Silver Trade Dbq Analysis

Economic changes occurred partly due to the newly formed nation-states of Spain, Portugal, France, and England. Trade at that time was limited and expensive, so the Europeans began looking for new trade routes to Asia. What they found was an altogether new place that opened up many new opportunities for food sources, money, and slave labor. A motivator for exploration was “defined primarily in terms of silver and gold and secondarily in terms of raw materials.” Another factor to consider was the population explosion that came about after the Black Plague wiped out around 30 million Europeans producing “economic disruption.” Spain was seeking gold to finance further expeditions abroad and their own war with the Muslims on the home front. Britain was seeking new trade markets for their wool with the collapse of their wool market at home. Another mitigating economic factor was the rising prices created by the flood of American silver into the European market. This caused rates to double on many goods, which benefited the farmers and the merchants, but the majority of people suffered because their wages did not rise proportionately. This increased the number of people living on the fringes of society and “thus built up pressure to immigrate to the Americas.”

Later in the chapter, the book talks about the increase in the Arabs/Islamic people. He talks about the role of the African people in the trade over the ocean. He continues to talk about the reasons that Europeans were interested in invading the oversea world and talks about the findings of the Indian Ocean that gave them a path to the Asian world and trade.

This continued from the 800s to the 1300s. At this point of the time period, the Mongols had expanded throughout Eurasia. However, the only parts of the trade that were affected were the northern parts between Europe and Asia, because the Mongols concentrated on mostly China, Russia, and some parts of Eastern Europe. By the 1450s, the gold-salt trade started to decline, and soon, the center of trade started to shift away from the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. This was because the age of exploration started in Europe, and trade concentrated more towards the Atlantic Ocean.

China’s population was growing rapidly, almost doubling between 750 and 1100. Because of this huge population boom, paper money was established, and the trade industry grew. There were many advances that were made, such as technological improvements

A major effect of the global flow of silver is the economic dependency required.In Document 5, Xu Dunqui Ming purposefully explains the growing of heavy silver use in his city’s economics in 1610, leading to silver becoming the required and standard payment for cloth dying and other services, along with silver now a necesity in their lives.Wth this new standard payment of silver in China, where it is unaccessible in their own environment, they depend on Europe and Spain to in exhange for China’s goods pay in silver to make it readily available for China’s inhabitants. In

1. Long-distance commerce acted as a motor of change in pre-modern world history by altering consumption and daily life. Essential food and useful tools such as salt were traded from the Sahara desert all the way to West Africa and salt was used as a food preserver. Some incenses essential to religious ceremonies were traded across the world because there was a huge demand for them. Trade diminished economic self-sufficiency by creating a reliance on traded goods and encouraged people to specialize and trade a particular skill. Trade motivated the creation of a state due to the wealth accumulated from controlling and taxing trade. Trade posed the problem of if the government or private

According to Document 1, which was written by a court official during the Ming Dynasty, wedding expenses were mandated to be limited in order to curb the luxury spending of the Chinese in an attempt to reduce the social aspect of needing to spend high amounts of money on luxury goods. Document 3 emphasizes that the silver trade affected the social structure of China by stating how due to the silver trade, many people are not farming anymore and are thus cultivating less land for crops due to not being paid fairly in silver by the government due to taxes on silver. Due to the fact that farmers were part of the Nong class of the social hierarchy, which was a high ranked class due to the fact that farmers were regarded as highly important

Ye Chunji, a Chinese official revealed this social division by revealing that there was a great division between the “frugal” or poor and the “extravagant” of wealthy when it came to the costs of their weddings. This would generally be a sign that the rich have vast amounts of more money than the poor. Ye Chunji is an official of the Ming dynasty who would therefore most likely be Confucian. He is a reliable source as he is an official who is noting something that is happening and has no need to persuade others. Another court official, Wand Xijue also proclaimed that due to the increases in the amounts of silver that the Ming government is receiving, they could afford to decrease the taxes on farmers and therefore lower the price of grain. Wang Xijue is a reliable source, because, like Chunji, he is solely a person who reports information to the emperor and has no reason to lie during this report. The changing of the Chinese economy resulted in a further gap separating the wealthy and the poor. This is revealed when Xu Dinqiu in his Essay in The Changing Times states, “customers could pay for dying the cloth with rice, wheat, soybeans, chickens, or other fowl. Now, …when you receive a bill, which must be paid with silver obtained from a money lender.” (Document 5) This quote could argue that the poor are no longer capable of paying for their

Documents 3,5,6, 7 and 8 all mention how the economy changed dramatically due to the arrival and growth of silver as a currency. In document 3, a Ming dynasty court official writes about how the silver coin is hard to come by because the government is hoarding all of it. They take silver for taxes but do not redistribute it to the people. He is writing this because he is trying to convince the emperor to distribute the silver more appropriately to the people, and because his family is obviously not doing well financially. He is a court official who most likely has small influence in the government and writes in hopes of getting the emperor to consider spreading the wealth to the lower classes of China, to save his family, and other families like his. Document 5 expresses a different, but somewhat related view about how silver has become a hindrance to regular business interactions, because customers can no longer trade items of their own to purchase goods, they have to go through a lengthy process to pay everything in silver. Document 6 shows a counter point of view about the wealth that the mining of silver has brought to Spain. Document 7 is a report written to convince the emperor of China that there is much wealth to be found in foreign trade, because of how much silver some countries will pay for Chinese goods. Finally, document 8 examines how European countries are able to purchase Asian commodities freely because of their immense supply

From the Time period of 1500 to 1700 , Spanish colonial America and Tokugawa Japan led the world in silver production. This effected other countries and as well as Spain and Japan; The Silver flow effected all countries in either a negative social ,empowering economical, or neutral socioeconomic way. Documents 1,5,and 6 show the negative social effects of silver throughout China,Spain, and the West Indies. Documents 2,3,and 6 show the neutral socioeconomic effect neither good nor terrible of silver trade throughout Spain, China ,The West Indies, and The Philippines. Documents 4,7, and 8 show the empowering economic effects, of silver trade throughout Europe and China.

Many valuable goods for centuries were traded through out all of the world. In between the mid-16th century and early 18th century, silver became a very valuable item that had effected the world and changed it economically and socially. Economically, in documents 4 and 7 it explains how silver flowed and the business of silver itself. Socially, even though in business silver was just business, it brought greed, shown in documents 1,6, and 8 to the people and government and lead to suffering to the people as stated in documents 2,3, and 5. Documents 4 and 7 both show how silver was traded and how silver, and the price, flowed through out the world.

Document 4 written by Ralph Fitch, British merchant, describes how the Portuguese use vast amounts of silver from Japan to acquire many goods and items in China, to use to there benefit. Fitch wrote this document to spread the word of how silver is a good thing and is an economic benefit. Document 6 written by Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa, a Spanish priest, discusses that the demand of silver is so high and that the amount of silver being taken from the mines is so vast. The author wrote this document to show how the economy was doing well and was in a

9. In what ways did China participate in the world of Eurasian commerce and exchange, and with that outcomes?

Gold and silver were mainly mined from Potosi and Mexico. Because there was a lot of money circulating, people who were selling items were able to charge more for what they were selling because people were willing to pay (or had to pay) more money in order to get supplies. The inflation of prices caused the wealthy to become even wealthier (the Price Revolution gave many the opportunity to accumulate more wealth), and poorer citizens to lose a lot of money because they had to pay the inflated prices. During the Price Revolution countries started to engage in Mercantilism, which is when countries would import more goods than they would export. Mercantilism is based on the belief that there is a certain number of specie that is circulating, and when one country gains specie, another country loses that specie.

The population of the Asia region of the world contributes a massive amount of exporting goods, and global business as a whole. The sheer number of people consuming goods that must be imported to support the large population force the need for trade with other regions. The demand for resources is high and the need to develop strong trade relations with other countries is vital to the continued growth and success of Asian countries.