Silver Dbq Analysis

Gold was often a primary currency but over time it began to become expensive and laborious to continually mine. The introduction of silver as a major form of currency caused ripples of effects in many aspects of society and practically replaced gold in importance. Most notably effected were nations' economies (improvement of economies, loss of revenue) and societies (East actively seeking silver) but the effects on economy were often more influential because flourishing economies often brought new or expanded power for nations. (467,23,158)

One of the largest shifts in global economy is that you see a huge increase in many countries imports and exports leading to more money and better financial standings. Document four describes a circle

Document two shows that although Spain was originally in power due to their large quantities of silver, they were soon trading that silver for other countries' goods. This led to other countries obtaining large amounts of silver, reducing the impact of Spain and it's silver. With the author of this document being a Spanish scholar, he notes that Spain's economy is struggling and he knows this because he resides in Spain and has experienced first hand how silver has affected the local economy. Document three also talks about how people are losing money from the arrival of silver. The Chinese government began to require all taxes be paid in silver. This led to peasants having little silver for themselves. The grain prices dropped and with less money from previous yields, farmers could not afford to plant as much. This created a constant cycle of loss and decreasing

The problem is that we don't know the effects on the Americas based on the documents we are given. The discovery of vast quantities of silver in the Andes affected natives instantly. The social effects include things such as the enslavement of natives and colonization of Europeans in new areas. The economy could have flourished due to the direct contact with silver and Europeans bringing goods with them or the economy could have horribly crashed since all of the silver was being carted away to the motherlands and not staying in the Americas. We wouldn't know without outside knowledge or further research. All in all, silver had a great impact upon the world as nations were beginning the age of exploration. It affected society (East actively seeking silver) and the economies (improvement of economies, loss of revenue) of many countries but the economic effects were much more important because they often provided countries the opportunity to rise to power and become leaders on a global