Trade is an important factor of the prosperity of one’s society. For instance, silk and porcelain were eminent products of the Silk Road trade network for it aided China’s economy. China was the dominant country, unlike Europe, whose economy never fluctuated. However, the global flow of silver, produced by Spanish colonial America and Tokugawa Japan, during the mid-16th century to the early 18th century affected social and economic aspects of many regions connected with the trade. As a result of the production of silver, European integration in the globalization of world trade increased, as did the economy and social divisions of China. Not only did it affect economies and societies throughout the world, but it also affected a region internationally. …show more content…
Thus, China became one of the “sinkholes” into which silver was poured by Europeans.” (doc 1. Handouts B1) Before, China was ethnocentric causing them not to believe in trade with other regions because they were considered barbarians. However, over time there beliefs have changed and during the 16th century to circa 18th century, the Chinese started to trade with the Spanish Philippines. He Qiaoyuan, the Ming dynasty court official believed that by repealing the ban on foreign trade they could earn profits because “chinese silk yarn worth 100 bars of silver can be sold in the Philippines at a price of 200 to 300 bars of silver there”( doc.5). Even though lifting the ban could increase the Chinese wealth and power, his point of views on the ban of foreign trade were biased, since some of the goods were “ from [his] native province”(doc 5). Moreover, his actions demonstrates the change in opinions about trading with foreigners. Hence, the Chinese changed from a traditional society to an international society. This connects …show more content…
Spanish colonial America and Tokugawa Japan lead the production of silver, but in order to continue such tremendous work, they needed laborers. The Spanish weren’t against slavery for they believed that God granted them and blessed them to take their actions. There are paintings such as La Virgen de Cerro portraying the Virgin Mary, Inca deities, the Catholic Trinity, and Potosi which for Spain was the “center of the world's economy and power” ( doc 4.) These painting were used as propaganda in order to justify their actions claiming that the Virgin Mary granted them power and blessed them to take such actions. As a result, there were “more than 3,000 Indians” that were enslaved (doc 3.). The Spanish priest, Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa shares a biased point of view since, not only is he from the Church, but he boasts about the economic success of Spain, meanwhile calling all the natives working hard for the economy of Spain “ poor fellows.” As a result of the production of silver by the Spanish and the greedy actions of other societies to obtain silver caused many regions that had silver as their natural resource to be socially destroyed, dismantled, and to suffer for the cruel acts of the
The global flow of silver effected the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century economically because silver made the world go round, socially because everyone was dependent on some sort of trade, and politically because silver was a high priority to important world powers. In this document based assignment, it would have been convenient to have a document about the opinion of either a Potosi Indian or a peasant from the commercial city of Hangzhou because both points of view would give further insight into the negative side of this time periods lust for silver, and how the insanity ruined lives.
During the period 1550-1800, the colonization of the Americas by European civilizations led to massive shifts in economic power from the West to East and vice-versa. An increase in global competition among western civilizations and against their asian counterparts drove Europeans to search for wealth elsewhere, and thus colonizing the Americas. One of the easiest ways to generate a profit, increase a civilizations wealth, and ultimately their military power was through the silver trade. In monopolizing said trade, Europe was able to establish a somewhat steady economic connection to the very wealthy Asian civilizations. However, european nations were struggling to keep control of the silver trade out of Asian hands, which caused major shifts
The Incan Empire was older than the Aztec empire and included over five million people before the Spanish arrived. The strength of the empire was impressive considering most of the empire's terrain was mountainous and they had only llamas and people to transport goods. One of the systems that the Incas had in place that allowed their road systems to flourish was that every young poor male had to work for their government building villages, roads, etc. After the Spanish arrived, many Incas died from disease. It is believed that the similarities between the Spanish religious and political systems and the Mesoamerican political/religious systems allowed for an easier takeover of the empires for the Spanish. The Spanish had originally come to the "New World" in search of gold and they found little of it, however, they found a surplus of silver, especially in the mountain practically made of silver in Peru. The responsibility of mining for the silver fell to the natives, despite the mercury poisoning and the deadly conditions in the mines. Spain did eventually become rich from the silver, but inflation and the cost of their wars left them damaged. China had also suffered inflation after they developed paper money and they changed their tax system to require that taxes be paid in silver, which meant their people gave up agricultural jobs for jobs that usually involved silk (which paid in
As new ideas traveled main trade routes, such as the Silk Road and the Mediterranean, the effects of such were felt through an influx of contact between countries due to increased desire for new information and countries gaining a larger presence on the world stage. This phenomenon can also be seen through the lens of cultural exchange that took place during this same time period in Eurasia. A major component of the Eurasian trade networks, such as the Silk Road and Indian Ocean, was that they fostered interregional contacts that had ceased to previously exist. When a country had a desire for study or technology, they earned more respect on the global stage. This can be further examined by looking at Marco Polo’s voyage into Asia.
The gold and silver mines offered quick wealth to the Spaniards, and the native population was given out freely because of the repartimiento system. The Indians were given as a reward to the Conquistadors for helping the Spanish king in conquering Latin American.
Bartolomé de Las Casas was born in 1484 AD in Seville and died in 1566 in Madrid. In the ending of the 15th century and the beginning of 16th, he came to America and become a “protector of Indian”. In 1542, most based on his effort, Spain has passed the New Law, which prohibit slaving Indians (Foner, p. 7). In 1552, he published the book A Short Account of the Destruction of The Indies.
Bentley, J., & Ziegler, H. (2008). Trade and encounters a global perspective on the past. (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 182-401). New York: McGraw-Hill.
During the early Ming Dynasty, China was one of the most economically and technologically advanced countries in the world. As Ebrey pointed out, “Europe was not yet a force in Asia and China continued to look on the outer world in traditional terms.” China was regarded as the center of Asia at the beginning of 15th century and the idea of “Middle Kingdom” (Zhong guo) began to take off at that time. The early Ming Emperors were not interested in promoting commercial trade at all. Emperor Hongwu, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, implemented the Hai jin policy which forbade maritime shipping and private foreign trade outside of the tributary system (Ebrey, p. 209). Emperor Yongle, the son of Emperor Hongwu, lifted this policy to a certain extent when he ordered his eunuch Zheng He’s voyages. However, he was only intereste...
The Chinese empire had once been one of the greatest and most powerful empires in the world. Before the 19th century, China had a large population and was ruled by families or dynasties. It was considered technologically advanced as China had a history of many miraculous inventions, such as: writing, magnetic compasses, movable sails, porcelain, abacus and paper money. Although China was isolated from the rest of the world, it coped well on its own, and saw no need to begin trading with the west, (as Lord McCartney proposed in 1793), since it was a self-sufficient nation. At that particular time, the Chinese empire was still able to exclude the ‘barbarians’, thus forcing them to only trade at one port. However, China soon took a turn for the worst as important ...
Chapter 6 represents the third image. The main issue in this chapter was financial crisis with the Jesuits. Mainly the Jesuits thought that they would make great profit off of Macao and sell silver between china and japan. The only problem with this was the fact that in japan silver was plentiful and in china it was scarce. For example, Spence explains, “…in china silver was the dominant metal of exchange, was scarce, and was in constant demand, whereas in japan silver was less popular as
In the 17th century, China implemented the Canton system. At first, foreigners were allowed to trade both in Canton (otherwise known as Guangzhou) and other ports. This was under the condition that the would have a security merchant to vouch for their behavior (Wills 2006). However, when the English decided to trade in Ningbo to get around having to have a security merchant, the Chinese government closed all ports except for Canton and implemented what is now known as the Cohong system, the system most closely associated with the Canton system (Wills 2006). This system maintained that trade could only be done with those merchants licensed by the government. Therefore, in this period, the Cohong had a monopoly over foreign trade. Although foreigners wanted China to open its ports, the truth was that China really didn't need foreign trade. As quoted by Michael Greenburg in British Trade and the Opening of China, “Had the entire foreign trade of China suddenly ceased in 1877, the economic life of the country would have been affected but very little.” This was due to China's self sufficient economy based on agriculture. The British found this lack of concern for international trade vexing, and according to Greenburg, “[attributed] the obnoxious restrictive ...
...e, Europeans were finding themselves short of land and room for expansion due to numerous empires in a relatively small area. This led to the search for land. The political powers sought wealth and hoped to achieve this by conquering Asians markets as had been done in the west. Much like the political powers, the Christian church greedily sought mass expansion and conversion, pushing for missions in the foreign lands. In contrast to the Europeans motives, the reasons for Chinese commercial expansion were desires and curiosity of a single emperor in the Ming dynasty that was not pushed for by the aristocrats, church, or scholar-gentry. Whereas the general consensus of Europe pushed for expansion for economic, political, and religious reasons, the expansion was the doing of one emperor who looked for wealth for defense against the threat of the Mongols from the north.
The geography of China was something like a fence. This isolation made the people of China feel like their country was prestigious and secluded from the rest of the world. With deserts and the Himalayas running along most of the border, it was extremely difficult to cross over one of the most dangerous mountain ranges in the world and a few other scorching deserts with the little transport they had during that time. The only way merchants could come into the country was the southeastern coast of China where most of the prosper cities resided. What led China to become conceited was because they had an abundant of goods that most of the world wanted. In 1760-1830s, China was famous for its porcelain (rich Europeans loved it), silk, and of course, tea. Since this Eastern Powerhouse’s goods were so popular, therefore, there were only a few things that interested them to trade with. It seemed as if tea was a drug for the Europeans because for them it was just so addicting, to the point they would do anything just to get more and more. The only things that were worthy for trading with the Chinese were gingko (type of plant), shark fin, a soft type of wood (used for incense) and silver. As the demand for tea rose, Britain gradually ran out of silver to trade with, and was desperate to find what China wanted. Then, the British resorted to trading opium. China was very picky of their opium. There was a certain kind of make they wanted, it was a compact ball wr...
From Spain's early arrival in the Caribbean through their establishment of the Spanish empire indigenous people were exploited through cheap, slave like labor. One of the most incredible subjects raised by the documents presented in Colonial Spanish America is the topic of Labor Systems that were imposed on the indigenous people. Spain tried to excuse this exploitation by claiming to save these indigenous people by teaching them the ways of Christ but many of the Articles in Colonial Spanish America, Struggle & Survival, and The Limits of Racial Domination prove otherwise. Through letters, personal stories, and other documents these books present accounts that tell about the labor system used in this area. They tell of the Spanish labor systems such as the encomiendos and later rapartamientos and how these operations were run.
From the 1970s, there has been a wave of liberalization in China, which was introduced by Deng Xiaoping. This is one of the key reasons to the rise of China to be one of the economic giants in the world. In the last 25 years of the century, the Chinese economy has had massive economic growth, which has been 9.5 percent on a yearly basis. This has been of great significance of the country since it quadrupled the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country thus leading to saving of 400 million of their citizens from the threats of poverty. In the late 1970s, China was ranked twentieth in terms of trade volumes in the whole world as well as being predicted to be the world’s top nation concerning trading activities (Kaplan, 53). This further predicted the country to record the highest GDP growth in the whole world.