DBQ: The Global Silver Trade In the year 1492, Christopher Columbus, funded by the Spanish, embarked on his monumental voyage to the Americas, initiating interactions between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. The interconnection of these two regions prompted European powers to send conquerors on expeditions to colonize the Americas and claim territory for their empire. Most notably, the Spanish sent conquistadors, or soldiers, such as Hernan Cortes, and Francisco Pizarro, who conquered the native populations and established powerful colonies in Latin America and some parts of what is now the southern United States. The Spanish colonial territories in present day Peru, and Mexico, played a massive role in the growth of the global silver economy, as they had rich silver deposits which were mined intensively. The global flow of silver from …show more content…
Similarly, the global flow of silver affected society (social effects) by hurting the lower classes. One economic effect of the global silver flow was the increase in inflation, which was detrimental to some economies while benefiting others. For example, as a result of Spain’s rich silver mines in its colonial territories such as Potosi (modern-day Bolivia), they were able to extract thousands of silver coins to add to their wealth. However, adding too much currency into an economy’s circulation actually has destructive effects. With more money circulating in its economy, the prices of Spanish goods shot up (inflation) causing the cheaper Asian goods to become more appealing, therefore, increasing the amount of silver currency that flowed out of the economy to pay for them. d. Doc 1). This shows that the inflation in the Spanish economy, caused by the global silver flow, was detrimental, as the need to purchase cheaper Asian goods with silver greatly reduced the country’s wealth, which at the time was measured in the amount of gold and silver they had. Contrastingly, the inflation caused by the