Elan wrote...11/10/09

This past Monday and Tuesday during class we saw there was a common theme, and it all revolved around Silver. This past weekend for homework we were instructed to read an essay called the “Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid-Eighteenth Century” by Dennis O. Flynn & Arturo Giráldez. When we entered 9th period we were tested on the information provided by the material we read over the weekend. The test was mainly on how silver impacted different parts of the world during the mid 1500’s to the mid 1700’s. After testing was done we reviewed major years and events that were mentioned in the material. One major year you don’t want to forget is 1571. This was the year the Spanish conquered the Philippines and set up probably the most important trading post called Manila. Manila was great because it set up a short cut for the Americas to China across the Pacific (Acapulco to Manila). At the end of the period we watched the same film that we saw when Ms.Separ was absent, except now we had more of an understanding of what was going on.

During Tuesday’s lesson, for most of the period, we finished watching the rest of the movie. China (which was controlled by the Ming) changed their currency from paper money to silver coins. This created a huge demand for silver, because the Chinese didn’t mine silver, so they had to import it. The rest of the film was mainly about the Portuguese and their trading relationships with China and other places in the world. Two important places you want to be familiar with are, El Mina which was a Mine in West Africa, and Potossí which was another mine on the West coast of South America. These are the two main places the Portuguese mined their silver. The Portuguese use their silver to trade for silk, salt, spices and sugar. The Portuguese also traded with Africa for slaves so they could work in the mines in the Americas. Eventually the value of silver in China fell, because it became saturated. This affected the rest of the world because now places China traded with aren’t getting as much goods as they did before for the same amount of silver. The next person who asked me to choose him for the next blog is Dan Ma.