Socially and economically, the global silver trade from the mid-16th century to the 18th century had a negative effect on the rest of the world. The trade’s earlier benefits did not last long, as it eventually weakened the Spanish kingdoms and Ming dynasty. The dependence on trade and the uneven disbursement of the product lead to the fragility of the economics of those governments that depended on silver. The economic effects can be seen in document 2, 3, 4, and the social effects of the silver trade can be seen in documents 5, 6, 7, and 8. According to the documents, the middle man profited the most from the dependence on silver, while the countries importing and exporting silver suffered massive damages. Leading up to the silver trade, the majority of Spanish coinage …show more content…
By the 1500s, Europe had destroyed almost their source of fur. The occurrence of the “little ice age” resulted in panic from European countries and a ridiculously high demand for furs. This made fur prices rise and Merchants hungry to sell them. This is similar to when China began to use silver as their national currency, which made merchants eager to trade with them. Different from one another, the fur trade was incredibly competitive in the Americas. The majority of trapping, processing, and transporting fur was done by Native Americans, similar to how Native Americans did the majority of the work on silver mines. Europeans would then receive the fur from Native Americans and would sell said fur worldwide, like merchants had done previously with silver. The Siberian fur trade was also similar to the silver trade in a way. The Siberian fur trade brought wealth to Russia, but in turn Native Siberians became dependent on Russian goods they previously did not needed, like the Europeans did with goods they received from the silver trade. The source of this fur also began to die out and became rare, like silver did because of China's high