- 30/06/2025
Documentary, Mankind The Story of All of Us S01E08 Treasure
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00:00We are many.
00:10We create different worlds.
00:15But mankind shares the same desires.
00:20Now, the riches of a new world
00:23pour out across the planet,
00:28creating new desires,
00:31new wealth,
00:33and new conflicts
00:35that will give birth to a connected world.
00:43Amidst the chaos of an unforgiving planet,
00:46most species will fail.
00:49But for one, all the pieces will fall into place,
00:54and a set of keys will unlock a path for mankind to triumph.
01:02This is our story.
01:04The story of all of us.
01:071579.
01:17The Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America.
01:22A ship on a mission that launches a new age of piracy.
01:28Small, fast, armed with 18 cannons.
01:35At the helm, an Englishman, Francis Drake.
01:44Farmer's son, fearless navigator,
01:47and the most successful pirate in history.
01:50In his sights, a Spanish galleon.
01:57Loaded with a metal so valuable,
02:00it will change the world.
02:06Drake's secret partner in crime
02:08is the English queen, Elizabeth I.
02:12Drake was given letters of reprisal,
02:15signed by the British crown,
02:18which meant that he could go and raid Spanish shipping.
02:23What he did was piracy.
02:26He's already plundered over 70 Spanish ships.
02:32The King of Spain has put a price on his head.
02:35Both pigs!
02:36Ten million dollars today.
02:38Fire!
02:40Dead or alive.
02:42The Spanish ship, the Cacafuego,
02:47heads for the coast of Panama
02:49with the most valuable cargo ever seen at sea.
02:54In its hold,
02:5626 tons of silver from the Americas.
03:01Worth 30 million dollars today.
03:07Barrels thrown off the stern
03:09slow Drake's ship down.
03:13So he was gaining on her very slowly,
03:16very slightly, imperceptibly,
03:18and not looking like a foreign threat.
03:21And why would they expect one?
03:22There were no foreign ships in the Pacific.
03:26Disguised as a harmless Spanish merchant,
03:29Drake's ship has been chasing the Cacafuego for 14 days.
03:35Nothing works better than deception.
03:38If you can do the unexpected,
03:40if you can set up your enemy so they think one thing while you do another thing,
03:47you're gonna gain an advantage on the battlefield.
03:52But Drake can't risk an all-out attack.
03:55Instead of going to flat-out war with another vessel,
04:00where he takes the chance of sinking that vessel or having his vessel sank,
04:05he wants to get as close as possible so that he can seize that vessel whole.
04:12His plan, a surgical strike from close quarters to take out the Spanish galleon's main mast.
04:26Success on the battlefield, whether it's land or sea,
04:33is all about stacking the right advantage in your favor at the right time,
04:38so when the moment comes, you execute perfectly.
04:43Now, the gun!
04:57Fire!
04:58Fire!
05:01Two cannon-balls chained together.
05:10Smashed through the mast.
05:14Now she couldn't flee, even if she tried.
05:18She was incapacitated.
05:19The richest pirate hall the world had ever seen, enough to pay off England's entire national
05:33debt and fund its government for a year.
05:38American silver, the key to a new global economy that transforms lives in every corner of the
05:45planet.
05:50In 50 years, the Spanish and Portuguese have carved out vast new empires in the new world,
05:59from New Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south, and high in the Andes in South
06:08America, a discovery that will launch a new era in the story of mankind.
06:15Potosi, a mountain made of silver.
06:29Formed when continental plates collide 170 million years ago.
06:35The Andes are the richest source of silver in the world.
06:40Magma from the Earth's crust pushes rich silver veins towards the surface.
06:49Creating in Potosi silver veins up to 12 feet thick.
06:54In the next 300 years, Potosi will supply 80% of all the silver in the world.
07:04We put a great value on that, which is rare.
07:07You can take silver and break it up into small bits, so that they become a standard value currency.
07:13And with that, you can purchase and you can trade with other societies, and it's going to increase
07:19the wealth of the entire world.
07:22But within 20 years, the richest silver ore is mined out, leaving Spanish engineers with
07:30a problem.
07:34The remaining ore is too low grade for the silver to be extracted using heat.
07:41Spaniards had never encountered anything like silver ore before and didn't know how to refine
07:51it.
07:52And the techniques that they used actually just ended up boiling away the silver.
07:58The riches of America trapped inside its rocks.
08:06But in 1553, a man arrives with a secret formula, the key that unlocks the wealth of the new world,
08:16bought a stone from the sea, or Ptolemy Medina.
08:21Experimenter, innovator, entrepreneur, a textiles trader from Spain.
08:33He's traveled 5,000 miles to make his fortune.
08:40His idea would build new cities and empires, create new ways of living, launch new
08:46new conflicts, and help to fund some of the man-made wonders of the world.
09:00A chemical formula for extracting silver using mercury.
09:09But, at first, the method that worked in Europe fails.
09:17Medina doesn't realize that the silver-bearing rocks of the Andes
09:22have fewer traces of copper than those of Europe.
09:27Essential for the formula to work.
09:30For months, he experiments, searching for a solution.
09:40I've suffered mental anguish.
09:42I begged Our Lady to enlighten and guide me, so that I might be successful.
09:49Medina was an entrepreneur who saw a problem and fiddled and experimented it until he came up with a solution.
10:06Finally, a breakthrough.
10:07The missing ingredient? A common substance used to tan leather, copper sulfate.
10:12Reacting with mercury, the missing catalyst that separates the silver from its impurities.
10:13The missing ingredient? A common substance used to tan leather, copper sulfate.
10:28Reacting with mercury, the missing catalyst that separates the silver from its impurities.
10:32The key that turns the mines of Potosi into the richest source of silver mankind has ever known.
10:52What Medina did was he made those silver mines of South America dramatically more productive.
11:00And the flow of silver going into global trade just took off overnight.
11:05220 tons of silver mined each year. Potosi becomes the busiest industrial complex in the world.
11:20In each year, in three giant furnaces, the Spanish mint 2.5 million silver coins.
11:29Pesos de ocho. Pieces of eight. The world's first universal currency.
11:42Silver becomes the key to mankind's prosperity.
11:46These Spanish coins are seen everywhere in the world.
11:50They unite the world in a web of commerce.
11:53A single coin worth the equivalent of $80 today.
11:56Legal tender in the USA until 1857.
12:02The scroll and pillars of the Spanish royal press inspires one of the world's most potent symbols.
12:10The dollar sign.
12:12The result is extraordinary.
12:15The entire world's economy is affected as this silver just explodes out of the Americas.
12:20The United States of America crosses the Pacific, crosses into Europe, and there's an enormous burst of prosperity.
12:28This is the true beginning of globalization.
12:31Spanish fleets ship 50,000 tons of silver out of the Americas, creating a new Atlantic trade.
12:39Suddenly we have mass quantities coming onto the market, which is going to really transform all of European trade.
12:48And what we see is a whole new, blooming economy in Europe.
12:52New trading centers rise.
12:58Seville.
13:00Lisbon.
13:02London.
13:04And on the coast of a small new country, the Netherlands.
13:08The world's richest and busiest trading city.
13:11Amsterdam.
13:12Amsterdam.
13:13A city of new wealth and new desires.
13:18About to trigger the world's most extraordinary boom and bust.
13:25And gamble its future on a flower.
13:30The tulip.
13:31The tulip.
13:32Amsterdam.
13:331639.
13:39A city flush with new money.
13:42A century after the Spanish conquest of the New World.
13:47The riches of the Americas and an explosion of global trade have turned the Netherlands into the richest nation on the planet.
14:09The Dutch control over half the world's shipping.
14:14More new millionaires than anywhere else on earth.
14:21The highest income per head in Europe.
14:26A city in love with gambling.
14:36Caught up in the excitement.
14:38Jan van Hooyen.
14:40Struggling artist.
14:42Looking for a new way to make his fortune.
14:44In a wealthy city.
14:45A city of great merchants and great enterprises.
14:49He's a guy on the move.
14:51And he wants to get in on this action.
14:52New wealth drives the demand for new luxuries.
14:55And one exotic import has captured the public's imagination.
14:58The tulip.
14:59Imported from Turkey.
15:00Imported from Turkey.
15:01The patterns of the most exotic tulips are created by a virus.
15:02That attacks only some bulbs.
15:03Making them rare and hard to cultivate.
15:04The most exotic tulips are created by a virus that attacks only some bulbs.
15:05Making them rare and hard to cultivate.
15:06The most exotic tulips are created by a virus that attacks only some bulbs.
15:09The most exotic tulips are created by a virus that attacks only some bulbs.
15:18Imported from Turkey, the patterns of the most exotic tulips are created by a virus that
15:28attacks only some bulbs, making them rare and hard to cultivate.
15:33Today, the tulip bulb sells for about 50 cents, but in Holland in 1636, the rarest bulbs
15:46are selling for a hundred times their weight in gold.
15:53Amsterdam's merchants are inventing new ways of making money.
15:59The birth of speculation.
16:02In the back rooms of taverns, tulip merchants sell not flowers or bulbs, but the rights to
16:09next year's harvest.
16:11The world's first futures market.
16:15Today, all agricultural products are sold at futures markets.
16:19You can buy crops that have not been harvested yet.
16:23Similarly, tulips were bought in advance of their delivery date.
16:30In one month in November 1636, the price of tulip shares has quadrupled.
16:38Fanhoyen sees an opportunity.
16:41Until now, if you weren't nobility or you weren't a great merchant, you weren't wealthy.
16:46But here's a chance for the common people to become wealthy.
16:48Confident of a quick return, Fanhoyen invests all his savings in tulip shares.
17:06By the beginning of December, the price of tulip bulbs reaches ten times their price a month before.
17:28A bubble has started to inflate.
17:32By December 12th, the price doubles again.
17:38At an auction in nearby Leiden, the seven penniless orphans of an innkeeper pin their hopes for the future on their dead father's small collection of tulip bowls.
17:53In less than an hour, each child earns 40 times the annual income of an average craftsman.
18:14Tulips turn orphans into millionaires.
18:23And the price continues to rise.
18:27Holland is gripped by tulip mania.
18:31If you watch the price of tulips go up and up and up, you start to think you're a fool if you don't get on that escalator and ride up.
18:44Three days later, Fanhoyen, like many others, buys more tulip shares.
18:50You may well know that a tulip is only worth a tulip and not worth a fortune.
18:59But if other people think it's worth a fortune, then you'll make a lot of money.
19:03By January 1637, the price has doubled again.
19:09Now, a few wise investors decide to sell their shares and make fortunes.
19:26Everything in financial markets is about timing.
19:30The time you enter a contract and the timing you get out.
19:35Fanhoyen hangs on to his, confident that the market will continue to rise and rise.
19:45I can see myself in his shoes.
19:48He saw the orphans getting rich.
19:51He thought he would like to be in the mix himself.
19:55That if he didn't get in, that he'd miss the boat.
19:58He'd miss his chance.
20:00Unfortunately, his timing was wrong.
20:04Suddenly, on February 3rd, 1637, at an auction in the city of Harlem.
20:11A consignment of tulip bulbs goes unsold.
20:23Within days, investors panic and rush to sell their shares.
20:32But there are no buyers.
20:34Prices crash.
20:40Tulips once sold for 5,000 guilders.
20:46Now worthless.
20:49From boom.
20:52To bust.
20:54And Dutch investors discover a truth that mankind is still learning today.
21:00That the value of investments can go down as well as up.
21:06Booms and busts have been with us since trade has been with us.
21:10But what's special about the tulip mania is the fact that people like Van Goyen, non-specialist, non-traders,
21:17not qualified to understand the value of the bulb, they're getting involved in this trade.
21:27And frankly, they're not in a position to absorb the risk.
21:30Van Goyen is ruined.
21:31He never makes his fortune.
21:32But in painting his way out of debt, over 1,200 pictures and 800 drawings, he becomes one of Holland's most prolific and greatest artists.
21:44New wealth transforms society in Europe with new desires and new temptations.
22:09Leading one group of religious radicals to reject this world as corrupt and ungodly.
22:21And set out on a journey that will transform the future of a continent.
22:29North America.
22:30North America.
22:35They call themselves pilgrims.
22:39They arrive in the new world in search of religious freedom.
22:44The pilgrims rejected the society that they were in.
22:47They believed that the only way to preserve their religious belief pristine was to get away.
22:56To go somewhere where they wouldn't be bothered.
22:59And most importantly, where their children wouldn't be tempted by what they had seen in Holland and England.
23:05The great hope and inward zeal we had of laying some great foundation for advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in these remote parts of the world.
23:22America represented a clean slate because, to their way of thinking, it was empty.
23:27But within months, the pilgrims are struggling to survive.
23:44They land at the start of a bitter New England winter.
23:47Their crops fail.
23:51Malnutrition.
23:53Starvation.
23:55Disease.
23:56102 men, women and children make the crossing.
24:11Six months later, 50 of them are dead.
24:21Ash to ashes, from dust to dust.
24:24Water in heaven hallowed be thy name.
24:26Like he will come, and I will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
24:30Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we can be closed.
24:33The pilgrims bury their dead at first life to hide how weakened they've become.
24:53Because the land they've settled on is not empty.
24:59It belongs to the Wabanaki.
25:08An encounter between two worlds is about to shape the future of mankind.
25:22In New England, 50 pioneers prepare to fight for their lives.
25:27Come on!
25:28The future of a continent hangs in the balance.
25:32Not all are pilgrims.
25:35Among them, a soldier.
25:37Miles Standish.
25:42Brave.
25:44Impulsive.
25:45The group's military commander.
25:48Get up. Help over here.
25:49There's somebody out there.
25:58Get the gate in place.
26:00Now, now, now.
26:01Ladies, get inside.
26:02And hold the sails.
26:03Here's a實ing.
26:05Put your fun in here.
26:07Hooray.
26:12高!
26:23Let us pose families.
26:26Welcome, Englishman, welcome.
26:49Three thousand miles from home, the first Native American the Pilgrims encounter
26:54greets them in their own language.
27:24Samoset, a Wabanaki chief.
27:31His English learned from earlier visitors to this coast.
27:35If we think back to how fearful the English are of being here, here's what they might think
27:42is a sign from God.
27:43He actually speaks our language.
27:45It could have been a really violent encounter, and Samoset should get a lot more credit for
27:52kind of bringing things down a notch.
27:58The next day, Samoset brings another English-speaking warrior, Squanto.
28:13Diplomat, politician, the man who will teach the Pilgrims to survive in the new world.
28:23Squanto has spent a year in Europe.
28:37Kidnapped and sold as a slave in Spain, he wins his freedom and makes his way to London,
28:44where he learns English.
28:49Hired as an interpreter for English merchants, he eventually earns his passage back home.
29:01William Bradford, governor of the Pilgrims, writes,
29:06Squanto was a special instrument sent of God and never left until he died.
29:17He guides the Pilgrims through his world, brokering friendships, alliances,
29:24their survival guide in their new world.
29:29He taught them what he and his people had learned in isolation over the millennia.
29:35The crops the Pilgrims bring from Europe have failed in poor, sandy soil.
29:48Squanto teaches them to fish and use their catch as fertilizer.
29:53It surely must have come as a revelation to see people using fish to make the soil more productive.
30:04To the early Pilgrims it must have been quite a surprise.
30:08And a crop they have never seen before.
30:17Corn.
30:19The key to their survival.
30:21And still today the most widely grown crop in the Americas.
30:29William Bradford records.
30:31We set some twenty acres of corn according to the manner of the Indians.
30:39And now we began to gather up the small harvest.
30:43We were well recovered in health and had all things in plenty.
30:49They discovered, perhaps to their surprise, that the Indians weren't simply savages who simply hunted and fished.
30:57They had grown crops.
30:59There was an exchange of ideas.
31:02Each side learned from the other.
31:04And it seemed like a productive enterprise on behalf of both sides.
31:08A moment of cooperation all too rare in the story of the new world.
31:17The Pilgrims were important for what they represented in terms of Europe's preparation to essentially explode out across the Atlantic.
31:28And reproduce itself.
31:30Not only in North America and South America and other parts of the world as well.
31:34Ten percent of all Americans today are descended from these first fifty pioneers.
31:47Thousands more will follow.
31:50Within a hundred years they found great trading cities that rival those of Europe.
31:57Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, Boston.
32:02Fifty pioneers who turn their back on a world devoted to making money.
32:11Lay the foundations of the United States.
32:15The greatest trading nation of the future.
32:17But while corn and cooperation transforms North America, a new commodity sweeping the world, sugar changes the destiny of another continent.
32:31Africa, leading one woman, a warrior queen into a desperate struggle for her kingdom and her people.
32:46Ndongo Central Africa.
32:53Today, part of Northern Angola.
32:58Part of Northern Angola.
33:01In a struggle for resources that shapes the world we live in today.
33:06One woman fights to keep hold of her kingdom.
33:10Queen Nzinga Umbandi.
33:16Skillful strategist.
33:19Warrior queen.
33:20Nzinga.
33:21Nzinga.
33:22Nzinga was a ferocious woman who was a ruler.
33:26But she was very complicated.
33:27Nzinga.
33:28Nzinga.
33:29Nzinga confronts a formidable enemy.
33:34The Portuguese.
33:35Nzinga.
33:37Nzinga.
33:38Nzinga.
33:39Nzinga.
33:40Nzinga.
33:41Nzinga.
33:42Nzinga.
33:43Nzinga.
33:44Nzinga.
33:45Nzinga.
33:46Nzinga.
33:47Nzinga.
33:48Nzinga.
33:49Nzinga.
33:50Nzinga.
33:51Nzinga.
33:52Nzinga.
33:53Nzinga.
33:54Nzinga.
33:55Nzinga.
33:56Nzinga.
33:57Nzinga.
33:58Nzinga.
33:59Nzinga.
34:00Nzinga.
34:01Nzinga.
34:02Nzinga.
34:03Nzinga.
34:04Nzinga.
34:05Nzinga.
34:06Nzinga.
34:07Nzinga.
34:08Nzinga.
34:09Nzinga.
34:10Nzinga.
34:11In the Americas and Caribbean, the Spanish and Portuguese lay out vast new plantations of sugarcane.
34:25People have always wanted luxurious food that tastes good.
34:29And the hunt for luxuries has driven the exploration of the world and the spread of trade networks.
34:34Agriculture on a new industrial scale, driving the demand for labor and a new commodity.
34:45Human beings.
34:48Like many African rulers, Queen Nzinga has been selling captives and prisoners of war to the Portuguese.
34:57The African slave trade was a conspiracy, unfortunately, between average Europeans and African elites.
35:05And Nzinga was a slave trader herself, like many of the monarchs in Africa at that time.
35:12But she sold slaves, other Africans, captives in war, to defend herself against the encroachment of the Portuguese.
35:22But as the sugar trade expands, so does the demand for more African slaves.
35:28Her former trading partners have turned against her.
35:34They now want her people as slaves.
35:43In a mountain stronghold, she prepares to defend her kingdom and her people.
35:51Against her, not just the Portuguese, but their new African allies.
35:57She was up against warlords who were taking advantage of a market for people.
36:05They were human traffickers, and they were armed.
36:09With Queen Nzinga, her sisters, Princesses Mukambu and Kifunji.
36:15They.
36:16Hey, hey.
36:20Hey.
36:21Zakook.
36:24Zakook.
36:27Zakook.
36:28King Gila! King Gila!
36:58The Ndongo are outnumbered.
37:04Surrounded.
37:12Princesses Mukambu and Kifunji, enslaved.
37:17Over three centuries, European slave traders will transport 15 million Africans to the New World.
37:33The majority from Central Africa.
37:38It's one of the most horrendous, painful moments in modern human history.
37:45Both for Europeans and for black Africans.
37:56But Queen Nzinga herself escapes.
38:01For the next 20 years, until her death, she will fight on.
38:07And negotiate and bargain to keep Ndongo free from Portuguese rule.
38:15I'm fascinated that there was a woman who was as powerful in the history of Africa as Queen Nzinga.
38:24Enormously complicated and enormously brilliant diplomatic figure in African history.
38:30250 years later, slavery will be abolished.
38:37And forever free.
38:39But mankind's taste for sugar transforms the face and civilization of two continents.
38:49Today, almost a fifth of the population of the Americas can trace their roots back to Africa.
38:59And while a new world economy transforms lives in Africa.
39:04Across the globe in India, the riches of the Americas help turn its ruler into the wealthiest man on earth.
39:14And help build one of the most epic monuments on the planet.
39:221631.
39:23Borhampur Fortress.
39:24Central India.
39:25The world's richest man on campaign to consolidate his power.
39:29Shah Jahan.
39:30Shah Jahan.
39:31Emperor of 100 million people.
39:36His name means King of the world.
39:37Shah Jahan was the King of Kings.
39:41During the Mughal's Golden Age.
39:42He expanded the reach of the empire.
39:52Shah Jahan.
39:53He expanded the reach of the empire.
39:57Shah Jahan.
40:00Shah Jahan was the King of Kings.
40:02During the Mughal's Golden Age, he expanded the reach of the empire.
40:08empire. Shah Jahan's wealth is legendary. A chronicler describes just one of his treasure
40:19houses. 750 pounds of pearls, 275 pounds of emeralds, three silver thrones, a hundred
40:29gold and silver chairs, 100,000 silver plates.
40:38Contributing to this wealth, a string of trading ports along India's coast, drawing thousands of
40:46European merchants, flush with American silver. Silver just opened so many doors for them. At long
40:57last, they had a trading currency. They had something that the Asians wanted. They could
41:02acquire textiles, cotton, silk, spices, pepper, cinnamon, exotic Asian commodities.
41:09100 tons of silver pours into India each year, generating millions in taxes paid to one man,
41:21Shah Jahan. A renegade nobleman, Khan Jahan Lodi, has rebelled and been hunted down. Now,
41:44he pays the price.
42:14With the emperor on campaign, his favorite wife, in labor with their 14th child. Her name,
42:24Mumtaz Mahal, the jewel of the palace. He had many, many, many wives, but she was his first among women.
42:36His chroniclers praise her as the inspiration behind the throne.
42:43She goes away now, Seth. She goes away now, Seth. But her life is in danger. She's losing blood.
43:06Neither Shah Jahan's wealth nor power can save the woman he loves.
43:26Here's this man who has the world in his hand. Here's the man who has riches that can't be counted.
43:41And he's lost his beloved. He has lost what he cannot hold.
43:49In grief, Shah Jahan commissions a tomb for his beloved wife. Hundreds of tons of white marble,
44:04encrusted with jewels, costing the equivalent of 70 million dollars today. A lasting monument to the power of silver.
44:16The Taj Mahal.
44:21The Taj Mahal.
44:30Global trade and wealth on a vast new scale creates some of mankind's most iconic structures.
44:41Bigger.
44:42Bigger.
44:43Taller.
44:44We'll spend the next 350 years building monuments to our economic power and our connected world.
44:58The riches of a new world unlock.
45:03A new global currency launching pirates across oceans. New commodities. New desires.
45:14And new conflicts transforming every continent on the planet.
45:20That kind of globalization that we're in now where bank collapses in Iceland can ripple across the American Midwest.
45:27That all begins in the 16th century. And it begins with the creation of this universal currency.
45:33Now pioneers push further into the open spaces of the world. New adventures.
45:46Discoveries. And an age of revolutions. That will launch mankind into the modern world.
45:58The aims of Rockefeller
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