From 1571 to 1814, the Spanish Crown operated an astonishing global trade route that spanned both oceans. Into Manila would flow spices from Indonesia and silk and porcelain from China, which were shipped to Acapulco in New Spain. There the galleons would be loaded with silver and sent back to purchase more exotic goods. The products brought from Manilla to Acapulco were transported overland across the peninsula and then shipped along with silver to Spain for European trade.
The silver came from Potosí, Bolivia where hundreds of thousands of enslaved Incan lives were sacrificed by the Spanish to extract that silver from the bowels of the earth. Potosí became a major commercial hub and grew to be one of the largest cities in the world with as many as 200,000 people. The mines became the center of Spanish wealth and were the main reason Spain remained powerful during the colonial period. From 1556 to 1783, they extracted some 45,000 tons of silver from these mines.
The amount of silver that the Spanish traded with China for silk and other exotic products was simply breathtaking. As described by Debin (1998, p.51) “China became a huge suction pump …. drawing silver first from Japan, then from Mexico and Peru. According to conservative estimates, fully 75 percent of the 400 million pesos of silver bound for the Philippines during the period 1565–1820 ended up in China. On average, roughly two million pesos of silver were shipped through Manila in the seventeenth century …. In the high stage of the trade, China sent three- or even four-million pesos worth of silk goods a year to New Spain.”
The Spanish used a system of convoys of ships (the flota) to limit attacks by English and Dutch pirates and privateers. For over three centuries the primary role of the Spanish navy was to escort the galleon convoys that sailed around the world. The Spanish were continually hassled in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea by the likes of the “Sea Dogs”, Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish, who not only went after ships but also sacked port cities.
Sir Francis Drake made a career out of prowling the Atlantic and Caribbean Seas for Spanish silver. Among his most audacious feats was to sack the Spanish settlement of Nombre de Dios in Panama in 1573. At that time, Nombre de Dios served as a distribution point of Potosi silver that had been carried by a mule train (the Spanish Silver Train) across the isthmus. Drake stormed the colony, stripped it of all its wealth and captured a Spanish caravan which had just been loaded with silver. The following year, he ambushed the Silver Train itself and carried away another fabulous fortune in precious metals.
Thomas Cavendish won his greatest fame in a trip circumnavigating the globe from 1586 to 1588. After a difficult journey across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Strait of Magellan, he went on a rampage along the Pacific Coast of America attacking Spanish settlements and any ships he came upon. On the coast of North America, he stumbled upon his greatest prize, the carrack Great Saint Anna, almost bursting with 22,000 gold pesos and 600 tons of silk. The capture was a double victory as the ship was personally owned by Philip II of Spain, England’s greatest enemy. Cavendish arrived home in Plymouth on 9 September 1588, and in a display of dash and show, had his ship decked out in damask sails and gold cloth, and dressed all his crew in silk.
Source: Hancock, J.F. (2021) Spices, scents and silk: Catalysts of world trade. CABI
Figure: Route of Spanish Galleons. Dr. Elena FitzPatrick Sifford, “Biombo with the Conquest of Mexico and View of Mexico City,” in Smarthistory, February 8, 2017, accessed July 31, 2021.
Catalysts of trade and exploration 