Onset of American Silver Inflow into Europe

Name: Onset of American Silver Inflow into Europe
Start: 1493
End: 1500

Type Event Region Americas Time 1493–1500

In the 1490s, as Spain established colonial footholds in the Caribbean and Hispaniola, American gold and small amounts of silver began flowing into E…

Timeline

1493–1496Hispaniola · HispaniolaSpanish colonists forced indigenous people to pan for gold on Hispaniola and elsewhere; gold output on the island peaked in the mid-1490s, becoming the first source of American precious metals shipped back to Europe.
1495Castile · CastileFerdinand and Isabella issued a decree requiring one-fifth (quinto real) of precious metals mined in the Americas to be paid as royal tax, establishing the institutional framework for colonial precious metal flows back to Spain.
1496–1500Seville · AndalusiaIn the late 1490s, registered American gold and small quantities of silver arrived regularly at Seville, entering the royal treasury and European circulation. The total volume was still limited, but it initiated the long-term one-way transatlantic flow of precious metals.

Sources

Silver and Trade in the Early Modern Atlantic World — Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giráldez (1995)
The Spanish Empire — Henry Kamen (2003)