$$The dollar and its Spanish origin

Very few Americans know that their currency has Spanish origin

The real appeal of a eight, or hard or simply hard, weight was the most important currency of the Spanish Empire and the world in his time. Its weight was consistent: 27 grams of silver, and on the reverse of the coin were the pillars of Hercules and the ultra plus, the motto of Spain. The columns represented Gibraltar and Ceuta, the two rocks that delimited the end of the world known until the end of the 15th century. When the mythical Hercules executed one of his famous works, the world ended there, was the terrae non plus ultra, but Spain overflowed it with the discovery of America, and that Carlos V coined the motto "plus ultra" for Spain.A real eight were known as «taleros», because of its similarity with the strong currency Austrian "thaler", coined in Bohemia, also in the imperial territory of Carlos V, but had much less distribution.A real eight Spanish minted in the Mint or Mint of Mexico, proceeding the metal of the Mexican sites of Guanajuato and Zacatecas, and the delicious mines of Potosi in Bolivia, practically a solid silver mountain, the largest site argentiferous that it has never existed. These ships raised the greed of Pirates of the Caribbean and the Atlantic, whose dream was to do with the loot from a Spanish galleon full of these coins. The latter emerged, the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, rescued by the controversial company Odyssey, transported 574.000 coins of a real eight, a real fortune.

A real eight were the first universal currency, because they not only circulated in Europe and America, but also in Asia. The famous Manila Galleon Spanish, making an annual journey between Mexico and the Philippines, the first commercial globalization, carrying these currencies to exchange them for exotic products in the East such as silks, porcelain or shawls, and currency Spanish, accepted and appreciated by traders from around the world, thus reached many corners of the East. In fact, Chinese merchants only accepted these Spanish pesos of silver in Exchange for their goods.But it was also much circulating the Spanish currency in the thirteen British colonies in North America, until they declare their independence. Because of the difficulty of the trips came few pounds sterling to the colonies, and it was much easier to be filled of near and accredited a real eight coined in Mexico that the Spanish currency circulated British pound, so that in the thirteen colonies normally, and was known first as «spanish thaler», passing then to «spanish daller», and later a "spanish dollar".When it came time for the emancipation of the colonies, the brand-new United States formally repudiated the British currency and were in need of own coin. But it was difficult to enter a new value in the trade, and why has resorted to which then owned it in superlative degree worldwide: the hard weight, the Royal Spanish Mint of a eight, the undisputed monetary reference. Had many of these coins in circulation in the thirteen colonies, and they had the guarantee of its prestige and its pure silver content, so that a real eight of the Spanish monarchy became the basis of the currency of the United States.

The parity of the dollar was officially attached to the Spanish currency, and the "spanish dollar", called so for a long time, lived for many years with the American "dollar". Both currencies, the American and the Spanish, circulated equally and with the same value in the United States, and indeed to its citizens, being identical to the nominal value, preferred by far weights or Spanish hard than new dollars, because the Spaniards had more prestige and higher physical content of silver. The Spanish currency remained in effect in the United States until the year 1857, when their use was banned.In terms of the sign of the dollar, the so-called «$», bars (commonly two vertical bars are drawn and not one) come, according to the most widespread of the two pillars of Hercules of the Spanish part, stylized. In fact, when the first coins minted by the United States were, they were called also "pillar dollar", the two pillars or columns of Hercules. And in terms of the S, according to the most widespread version is an abbreviation of the word "weight", as it was called real de a ocho, through overlaid the P and the S.In conclusion, that the better-known American currency has its unmistakable origin in the old Spanish coin. One chapter of the legacy of Spain in North America.