Compare And Contrast The Global Flow Of Silver In Tokugawa Japan And Spanish Colonial America

Amelia Johnston
Mr. D'auria
October 21, 2015 The flow of silver between the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century changed the social and economic structures of many different countries and states. Tokugawa Japan and Spanish colonial America lead the global flow of silver from 1500 to 1750. The flow of silver had positive effects socially and economically in those two places. Contrastingly, Ming China and Britain both struggled with the new flow of silver. They both had to try and adapt their own countries to function with the correlation of silver flow. The negative social and economic effects on Spanish colonial America are shown in documents two and six. Tomás de Mercado, a spanish scholar. wrote of negative effects silver placed on spain's economy. He said that “high prices ruined Spain…” since the Spanish didn’t use their silver strategically they lost it's worth. Silver was a good source of quick wealth and possible long lasting wealth if you handled with care. A Spanish priest, Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, recounts the mining of slaves and profits of the mining in document six. The Spanish people who profit from mining

They need to socially and economically adapted to fit with the global flow of silver. Documents number four and eight show views from different British people. Ralph Fitch, a British merchant, traveled to the East Indies. He said, that they was a ship “that goes to Japan every year, and brings back more than 600,000 coins worth of Japanese silver.” The Portuguese used silver to buy many different luxuries such as gold, silk, perfume, copper, and porcelain. Charles D’Avenant, who was an english scholar, explained Britain's influence on the spice-trade. Britain declined socially due to the fact that they are not completely immersed in the silver trade. Britain took longer to go from bartering to trading with