Atlantic can be a cruel mistress. The Spanish found that out the hard way. Again no way you send a galley into those viscous storm-tossed seas.

Going further afield look at the Pacific, it is an monstrously huge ocean. Now it is true that the Polynesians manage to island hop that ocean in nothing more than outriggers but they were master seamen. The Europeans again used deep draft vessels to get across that big patch of blue. If Magellan hadn’t had the incredible luck to find Guam in his cross-pacific trek we would not be reading about him in the history books. Again we have a form of sea-going trade that absolutely requires big deep draft ships to accomplish. Remember the mission is to by-pass the Med to get at the source of your goods.

So again why would the Ottomans go to the trouble to completely reconfigure their Navy and quite possibly their empire? What did the Americas have that they couldn’t get by other, easier means? Why would they devalue their Mediterranean trade and reconfigure their whole economy for the Atlantic trade? For Carribean rum? For Virginian tobacco? For Mexican maize? For Peruvian potatoes? The Ottomans did not go to the Americas because they saw no value there.

"A voyage north to Iceland need not involve a similar open ocean distance, far from sight of land and abililty to put ashore at night, or for water."
Unless it was by a very circuitous route it would require something comparable, actually. A little shorter, but with other problems listed below.

"The navigational, logistic and other issues are entirely motherfucking different as the slightest bit of reflexion should show, rather like claiming sailing the Atlantic versus coasting down from New England to Texas are the same thing, you cretin."
Except that sailing to Iceland- which the moroccans did- didn't involve coasting anywhere but was a long deep water journey out of sight of land, with rather more complex logistical and navigational problems. Crossing the Atlantic simply involved pointing west or east, which meant that the sun was a pretty good guide and choosing the right time of year meant that there was a reliable wind too.

"There were rather more attractive targets to loot across the atlantic than in Iceland, I'd have thought.

That rather presumes (i) knowledge of said targets, (ii) ability to launch an open ocean raid.

Both assumptions are false."
Really? What did the Moroccans know about Iceland before they went? You forget that there were still close contacts with Spain; it's been suggested that many of the sailors and soldiers involved in the New World were moriscos. The Spaniards were concerned about inbformation being supplied to the oittomans and other muslim enemies by the moriscos too. The second may be true, and it's interesting to wonder why. Even if there were no native ships at all that were suitable they had captured ships which could carry out such raids and prisoners who could be persuaded to guide them.

"Quoi?
I am unaware of any galley - proprement dit - cross-Atlantic voyaging on an independent basis."

What is the difference between a galley and a "galley proprement dit"? What do you mean by "an independent basis"? If you mean sailing across the Atlantic then a small number were sent across in the early years of Spanish exploration before american-based ship-building was established. As in all early voyages they sailed in company because it was assumed that many- even most- would be lost.

"They were part of the famous spanish Armada against England- though given their fate there, you could argue that they weren't very well suited to the Atlantic either.
See supra re different fucking problem, but yes, they were not suited for the bloody Atlantic, as all evidence indicates - as open deep ocean sailing is a rather different challenge."
Except that what did for the Armada wasn't "open deep ocean sailing " but sailing round the coasts of the British Isles. The waters there present rather different problems to those of the Atlantic further south.

"If the difference between ottoman galleys and the ships of the Moroccan seacoast were so different, then the pertinent question is: Why didn't the Moroccans conquer the Americas?

The Moroccans, you stupid idiot, didn't have the proper ships. The rather smallish ships were not acquired until later, and the Moroccan state(s) were generally not stable enough to sustain both control over their extensive land-based territories, and develop a navy." What do you mean by "proper ships"? The Moroccans had vessels capable of sailing in the Atlantic. That and the will were all that were needed. Every voyage was a gamble- it was expected that one ship in three would be lost on an Atlantic voyage in the sixteenth century. An extreme case: the voyage round the world organised by Magellan left with five ships and one got back. The explorations of the french, English and Dutch did not rely on much state support- like the Moroccans, loot was as important as exploration.
"Further, they were oriented to the then rather more profitable cross-Saharan gold trade, which they controlled.

The Iberians launched there open ocean research, African first in part trying to get around this monopoly.

Learn some proper history."
Except that the Spanish-Portuguese looting of the New world became more profitable very quickly and apparently provoked no response. Yes, there were difficulties, but greed and anti-Spanish feelings, you'd think, would have inspired people to attack the trans-Oceanic trade. It looks as if there was a culturally imposed blind spot as well as the logistical difficulties.

"EVERYONE was a mercantilist, and believed that maximizing one's gold and controlling its export was the key to wealth... the first one to question this was
David Hume"
Montesquieu actually.

Expanding on James's point about the relative value even Europeans assigned to America, after the French & Indian War, the French had the option of giving the British Canada, or a couple tiny sugar-producing islands in the Caribbean (Martinique and somewhere else, I forget exactly). They kept the sugar islands, which were actually turning them a profit, instead of the big old frozen money-sink.

Quesnay, maybe, if we're going French. Cite?

All of the sugar islands were enormously profitable. That's why both Bonaparte and the British spent years and sacrificed tens of thousands of soldiers trying to conquer Haiti after Toussaint's revolt. It was a different kind of profitability to the Spanish looting of their colonies because they inspired incc=reased productivity in the home economies; one of the triggers for the industrial revolution was the production of cotton goods to sell for slaves in West Africa, who produced sugar in the West Indies to feed industrial workers and cotton for them to make into cloth to sell in Africa. Every leg of the trade was profitable. The richest men in eighteenth century England were West Indies proprieters. Their only rivals were the Indian nabobs.

I am sorry for you. It seems you don't have access to spanish sources. When Piris Reis (or whoever have made the map) writed down Vilayet Antilie it is not because they wished to have these lands but because these lands (or at least a good part of them) were really at arabian hands at the time of map elaboration.

You need to investigate a lot yet about:
1. the Colon project
2. Al Andalus
3. Hispania non capta
4. Kingdoms of Aragon and Castilla
and more...

As a suggestion I would invite to you to regard some aspects of official history from other viewpoints....just as an exercise..