Silver had a greater relative value than gold in the old days. I was worth perhaps 1/2 of gold's value for many years. What killed it was the fabulous amount of it that was mined from Boliva and Ecuador. Czechoslovakia did not help either, as their mines were far from depleted in the 1550's. In fact Silver helped launch the Rothschilds and the Czechs into the modern age and made Czechoslovakia the most industrialized nation in Europe after Poland by the 18th century.
But gold did come from New Spain, and by the ton. Eventually gold became more important than silver as a currency in Spain, just from its sheer volume.
The country that contributed the most to Spain's wealth did not mine silver at all, and that was Peru.
The Peruvians were strictly gold miners, and ruled a country that encompassed Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina. It was 1.2 million square miles in extent. Eventually Columbia became more important than Peru and Ecuador for gold, but in the beginning it was ancient Peru and Ecuador that delivered almost all the metal to Spain, and that main metal was gold. Copper and silver were minor byproducts. Eventually the Spaniards would mine, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, California, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas for gold, right up to 1780. Spain operated perhaps 3000 mines in the new world for one metal. Gold. There is not a mountain in Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, or Columbia that they did not explore. If it hasn't got a Spanish adit on it, I wouldn't bother.
Despite this phenomonal, almost prodigal productivity of the Spaniard, they did not outdo their Inca slaves in production of gold. The Inca people produced 7 million ounces per year with their tiny population numbering some 10 million people. In all it is estimated they would have produced some 30,000 tons of gold from greater Peru in their time of Empire before the Spanish came.
Remember what Columbus turned the Caribbean into? Dominica, Hispaniola, all the Islands became gold mines. There is a great amount of gold in the Caribbean. Even today some of North America's best gold mines produce there. Rosario Resources mines exclusively in that area and is the United States longest dividend paying company.
Did the silk trade get taken by the Arabs and force the European to seek trade elsewhere? Why would the Arabs have stopped it? They were making money on it. It was the explorers who stopped it by finding other trade routes.
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