Silver Trade Dbq Essay

When Spaniards traveled west in the 16th century, they were able to find extensive amounts of silver in the Americas. At around the same time, the Japanese were also able to find great deposits of silver in their homelands as well. As such, the silver trade started, or as some may say, the start of global economy. With this trade, places like Europe that had little to offer to major civilizations were able to get more involved with trade being that they now could produce silver that was highly sought after. As it was in such high demands, especially in places like China, the global economy rose. Not only was silver used in making jewelry and weapons, it was also used as currency, however, it wasn’t just normal currency, it became currency that

The reason for their need for silver was due to the fact that during the Ming Dynasty, a financial crisis erupted, causing the government to print out more money, but as more money gets circulated, the worth of it decreases. And since the worth decreased, their problem wasn’t solved at all, but if anything, it made it worse and added another problem, the people started to lose their trust in paper currency (Pomeranz and Wong “The Silver Trade Pt 1”). As such, they needed another form of currency which wasn’t as easy to produce, and that came in the form of silver. Precious metals such as gold and silver were incredibly rare in China, with the latter almost nonexistent; and so to get silver, they had to receive it from other countries. With so many people occupying such a country, high amounts of silver were needed were needed which helped fuel global commerce. As written by He Qiaoyuan, the Spanish could buy Chinese silk and porcelain for the price of 100 silver bars, but when they sell it back to the Philippines, it’s sold for 200-300 silver bars. This could show how the want for silver fueled global commerce since the Spanish could obtain silk for just 100 silver bars but sell it for 200-300, it could mean that merchants could obtain valuable Chinese goods for less if they paid in silver. And as the Chinese produced highly wanted goods; and with silver being mass produced almost everywhere, global commerce