Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and this is short stuff,
Speaker 1: so let's get to it. We're talking about a war.
Speaker 1: Started buying ear go. My favorite thing is how you
Speaker 1: try to keep us so on track and now I
Speaker 1: try to throw us off. You really do, and you're
Speaker 1: doing it now, and it's what I love it, all right.
Speaker 1: The War of jenkins Ear, which there's a lot of
Speaker 1: misnomers in this war because first of all, the War
Speaker 1: of jenkins Ear was not called that until a hundred
Speaker 1: and ten years later, is that right? Yeah? An essayist, uh,
Speaker 1: what's his name, Thomas Carlyle dubbed dubbed it the War
Speaker 1: of jenkins Ear dred and ten years later. And what
Speaker 1: it really was was just a part of a larger war,
Speaker 1: the War of Austrian secession, Yeah, succession, right, because it
Speaker 1: was it was a question about who was going to
Speaker 1: take over the throne. Yeah, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: poopo it. Let's just go back and tell the story
Speaker 1: because it is pretty good. It is. It's a good story.
Speaker 1: That whole succeeding to the throne thing that was a
Speaker 1: big deal in Europe in the eighteenth century and long
Speaker 1: before the eighteenth century too, But by this time Europe
Speaker 1: had basically formed a really intertwined set of economies and
Speaker 1: set of governments, so that if if you were saying, like,
Speaker 1: um a prince in Spain, you may end up being like,
Speaker 1: running the show is the king of Austria at some
Speaker 1: point because your father married an Austrian princess and you
Speaker 1: have Austrian blood and there's no clear heir to the throne,
Speaker 1: and so you are being called upon in Spain. Is like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we have somebody over there in Austria
Speaker 1: because now Austria is gonna do right by us. And
Speaker 1: when that didn't happened, and whether alliance is broken, and
Speaker 1: when there was a conflict over who had the rightful
Speaker 1: um claim on a throne, when when it came up
Speaker 1: for grabs, that's when wars broke out. So you've got
Speaker 1: like Spain, Austria, France, England, all of them are alternately
Speaker 1: forming alliances, warring with each other and taking the throne
Speaker 1: from one another, taking a seat on one another's throne,
Speaker 1: which usually brought those two countries together. And that's what
Speaker 1: happened in this case too. That kicked all of this off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this happened in Spain with King Charles the Second dying
Speaker 1: no clear air. So obviously all of Europe basically is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to be the king of Spain, uh, or
Speaker 1: you know someone from our country, because that will really
Speaker 1: help us out. So France and Austria got involved in
Speaker 1: boss isn't hey we have a claim to the Spanish
Speaker 1: throne and um France and Spain basically, uh, they all
Speaker 1: started plotting. All these countries started plotting with one another,
Speaker 1: and the Emperor of Austria and the King of France
Speaker 1: I think while Charles the Second was still alive, divided
Speaker 1: up Spanish territory of Italy between them. Charles got upset
Speaker 1: willed his throne to a French prince, and then France
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, Austria, did we really have
Speaker 1: a deal right, because I don't remember that. All I
Speaker 1: know is that we're next in line in Spain. Austria
Speaker 1: got mad. That started the War of Spanish Succession, and
Speaker 1: that is important to this not because it was the
Speaker 1: ward Jenkins ear, but it just sort of set the
Speaker 1: stage and that Spain and England, even though France and
Speaker 1: Austria were fighting. They were sort of involved on the
Speaker 1: fringe and just ticked each other off basically right exactly.
Speaker 1: So there's already hostilities and this was not helping things
Speaker 1: in the colonies, especially in Georgia and Florida where France
Speaker 1: and Spain who were hostile to one another. As the
Speaker 1: results of this War of Spanish Succession, Um, we're butted
Speaker 1: upright against one another, and there was a lot of
Speaker 1: border skirmishes. Um. I think by the time rolled around
Speaker 1: and the hostilities really came to a head. Uh, Georgia
Speaker 1: had only been formed as an English colony like six
Speaker 1: years before, so it was real tentative and tenuous, and
Speaker 1: that with the Spanish really had a respectable navy that
Speaker 1: could take out a coastal town if it wanted to,
Speaker 1: and so Georgia was in a really vulnerable position. So. UM,
Speaker 1: one of the things from that War of Spanish Spanish
Speaker 1: Succession that it addressed the Treaty of You Trecked that
Speaker 1: came out of it, said okay, Spain, you you in England,
Speaker 1: we haven't forgotten about you guys. We need to make
Speaker 1: trade amongst you much more smooth and legal and maybe
Speaker 1: that will keep some of the skirmishes from from happening.
Speaker 1: And so the English were allowed, for i think the
Speaker 1: first time, to actually trade with Spain from Georgia to Florida,
Speaker 1: which seems like it would be a good move, but
Speaker 1: it ultimately led to disaster. Yeah, and what you know,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of things at stake here, but
Speaker 1: we shouldn't whitewash this and leave out that what England
Speaker 1: was really doing here and all these all the battling
Speaker 1: was trying to improve their their trade capabilities in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: not just with stuff, but with human beings and slaves.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, true. So it was very very ugly
Speaker 1: what was going on. And in the Treaty of Utrecht, uh,
Speaker 1: they they set all these guidelines. Um, England had all
Speaker 1: these ambitions in that area, and Spain though says, all right,
Speaker 1: you know what, though, we're going to act as the
Speaker 1: I guess sort of the the coast guard and the
Speaker 1: cops um of the high seas. And if we think
Speaker 1: that you're smuggling something you shouldn't be smuggling, we're gonna
Speaker 1: board your ship. And maybe we should take a break
Speaker 1: here and finish the story right after this okay, chuck.
Speaker 1: So the Spanish Armada, the Spanish navy is acting as
Speaker 1: the coast guard because technically the English traders are allowed
Speaker 1: into trade, but they're they're supposed to be like their
Speaker 1: cargo is supposed to pay taxes, tariffs, duties, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: The problem is is that the English were um rampant
Speaker 1: uh smugglers, and it was way easier to say like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: you in Florida, you need scissors and yarn and I
Speaker 1: want some of your silver. So I'm just gonna sneak
Speaker 1: some of those things past the Spanish coast guard in
Speaker 1: the hopes that they won't find it and then we
Speaker 1: can trade. And that's what the Spaniards called contraband. And
Speaker 1: so the Spanish was well aware that this was going on,
Speaker 1: so they would board ships routinely um and search them.
Speaker 1: And on I believe April April nine, they happened to
Speaker 1: board a ship in particular called the Rebecca that was
Speaker 1: captained by a guy named Robert Jenkins. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: was one of those Spanish patrol boats. It was called Isabella,
Speaker 1: and they said we're coming aboard and we're gonna check
Speaker 1: out what you got here. There was a bit of
Speaker 1: a um. Well, they found them out they were smuggling
Speaker 1: things that they shouldn't have had after they expected the
Speaker 1: manifest in the cargo, and there was punishment levied one
Speaker 1: Juan de Leon Fandino, who uh was the Spanish captain
Speaker 1: tried to send a message straight to the king and
Speaker 1: said with his sword you like that, he said, with
Speaker 1: his sword, off with your ear and cut off Captain
Speaker 1: jenkins ear. And Captain Jenkins ostensibly picked it up, put
Speaker 1: it in his pocket, and later pickled it. He did
Speaker 1: pickle it, and he carried it around with him for
Speaker 1: like seven years, and finally one day, I don't know how,
Speaker 1: but he managed to get into the House of Commons
Speaker 1: and said, look at this, look at what the Spanish
Speaker 1: captain did to my ear, um, just for trying to
Speaker 1: be like a respectable businessman smuggling a little contraband into Florida.
Speaker 1: And he said that if the King of England were
Speaker 1: here and in violation of law, he would have done
Speaker 1: it to the King of England too, And Parliament said,
Speaker 1: that is it. We are declaring war on Spain Georgia.
Speaker 1: Go get him. Yeah, he was actually called in to testify,
Speaker 1: so okay, um, he was an important, um, important witness
Speaker 1: I guess to the activities down there. Maybe that's why
Speaker 1: they called him in. The one bad part about that
Speaker 1: story is supposedly there is no evidence that he actually
Speaker 1: presented his ear, and people think that it may have
Speaker 1: just been sort of gussied up through history and telling
Speaker 1: him this tale. But he did testify, we know that.
Speaker 1: But it certainly makes for a great story that he
Speaker 1: actually held his ear up and said, look at this
Speaker 1: pickled ear. I'm hoping that at the very least they
Speaker 1: inspected to make sure he was missing an ear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be so um obviously, I think we should say, like,
Speaker 1: no one ever started a war over somebody's ear being
Speaker 1: lopped off. That just became shorthand. Again, the tensions between
Speaker 1: England and Spain and the tensions between their their colonial
Speaker 1: presence was already simmering. Uh. There have been a lot
Speaker 1: of overland skirmishes between Georgia and Florida, and this was
Speaker 1: This is pointed to historically as the thing that that
Speaker 1: the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the sort of the um anticlimax of this story
Speaker 1: is the War of Jenkins. Ear was not much of
Speaker 1: a war um. Like we said, it was sort of
Speaker 1: part of smaller wars that they just gave a name
Speaker 1: to ten years later. But there wasn't much that got
Speaker 1: accomplished during the War of Jenkins. Ear Over that that
Speaker 1: few years that they had these battles, well, a couple
Speaker 1: of things did come out of it. One there was
Speaker 1: something called the Battle of Bloody Marsh. So you're thinking, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, a lot of people died. Now it was
Speaker 1: called Bloody Marsh already that just happened to be where
Speaker 1: the battle was was staged on St. Simon's Island and Georgia.
Speaker 1: But in that battle, like five thousand Spanish troops sailed
Speaker 1: to Georgia and landed and came came into Georgia and
Speaker 1: were repelled by the Georgian colonial defense people, the Georgia
Speaker 1: defensive line exactly. They pushed him back, pushed him back
Speaker 1: way back, right, and that was huge for them because
Speaker 1: up to this point, remember the Spanish were like like
Speaker 1: inconceivably powerful, and Georgia said, oh wait, we actually can
Speaker 1: defeat them. So that was one big thing. And then
Speaker 1: it also solidified George's position safely as an English colony.
Speaker 1: That it was like, hey, man, we're here to stay.
Speaker 1: You stayed down in Florida, we'll stay up here in Georgia.
Speaker 1: We're an English colony, you're a Spanish colony. Don't mess
Speaker 1: with us anymore. So those two things did kind of
Speaker 1: come out of it. Actually. Yeah, and Oglethorpe he mounted
Speaker 1: his own campaign to invade St. Augustine and did okay there,
Speaker 1: but eventually retreated and even left his armaments and weapons
Speaker 1: and stuff. Uh so there, I mean, there were some
Speaker 1: major battles, but I think in the end, the War
Speaker 1: of jenkins Ear is just sort of, um, a bit
Speaker 1: of a historical footnote in a lot of ways. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Historically it got absorbed in the larger King George's War,
Speaker 1: which was a part of the War of Austrian Succession,
Speaker 1: I think, right exactly. So it was a war within
Speaker 1: a war within a war. It was like inception in
Speaker 1: colonial America. And Ellen Page will be here in just
Speaker 1: a minute to fully explain it over and over. Right,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to our attempt at explaining the
Speaker 1: War of jenkins Ear. Uh, we'll see you next time
Speaker 1: on short stuff.