American Alchemy- An ASB 'disappears' all the gold and silver of the Americas in 1292 AD

[raharris1973]

An ASB by the name of Mama Killa Metztli Kukulkan, MKMK for short, who can observe multiple earth times simultaneously, decides she really hates Spanish conquistadors, she just really does. But she also kind of dislikes treasure-hoarding/displaying ostentatious rulers, priests and nobility in American western hemispheric societies.

So the punishment she inflicts on them both is to convert all the gold and silver in the Americas, both that already worked by the human hand, lying as dust or nuggets on the surface or riverbeds, or underground and diggable by any technology invented by humans before 1950, into another material.

She does this in 1992 AD by simply 'sliding' each of these elements, wherever they appear, 'down' the periodic table of elements by however many protons (and other atomic particles) needed, for them to become another, non-monetizeable element.

Accordingly, all the gold in the Americas, in any form, loses two protons, and as many neutrons and electrons needed, to become iridium. To avoid disastrous nuclear reactions and energy releases from gold atomic nuclei, all protons, other atomic particles, and energy generated in the conversion process is instantly teleported to outer space to disperse harmlessly. Gold had to lose two protons to become iridium, because losing just one would make it platinum, and, although humans did not yet recognize platinum as precious, Mama Killa Metztli Kukulkan, MKMK for short, know that in a matter of centuries Europeans will see it as precious, and she ain't taking no chances.

In a similar way, all the silver in the Americas, in any form, loses one proton, and as many neutrons and electrons needed, to become palladium. The same teleportation safeguards apply.

To avoid harm including poisoning or accidents to humans or animals, anyone wearing gold or silver jewelry as a piercing, or against the skin, has the precious metal objects disattach and fly off their body safely before transforming. If the resulting iridium or palladium metallic object would be poisonous to the touch, it reacts to human or animal attempts at contact by moving further away and dispersing into a dust that no creature inhales. The same with any serving ware or eating utensils.

Anyone on gold or silver furniture is deposited to safe, balanced, sitting, standing, or kneeling position, to avoid injury if their furniture breaks or disappears with the elemental change.

MKMK does *not* protect against social harms, or knock on cultural disruption. So I do suspect that in more than one society, some priests and kings will lose their heads or hearts, or both, at the hands of their elite classes, elite warriors, or capital populace, in reaction to the sudden universal disappearance of all silver and gold that represents wealth, displays power, and has ceremonial significance. This is a big supernatural shock, and some people will inevitably conclude regarding their priests or kings, while pondering lost objects, wealth or status, 'ya done pissed off the gods'.

That should lead to some regime changes in the Americas between 1292 and 1492, and American societies will find different ways to decorate, make ceremonial and practical items, display power, and measure wealth, besides gold and silver over that time.

Come 1492 and European contact, and the decades after, no native Americans will have living memory of gold or silver, and oral or written memory of it will be an increasingly distant legend.

European explorers won't see natives wearing any. Natives won't think of any neighbors who have any. Europeans won't find any in riverbeds. The Americas are going to be disappointing as can be. Pretty much no spices, at least none anybody has heard of, and no precious metal.

The European, and global, bullion famine will continue. No rapid wealth for Spain. No rapid influx of Spanish stolen precious metals to China. No Chinese ability to switch the monetary and tax collection system to a silver only one. No rapid Spanish inflation.

How do global economics and geopolitics play out?

How does the Franco-Spanish rivalry play out?

How much is new world exploration and colonization slowed down.

Does European enterprise via the Indian Ocean and spice trade go just as fast?

What about European enterprise via the Atlantic Ocean and sugar plantation economies?

 

[Talwar]

Those huge palladium deposits will one day be worth big money.

 

[Talwar]

I imagine that some of the new world colonization enterprises aren't going to be slowed much. Fish, timber, furs, cropland and just places to escape the old country are still going to motivate some folks in the same places as historical.

 

[raharris1973]

I imagine that some of the new world colonization enterprises aren't going to be slowed much. Fish, timber, furs, cropland and just places to escape the old country are still going to motivate some folks in the same places as historical.

None of those seem to motivate the 1500s Spanish much, although, over time they motivated the French, English, Dutch.

Do you think the Spanish would just be more flexible and curious than I am giving them credit for?

 

[Talwar]

None of those seem to motivate the 1500s Spanish much, although, over time they motivated the French, English, Dutch.

Do you think the Spanish would just be more flexible and curious than I am giving them credit for?

I'm certainly no expert on Spanish colonialism but suspect there would still be those who insist that there must be precious metals and the locals just don't know/aren't being honest about where to find them.

On the other hand, taking on an Aztec empire that has no gold presents a less appealing cost/benefit ratio for the discerning conquistador.

 

[LSCatilina]

The European, and global, bullion famine will continue

Note that while American silver was carried over Europe by the XVIth century onwards, it wasn't used in peninsular coinage until the XVIIth century, and made the majority of it in the early XVIIIth century only.

📰 L'argent des Amériques retrouvé tard dans l'économie espagnole

Le métal européen est resté majoritaire dans les pièces de monnaie d'argent espagnoles jusqu'au règne de Philippe III (1578-1621). Ce n'est qu'au 18e siècle qu'il a été...

www.techno-science.net

It's also interesting that Spain did not saw a monetary debasement either in gold or silver for the XVIth-XVIIIth period although England or France did, for reasons still unclear.

American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501-1650 – EH.net

eh.net

It doesn't mean that the American precious metals did not play a role in economic turmoil and changes in Europe (as its presence in non-Spanish coinage was not yet studied or published AFAIK but it's not a topic I follow) but it was probably not immediately direct or mechanical with other political, economic and contextual causes in play.

On the other hand, taking on an Aztec empire that has no gold presents a less appealing cost/benefit ratio for the discerning conquistador.

That being said, conquistadores sources for Mexico, not too sure about Peru to be honest, stress that while gold and precious metals were a considerable motivation, conquering and holding lands (and particularly fertile ones) immediately caught their attention and was as much of a motive for conquest than loot and christianization : for instance, Bernal Diaz del Castillo's descriptions are more attached to this than gold or silver.

 

[raharris1973]

Those huge palladium deposits will one day be worth big money.

I've already forgotten about the industrial and economic applications of palladium. What would they be, and how valuable would it become? What technological level and what timeframe would be needed for the value to be recognized?

What about the iridium?

My research into those was only quick wiki deep look. (quick wiki is kind of a redundant English-Hawaiian phrase when you think of it )

Fish,

People will figure out this use for American shores right away, although it does not require mass settlements, or year round settlements. So, by itself, fishing and catch-salting, catch-drying would only be a seed for slow-building, 'slow-burn' colonization, spread of disease, colonial population growth, and spread of European flora, fauna and trade goods.

timber,

Europeans were starting to seriously harvest timbers in quantity from the 1600s. Depending on the types of trees, continued improvements in cutting tools and saws were needed for the most impressive old growth trees.

just places to escape the old country

The first attempts at American colonization at least partly motivated as places of religious refuge seemed to be the 1540s or 1560s with Huguenot attempts in Florida, the Carolinas, and Brazil that all ended up failing. Of course the example we all know that succeeded was the Pilgrim and then Puritan effort that succeeded in New England, its local dissenting offshoots, the Maryland experiment around the same time, and in the next century, Pennsylvania.

taking on an Aztec empire that has no gold presents a less appealing cost/benefit ratio for the discerning conquistador.

That was my thought, but someone else is taking a contrasting view.

That being said, conquistadores sources for Mexico, not too sure about Peru to be honest, stress that while gold and precious metals were a considerable motivation, conquering and holding lands (and particularly fertile ones) immediately caught their attention and was as much of a motive for conquest than loot and christianization : for instance, Bernal Diaz del Castillo's descriptions are more attached to this than gold or silver.

Interesting, so for the first conquistadores, just the idea of owning big, new latifundias, maybe even just growing and grazing the same old stuff raised in Spain, was exciting enough to motivate these guys? As long as I own land, charge rents, I'm good, they figure?

Note that while American silver was carried over Europe by the XVIth century onwards, it wasn't used in peninsular coinage until the XVIIth century, and made the majority of it in the early XVIIIth century only.

But was it used in the majority of Spanish American circulating coinage through the 1500s, and the majority of the coinage used as the Spanish East Indies/Philippines were set up in the last third of the 1500s, and the Manila galleon trade to China and the Far East began?

It's also interesting that Spain did not saw a monetary debasement either in gold or silver for the XVIth-XVIIIth period although England or France did, for reasons still unclear.

We if debasement means what I think, mixing in base metals with the precious ones in coins, it makes complete intuitive sense for England and France, who have far fewer territorially controlled mines of the precious metals and must acquire them by trade, to debase coins, long before Spain, whose royal treasury is receiving silver and gold proceeds from mines in substantial quantities through the 1600s and 1700s. - So, not that mysterious, although there may be more to it than this. Spanish money, I think even paper money backed by coins, was still considered more 'solid' than that of other nations even at the time of the American revolutionary war, even if the Spanish economy, budget, and credit rating were in the crapper compared to Britain.

It doesn't mean that the American precious metals did not play a role in economic turmoil and changes in Europe (as its presence in non-Spanish coinage was not yet studied or published AFAIK but it's not a topic I follow) but it was probably not immediately direct or mechanical with other political, economic and contextual causes in play.

I'm sure.

 

[LSCatilina]

Interesting, so for the first conquistadores, just the idea of owning big, new latifundias, maybe even just growing and grazing the same old stuff raised in Spain, was exciting enough to motivate these guys?

Land was certainly one of the main motivations you could find among conquistadores, themselves issued from a society that, besides military fame, religious display, cash and ostentation valued land ownership as both providing with wealth (especially so when it came to cash crops and plantation economy present in Mediterranean or Atlantic plantations) and social status.

Of course, all of these weren't separated, and the reconquista provided lenders, recruits, leaders, etc. with both religious exaltation, plunder or extraction of tribute and encomiendas as "ready-to-use" lands provided with serves or slaves (whose trade was in full renewal both in agricultural and craftsmanship production in the northern-western Mediterranean bank).

This is why the development of a colonial economy was so quick and brutal in the Spanish Caribbeans even before anyone heard of the wealth of Mexico. There were lands, slaves, wealth to be taken, including (IOTL) gold to be extracted as tribute, even while Colombus' up-selling of the discoveries as "totally full of gold, trust me" was a bit of a let-down initially.

I don't doubt a second the absence of *any* precious metal would lead to a much lesser appeal for adventurers, making Italy Wars or exploration/conquest in North and West Africa at least as much interesting or that any conquest or military campaigning in the New World would happens in different ways.
But besides the obvious issues that would bring the impossibility to immediately cash-in American production or even to provide with a non-precious specie economic system (although the Portuguese experience using seashells, almost harvested to extinction, to trade with natives show it could at least partly done), the mix of military fame, cultural/religious realization and land-grabbing by right of conquest, you would have still significant motivations that existed IOTL.

As long as I own land, charge rents, I'm good, they figure?

Not really rents (what would natives even pay that would be immediately exchangeable if they don't have gold or silver?) but rather extraction of cash crops, with obviously the importation of hard currency and precious metals from Europe or Africa (which IOTL likely provided most of what resolved the currency starvation).

But was it used in the majority of Spanish American circulating coinage through the 1500s, and the majority of the coinage used as the Spanish East Indies/Philippines were set up in the last third of the 1500s, and the Manila galleon trade to China and the Far East began?

Pretty much AFAIK : coining in this regard seems to have been self-contained.

We if debasement means what I think, mixing in base metals with the precious ones in coins, it makes complete intuitive sense for England and France, who have far fewer territorially controlled mines of the precious metals and must acquire them by trade, to debase coins, long before Spain, whose royal treasury is receiving silver and gold proceeds from mines

Up to the mid-to-late XVIIth century, essentially European mines (including re-opened Iberian exploitation) and African gold trade, still . While the arrival of precious metal from the Americas probably impacted monetary changes IOTL, I don't think it would bring necessarily a radical change ITTL as in Spain would still have a privilegied access to African trade and, potentially, Central European mining (although Habsburg dominance might arguably be modified ITTL, I'm skeptical it would be nearly enough to make it mechanically loose somehow Bohemia for instance).

 

[raharris1973]

@LSCatilina & @Talwar & @everybody else - When I discussed this concept elsewhere, someone responded they were pretty sure this would turn into a France-boom and a Spain-bust, and possibly an England-bust as well. Primarily starting with the Habsburgs being in a worse position in the Habsburg-French wars in the 1500s-1600s, through less ability to afford their wars. They didn't think it would be an absolute curb-stomp, but Spain-Austria would have to play it a little more conservatively, perhaps dispensing with the highly expensive North Africa campaigns. Maybe letting the Dutch go earlier. Your thoughts?

 

[LSCatilina]

Primarily starting with the Habsburgs being in a worse position in the Habsburg-French wars in the 1500s-1600s

It's not like the Italy Wars really finished trough a vastly unequal war attrition, tough but played on consecutive crushing French defeats, even while successful counter-attacks prevented a collapse in France itself, in the mid-XVIth which, together with the looming growth of Reformation in France led Henri II to ask for a difficult but necessary Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, while the war also had the indirect consequence of splitting the Habsburg dominion in spite of the influx of gold and precious metals.

Religious strive, temporisation the death of Henri II and the half-century of civil war in the kingdom is pretty much what prevented a reprisal of Italy Wars or any offensive war, eventually.

Also, if anything, the less attractive prospects in America due to the absence of gold is bound to mean you'd end up with more military adventurers or captains in Italy and Africa, not less, that is two wealthy regions where loot and fame were to be taken.

They didn't think it would be an absolute curb-stomp, but Spain-Austria would have to play it a little more conservatively

"It wouldn't be an absolute curb-stomp" is , all respect due, IMHO doing some heavy lifting here : it's possible the military campaigns and diplomacy would have been rethought. I'd be sceptical it would have been radically so.

It's not like Charles V just splurged silver at...stuff to pay for military expenses.

Due to the quick and costly turns of events, they borrowed and took credit from Italian banks which soon realized reimbursement wasn't exactly guaranteed and not only quickly enforced high rates (22% in 1537 at Genoa) or even refused any new loan because Habsburg went trough what is more or less described as a proto-Ponzi scheme to make ends meet. It was resolved partly because Charles V sold whatever he could from selling lands and property of Iberian orders to giving away Castillian revenues, asientos, and of course, giving a lot of silver from Americas to the point they barely even stationed in Spain but that was but a part of the whole.

ITTL, access to African gold and Atlantic (American and African) agricultural cash-crop production (especially the slave trade and the profits potentially reapable from it) with would be important assets to justify loaning to Charles V and to build financial fortunes on, IMO.

, perhaps dispensing with the highly expensive North Africa campaigns.

I'd say rather the contrary : supply of Sicilian (and possibly North African) grain was necessary to not just supply troops but also cities as Genoa whose support was vital to the Habsburg war efforts (the capture of Nice by the Turks did created a Genoese popular movement for a more neutral stance in regard to France for instance), keeping the Turks at bay was likewise a strategic necessity, and further reliance on African gold would make it even more so.

Maybe letting the Dutch go earlier.

I'm not sure why would they just shrug away one of the biggest, wealthiest sources of income they'd have at disposal (equivalent to the Potosi mines income in the latter best years IIRC)?

Although I agree they would likely manage much less bluntly, adopt a more decentralized and less authoritarian rule than IOTL, that is as they did so in Italy (which won them sympathies in comparison with French rule).Would that be enough to preserve control? I'm not so sure myself, but from what I know, admittedly little, it wasn't doomed that the Netherlands would just split away by the mid-century, if Philipp II had underwent a different policy.

Your thoughts?

I'm not saying it wouldn't change anything : greater difficulties in reimbursing loans might create support or force more temporisating, less ambitious war goals (that were not even remotely reached when it comes to France proper IOTL) with a situation in the mid-XVIth that would favour Valois relatively to IOTL : let's say a French Savoy or Bar, or why not Lorraine or Piedmont. It would be perfectly conceivable that, for want of a nail, an indirect and more or less convoluted consequence of the PoD might lead to a decisive French victory : I'm just saying it's not an immediately likely outcome of the PoD.

I think it would likely mean a much lesser effort at centralisation of power, in the Spanish peninsula or in the whole Habsburg dominions, as it would ask for mobilising bureaucratic, political and military means that would be a bit too costly in face of a "closer budgetary navigation". Which is also, incidentally, the same effort that plagued and partly doomed Spain in the mid-to-late XVIth and early XVIIth.

Changes should be expected, both externally and internally.

But XVIth Spain, Italy, Netherlands, etc. were fiscally wealthy and the debt was manageable if a constant and growing issue. Even the bankrupcies during Philipp II reign shouldn't be taken as a broken fiscal or budgetary system, but more as expectable and impoderable shocks. Nothing positive, sure, but the state was solvable, could still offer compensations and recover from it (hence why people kept loaning to Spain).

https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-histoire-moderne-et-contemporaine-2016-1-page-30.htm