GINS 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Tobacco, Spice Trade, Precious Metal

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Global and International Studies
• Course: GINS 1000
• Professor: Candace Sobers

Document Summary

China used paper currency (fiat), hadn"t figured out inflation , ended up getting rid of system and went to precious metal. All circulation of wealth and pays taxes with silver. Spanish empire discovered silver, using natives to mine with forced labor. Potosi silver mine 1545 , need mercury to refine silver . Spanish empire responsible for about 80% of silver. Most historians argue that this is begining of global trade, football field sized ships. If one empire is succeeding than the others take notice. Portugal gets a lock on the spice islands for a bit, finds a muslim population on island( Goa) then slaughter all of them, they get very efficient with shipping spices , super valuable. English and french aren"t very good at it, start looking at cod (fish) , its risky. Find out with ways to share the risk. English told/ hired pirates to go and steal silver from spanish empire,