Global silver trade

The transcontinental movement of silver linking American mines, European empires, and Asian markets from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries.

Potosí: A Bolivian city founded near the Cerro Rico silver deposit, which became one of the Spanish Empire’s largest mining centers. Its mines supplied a major share of the silver shipped from Spanish America.
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire: The Spanish-led campaign that toppled the Aztec Empire between 1519 and 1521. Conquest gave Spain control of territories that later became major silver-producing regions.
Indigenous mita: A colonial labor draft that compelled Indigenous Andean communities to provide workers, especially for Potosí’s mines. The system supplied coerced labor for a principal silver source.
Price Revolution: The sustained rise in prices across much of Europe during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. American bullion inflows contributed to inflation, alongside population growth and other forces.
Atlantic slave trade: The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic to labor in the Americas. It linked the same empires and oceans, but moved enslaved people rather than bullion.
Manila galleon: A Spanish trade route and ship system that connected Manila and Acapulco across the Pacific. Galleons carried American silver to Manila in exchange for Asian goods.
Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire: The Spanish campaign that captured the Inca ruler Atahualpa and dismantled Inca imperial power in the 1530s. Spanish rule in the Andes enabled the exploitation of Potosí’s silver deposits.
Bartolomé de Medina: A Spanish metallurgist credited with introducing the patio process for refining silver in New Spain. His amalgamation method helped expand silver production using mercury.
Spanish Empire: A global empire ruled by the Spanish Crown from the late fifteenth century into the nineteenth century. Imperial power organized much of the mining, taxation, and shipping of American silver.
Gold standard: A monetary system in which currency value is defined by a fixed quantity of gold. It contrasts with the early modern circulation of silver as both commodity and money.

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