Assessing Worth across the Iberian Empires: Pearls and the Role of Human Capital in the Creation of Value, c. 1500–1700

Abstract:This article considers the importance of context in assessments of pearls' worth throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with an emphasis on the Iberian imperial sphere. It argues that calculations of pearls' worth were based at least in part on the relationships they facilitated or advanced. Small-scale negotiations over pearl fishing and pearl circulation in this period—in which European monarchies were refining large-scale mechanisms for managing resources—reveal how crowns conceived of wealth management and generation. They simultaneously show how stakeholders on the ground understood and implemented, or obstructed, these processes.