All Because of an Ear

I have been out of the blog business for a while.  Teaching full time and being a busy mom (is there any other kind though), have been occupying my time, so I haven’t had the open schedule I needed to research and write.  I can’t guarantee that I will be able to post regularly, but my historian itch needed scratched.  I put out the call to friends for questions or topic ideas, and someone wanted me to write about an obscure little war.  So here goes.

When I mention Austria, Britain, Spain, and France in the context of war, you probably think of one of the World Wars, and wonder why I left out Germany.  Well, long before the twentieth century, European powers were flexing their muscles and getting all “salty” with each other.  One example involved some sailors in the Caribbean, a severed ear, and I would imagine some very creative language. 

If we traveled back to April 9, 1731, we would be on a very different type of Caribbean cruise, though I would guess that some of the recent cruises that ended in flooded toilets and massive stomach viruses would rival this one in several ways. 

Some Spanish ships were guarding the coast of some tiny Caribbean island.  At the time, Spanish and British ships were often out sailing around looking for trouble.  They were known to board each other’s ships and cause problems.  This day was no different.  Spanish Captain Juan de Leon Fandino boarded the British ship Rebecca, and according to witnesses, tied up the captain, Robert Jenkins, and cut off his ear.  Then the Spanish did what you would imagine if you are a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean.  They plundered and pillaged, and after roughing up the rest of the crew, set the ship adrift. 

Now, in and of itself, this incident was really not a big deal.  But the British and the Spanish had been fighting off and on for a while (Spanish Armada anyone?), but they had signed the Treaty of Seville from two years earlier. According to the treaty, the Spanish could stop ships suspected of smuggling, but were not given free license to raid and plunder, and definitely didn’t have permission to cut off the ears of British captains.  Rumor has it that Jenkins had the ear pickled, and with it sailed back to England.  Rumor also has it that in 1738, he took that pickled ear and testified before Parliament.  You might ask why he took so long.  Well, I couldn’t find an answer to that.  There is also no actual proof that the ear made it to Parliament, but it makes for a cool visual. 

During his testimony though, Jenkins gave the British people a pretty quote to rally behind.  When asked what he did during the attack by the Spanish, he said,  “I commended my soul to God and my cause to my country.” The British people were fed up with the Spanish gallivanting around the Caribbean doing whatever they felt like. They were also completely done with Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole.  He was seen as weak, and many thought he wasn’t doing enough to promote British Trade in the West Indies.  This incident, that had happened 7 years before, gave the people, Parliament, and the  British South Seas Company the push to finally get back at Spain. 

The battles began in the Caribbean in 1739.  The British suffered heavy losses throughout the war, which mostly ended in 1742.  Skirmishes continued all the way to 1748 though, in typical eighteenth century European fashion, with battles also taking place on the North American mainland.  While the British fought to expand trade, they ended up having to concede to the Spanish, and were no longer able  to smuggle in the Spanish territories in the Caribbean.  The real significance of the War of Jenkins’ Ear was the later division in Europe between Britain and Austria, and France and Spain in the War of Austrian Succession, and arguably, eventually the American Revolution and French Revolution, all because of an ear.