Counterargument: Manila galleons plied the seas for 250 years. • First trade ships would stop in Ming China then take their cargoes to Manila. It took months t

Counterargument: Manila galleons plied the seas for 250 years. • First trade ships would stop in Ming China then take their cargoes to Manila. It took months to get there and back to Manila. • The leg from Manila to Monterey, California, took about three months. • The next leg, from Monterey to Acapulco, was another month. In total, it could be five or six months travel. • Cargo was unloaded in Acapulco to be sent overland via on the Camino de los Virreyes, first to Mexico City then to Veracruz. This overland trip could take over a month depending on the progress of the baggage train. These were called the Galleon Caravans. • In Veracruz, the trade goods were loaded onto the annual heavily guarded treasure (plate or plata) fleets back to Spain. They did this rather than trying to risk passage through the Straights of Magellan or shipping back around the Cape of Good Hope (the southern tip of Africa). • The ships left Veracruz (alternatively spelled Vera Cruz) to meet up with the South American treasure fleet in Havana, Cuba. These trips often took a long northerly trip, nearly to the coast of Louisiana. These trips were highly variable and could take as short as two weeks or as long as three months. Three weeks seems to be about average. • The transit time from Havana back to the Casa de Contratación in Seville Spain was nearly two months. • Of course, Seville was just the port of entry. Goods then needed to be transported on to Madrid. The raw silver used to fund these expensive trips was eventually taken by the bankers backing Spain directly to the Italian port city of Genoa. So in total, one way, it was about a year for cargo to go from Ming China to Madrid. This system of imperial trade continued for, again, TWO AND A HALF CENTURIES. Long before the advent of the steam engine or the telegraph. • (Every segment mentioned above also has a return trip component. For the Manilla Galleons that got to Acapulco it was at least three months to travel back from Mexico to the Philippines. That was the "easy" passage.) Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_galleon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_galleon https://www.guampedia.com/stops-along-the-manila-galleon-trade-route/ https://www.guampedia.com/stops-along-the-manila-galleon-tra... https://brewminate.com/spanish-treasure-fleets-from-the-16th-to-18th-centuries/ https://brewminate.com/spanish-treasure-fleets-from-the-16th... https://www.mexconnect.com/articles/248-the-pacific-route-to-the-orient/ https://www.mexconnect.com/articles/248-the-pacific-route-to... https://uair.library.arizona.edu/item/294297 https://uair.library.arizona.edu/item/294297 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_treasure_fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_treasure_fleet https://www.nps.gov/subjects/teachingwithhistoricplaces/upload/Twhp-Lessons_Spanish-Treasure-Shipwrecks2006.pdf https://www.nps.gov/subjects/teachingwithhistoricplaces/uplo... https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/35458/how-long-did-it-take-mail-to-get-between-madrid-and-mexico https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/35458/how-long-d... https://www.dailysabah.com/columns/ekrem-bugra-ekinci/2015/08/14/the-spanish-treasure-lying-at-the-bottom-of-the-atlantic https://www.dailysabah.com/columns/ekrem-bugra-ekinci/2015/0... https://www.academia.edu/7744406/Analysis_of_the_Gulf_of_Mexicos_Veracruz_Havana_Route_of_La_Flota_de_la_Nueva_Espa%C3%B1a https://www.academia.edu/7744406/Analysis_of_the_Gulf_of_Mex...