Global Trade 1500-1750
A list of resources for students to use when discovering the origins of our global economy.
Author MrRalston
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1The Commercial Revolution, Ming China's Economic Growth
Under the Ming dynasty, China experienced one of the greatest economic expansions in its history. This expansion affected every area of Chinese economic life: agriculture, commerce, and maritime trade and exploration. It was under the Ming that the Chinese first began to trade and interact with Europeans on any significant scale. The presence of Europeans would eventually prove to be the most contentious aspect of modern Chinese history, but during the Ming, European trade greatly expanded Chinese economic life, particularly in the south.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MING/COMM.HTM
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2China's Gifts to the West
An exercise identifying Chinese inventions that we use and enjoy in daily life provides an excellent starting point for discussing both the achievements of the Chinese civilization and China's influence on the West. The article China 's Gifts to the West describes China's inventions of silk, tea, porcelain ("china"), paper, printing, gunpowder, the mariner's compass, medicines, lacquer, games (including cards, dominoes, and kites), and miscellaneous items such as umbrellas, as well as natural resources, such as plants (including peaches, apricots, and citrus fruits) and minerals (including coal and zinc), first discovered and cultivated by the Chinese.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/s10/gifts.pdf
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3The Silver Trade
The story of silver in China is really interesting and has been misunderstood for a long time. From 1500 to 1800, Mexico and Peru produced something like 85 percent of the world's silver. During that same period at least a third and some people would say over 40 percent of all that silver eventually wound up in China. Now what was going on there and what does it mean? The Europeans of course were not shipping the silver to China as an act of donation or charity. They were getting goods in return, such as silk, porcelain, and later especially tea.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/s5/s5_4.html
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4Ming China, The Decline
There are numerous causes for the decline and fall of the Ming despite the auspicious start of the dynasty under the Hong Wu emperor. The most immediate and direct cause of the fall of the Ming were the rebellions that racked the country in the seventeenth century and the aggressive military expansion of the Manchus. The decline of the dynasty, however, began much sooner; history works more often in long patterns, and the decline of the Ming can be dated as far back as the establishment of the dynasty.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MING/DECLINE.HTM
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5History echoes in the mines of Potosi
The hill (Potosi) was largely untouched when Spanish conquistadores stumbled across it in 1544. Over the next three centuries, it yielded a river of riches - more than 62,000 metric tonnes (137 million pounds) of silver that provided the Spanish aristocracy with a lifestyle of profligate opulence and, because it was used to pay off many Spanish debts to neighbours, fuelled much of the economic rise of Europe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3740134.stm
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6Charles V and Philip II
Spain's apparent prosperity in the sixteenth century was not based on actual economic growth. As its bullion supply decreased in the seventeenth century, Spain was neither able to meet the cost of its military commitments nor to pay for imports of manufactured goods that could not be produced efficiently at home.
http://countrystudies.us/spain/8.htm
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7The Philippines, The Early European period
The first recorded sighting of the Philippines by Europeans was on March 16, 1521, during Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. Magellan landed on Cebu, claimed the land for Charles I of Spain, and was killed one month later by a local chief. The Spanish crown sent several expeditions to the archipelago during the next decades. Permanent Spanish settlement was finally established in 1565 when Miguel López de Legazpi, the first royal governor, arrived in Cebu from New Spain (Mexico). Six years later, after defeating a local Muslim ruler, he established his capital at Manila, a location that offered the excellent harbor of Manila Bay, a large population, and proximity to the ample food supplies of the central Luzon rice lands. Manila remained the center of Spanish civil, military, religious, and commercial activity in the islands. The islands were given their present name in honor of Philip II of Spain, who reigned from 1556 to 1598.
http://countrystudies.us/philippines/4.htm
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8Japan's Connection with Spain
Established in 1868 with the signing of the Treaty of Commerce and Friendship. Contact between Japan and Spain began when a Jesuit missionary, Francisco Xavier, arrived in Japan in 1549. Since then until Japan adopted the policy of seclusion, many missionaries from Spain sailed to Japan and introduced Western civilization to Japan. Thanks to the Spanish galleons, Japan was also able to begin trading with the Philippines, Mexico, and other countries. In 1584, the Tensho mission of Japanese youths dispatched from Japan stopped in Spain and had an audience with Philip II before proceeding on to Rome.
http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/europe/spain/index.html
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9The Flow of Silver (Slideshow)
Click, wait, watch.
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/media/0781_5_slideshow.html
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10The Nanban Trade Period of Japan
The Nanban Trade period is a span of years that begins with the landing of the first European visitors to Japan in 1543 and lasts until 1641, when the Sakoku Seclusion Edicts were passed and nearly all non-Japanese were pushed out of Japan.
http://learnjapanese.elanguageschool.net/nanban-trade-period-japan