Silver Trade 140-1750

1. GLOBAL SILVER TRADE

2. Why is silver valuable?

3. Global Silver Trade = Global Commerce
• Ming Chinese
government began to
pay official salaries and
collect taxes in silver.
• Silver deposits in Japan
and Spanish territories
in the Americas were
discovered about the
same time.

4. Global Silver Trade = Global Commerce
• In 1571, the first Manila Galleon carried
silver from the Americas to Asia, and
returned with Silk, Ivory, Spices, and other
goods. Silver from the Americas also went
to Spain, and then was sent to South Asia
and China for Asian goods.
• Europeans now had the resources to
trade heavily in Asian goods.
• Global trade was born

7. RESULTS of Silver Trade
• Chinese demand for silver effected global
markets and fueled global trade
• Commercialization in China increased and the
economy grew even as the Ming dynasty fell
and the Qing/Manchus took over.
• By 1750, the value of silver began to drop with
the high quantities of silver in Qing-controlled
China.

8. RESULTS of Silver Trade
• Over 8 million natives died in Spanish mines in
Mexico and S America.
• The Spanish economy boomed, then busted.
– Spanish government went bankrupt as silver
values dropped.
– Spanish government policies and upper-class
spending on luxuries wrecked the economy.
• Other European empires profited from the
movement of goods.

9. RESULTS of Silver Trade
• The Japanese government, the Tokugawa
Shogunate, created policies that expanded the
Japanese economy and manufacturing.