Silver, Companies and the Atlantic System
Introduced| English |
|---|
| Mercantilist/ˈmɜːkæntɪlɪst/ |
| Joint-stock companies/dʒɔɪnt stɒk ˈkʌmpəniz/ |
| cultural synthesis |
Mercantilism and the joint-stock company
- Mercantilist 重商主义 policies and practices were used by European rulers to expand and control their economies and claim overseas territories.
- Joint-stock companies 股份公司, influenced by these mercantilist principles, were used by rulers and merchants to finance exploration and were used by rulers to compete against one another in global trade.
- A joint-stock company spreads a voyage's risk across many investors — which is what makes a losing voyage survivable.
A joint-stock company mattered because it...
Which is what makes a losing voyage survivable.
Silver made the world one market
- The new global circulation of goods was facilitated by chartered European monopoly companies and the global flow of silver, especially from Spanish colonies in the Americas.
- That silver was used to purchase Asian goods for the Atlantic markets and satisfy Chinese demand for silver.
- So American mines, European companies and Chinese tax policy are one circuit — this is the clearest single case of a global economy in the period.
Put the silver circuit in order.
Four continents, one circuit — and no single state designed it.
Regional markets kept working
- Regional markets continued to flourish in Afro-Eurasia by using established commercial practices and new transoceanic and regional shipping services developed by European merchants.
- The CED puts established practices and new services in the same sentence — continuity and change together.
- Economic disputes led to rivalries and conflict between states: Muslim–European rivalry in the Indian Ocean, Morocco against Songhai.
Which part of the global circuit is this?
Sort each item by where it sits in the period's economy.
Regional Afro-Eurasian markets collapsed under the new global circulation.
They continued to flourish, using established practices and new shipping services.
Silver is not simply loot. The CED describes it circulating: mined in Spanish America, spent on Asian goods for Atlantic markets, and absorbed by Chinese demand for silver. An answer that stops at extraction has described one leg of a circuit and called it the economy.
The CED says all parties contributed to the Atlantic system's cultural ____.
Which is what makes it a synthesis rather than an imposition.
The Atlantic system moved people
- The Atlantic trading system involved the movement of goods, wealth and labour, including enslaved persons.
- It also involved the mixing of African, American and European cultures and peoples, with all parties contributing to this cultural synthesis 文化融合.
- All parties contributing is the CED's own phrase, and it is what makes this a synthesis rather than an imposition.
Select all the regions the CED names for intensified peasant and artisan labour.
Andean silver is mining under the mit'a, in subtopic 4.4.
Labour intensified, and families changed
- Peasant and artisan labour continued and intensified in many regions as the demand for food and consumer goods increased — western European wool and linen, Indian cotton, Chinese silk.
- Some notable gender and family restructuring occurred, including demographic changes in Africa that resulted from the trade of enslaved persons.
- So the global economy's effects reach into households, not only ports — which is what the objective's word society means.
Silver leaves a Peruvian mine, crosses to Europe or straight across the Pacific to Manila, buys Chinese silk and porcelain, and ends in a Chinese treasury because taxes must be paid in silver. The silk sells in Amsterdam. Four continents, one circuit — and no single state designed it.
Mercantilist policies and joint-stock companies financed exploration and let rulers compete. Chartered monopoly companies and the global flow of silver — Spanish American silver buying Asian goods and meeting Chinese demand — carried global circulation, while regional markets continued to flourish. The Atlantic system moved goods, wealth and enslaved labour, and produced a cultural synthesis all parties contributed to.