Silver Economy Dbq

Silver Effects on Social Life and Economy Trading by exchanging goods was the way countries had acquired foreign luxuries for a very long time. Mercantilism, the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world and to increase a country’s wealth, the country must take it, led to European countries exploring other parts of the world for “God, gold, and glory.” As a result, European countries started to colonize lands in the Indian Ocean and Latin America to gain control of trade routes and new sources of wealth. With colonizing the silver-rich lands of Latin America, the Portuguese and Spanish held the most power. As more silver was extracted, the Spanish and Portuguese started to have too much of it, leading to them trading for foreign …show more content…
This had a negative effect on the lower classes ability to purchase items because they had to borrow silver from the moneylenders, leaving them in debt (Doc 4). As a writer, Xu Dunqiu Ming’s purpose for writing this essay was to describe the change from a traditional barter economy to a market economy where the people must pay for services in silver. Because he has nothing to gain from this essay, this is a good source for evidence to show how the demand for silver to pay taxes hurt the people, especially in the lower classes. The flow of silver negatively affected the social state because the demand for it led to it being scarce in the population's hands because silver was mandatory for taxes and it led to forced labor to extract the silver which was dangerous and even …show more content…
Because of the abundance of silver in Spain, inflation drove up the prices making Asian commodities more attractive. As a result, silver left Spain and flooded into Asia which benefitted their economies (Doc 1). Additionally, the Portuguese took Chinese luxury goods to Japan in exchange for silver; which they then used to their advantage in the silver-seeking country of China. Because of this repeated trade, the economies of Portugal and Japan benefit greatly by receiving luxury products like porcelain and silk from China as document 3 shows. Document 6 shows the Chinese realized they could sell their silk in the Philippines for up to 3 times as much silver as it is truly worth. As a Ming court official, He Qioayuan’s purpose for writing this report to the emperor is to persuade him to repeal the ban on trade because there are very high prices for Chinese goods in Luzon from which they could profit greatly. Also, Qiaoyuan’s motives may be suspicious because goods from his native province are in high demand; which makes this report biased and not the best source of evidence because he wants more to make himself wealthier. In the debate on a bill in Parliament to restrict Indian textiles, D’Avenant argues that if trade for Asian products was restricted, the English would lose all the luxury goods that have become basic