Silver Flow Between 1500-1750

From 1500 to 1750 Spanish colonial America and Tokugawa Japan led the world in silver

production. This global flow of silver had many social and economic effects on both participant nations as well as surrounding areas. During the global flow of Silver across the Atlantic, the effects were very different. There were both negative and positive effects to both sides of the tradeoff. The economy of the Ming Dynasty was declining because of the scarcity of the silver coin, and the treatment of Natives in colonial America was becoming worse. With every global interaction there are always going to be positive and negative responses of people in different classes, societies and even nations.

The global silver trade resulted in having different effects on people as well as the economy. According to Wang Xijue (document 3) the poor harvests in the recent years is due to the scarcity of silver coins. According to Wang, the government wanted all taxes to be paid by silver coins but distributed so little of it that not even average land could be cultivated but rather had to be decreased in size. This showed that while the silver trade was growing government officials wanted to keep it very limited, and eventually the economy had to suffer because of this action. In this case I think that the intended audience for Wang was the emperor, who was the chief in charge. I say this because if he really wanted something to be noticed or changed he would have to say it to the person in charge.

According to Xu Dunqui Ming (document 5) local shoppers who would buy only dyed cloth world now have to pay in silver coins, and would have

to be billed instantly after. Before the global silver trade people would get dozens of cloth and then pay at once, but a mandatory bill was given and it had to be paid with silver obtained from a moneylender. This would happen because it was much more efficient to receive silver coins for a dyed cloth rather than a pig, or cattle etc. Antonio Vasquez de Espinosa (document 6) focuses not on the economic effect as much as he does on the social effect. According to Antonio the Indians worked hard all day trying to break up the flint ore and get silver from the mines.

Antonio also proposes that aside from taking about three-hundred million silver coins the Spanish also excavated in secrecy paying no percent tax. This is very significant because it shows that the global silver trade wasn't held up to perfection but rather was very cruel and demeaning to the native who had to endure this injustice. Charles D'Avenant (document 8) agrees that yes the global silver trade did have negative effects, one of them being the fact that more gold and silver was being sent to Asia than it was to Europe. This happened because in return for Gold and Silver, Asia was sending back many luxurious items such a porcelain, Asian silks, and cotton cloth

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