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Short Stuff: War of Jenkins' Ear · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and this is short stuff,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: so let's get to it. We're talking about a war.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Started buying ear go. My favorite thing is how you
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: try to keep us so on track and now I
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: try to throw us off. You really do, and you're
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: doing it now, and it's what I love it, all right.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: The War of jenkins Ear, which there's a lot of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: misnomers in this war because first of all, the War
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of jenkins Ear was not called that until a hundred
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and ten years later, is that right? Yeah? An essayist, uh,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: what's his name, Thomas Carlyle dubbed dubbed it the War
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of jenkins Ear dred and ten years later. And what
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: it really was was just a part of a larger war,
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  Speaker 1: the War of Austrian secession, Yeah, succession, right, because it
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: was it was a question about who was going to
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  Speaker 1: take over the throne. Yeah, but I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: poopo it. Let's just go back and tell the story
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: because it is pretty good. It is. It's a good story.
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  Speaker 1: That whole succeeding to the throne thing that was a
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  Speaker 1: big deal in Europe in the eighteenth century and long
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  Speaker 1: before the eighteenth century too, But by this time Europe
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  Speaker 1: had basically formed a really intertwined set of economies and
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  Speaker 1: set of governments, so that if if you were saying, like,
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  Speaker 1: um a prince in Spain, you may end up being like,
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  Speaker 1: running the show is the king of Austria at some
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  Speaker 1: point because your father married an Austrian princess and you
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  Speaker 1: have Austrian blood and there's no clear heir to the throne,
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  Speaker 1: and so you are being called upon in Spain. Is like, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I'm so glad we have somebody over there in Austria
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  Speaker 1: because now Austria is gonna do right by us. And
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: when that didn't happened, and whether alliance is broken, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: when there was a conflict over who had the rightful
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: um claim on a throne, when when it came up
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  Speaker 1: for grabs, that's when wars broke out. So you've got
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  Speaker 1: like Spain, Austria, France, England, all of them are alternately
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  Speaker 1: forming alliances, warring with each other and taking the throne
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  Speaker 1: from one another, taking a seat on one another's throne,
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  Speaker 1: which usually brought those two countries together. And that's what
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: happened in this case too. That kicked all of this off. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this happened in Spain with King Charles the Second dying
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  Speaker 1: no clear air. So obviously all of Europe basically is like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I want to be the king of Spain, uh, or
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  Speaker 1: you know someone from our country, because that will really
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  Speaker 1: help us out. So France and Austria got involved in
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  Speaker 1: boss isn't hey we have a claim to the Spanish
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  Speaker 1: throne and um France and Spain basically, uh, they all
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  Speaker 1: started plotting. All these countries started plotting with one another,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and the Emperor of Austria and the King of France
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  Speaker 1: I think while Charles the Second was still alive, divided
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  Speaker 1: up Spanish territory of Italy between them. Charles got upset
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  Speaker 1: willed his throne to a French prince, and then France
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  Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, Austria, did we really have
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  Speaker 1: a deal right, because I don't remember that. All I
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  Speaker 1: know is that we're next in line in Spain. Austria
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  Speaker 1: got mad. That started the War of Spanish Succession, and
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  Speaker 1: that is important to this not because it was the
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  Speaker 1: ward Jenkins ear, but it just sort of set the
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  Speaker 1: stage and that Spain and England, even though France and
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  Speaker 1: Austria were fighting. They were sort of involved on the
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  Speaker 1: fringe and just ticked each other off basically right exactly.
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  Speaker 1: So there's already hostilities and this was not helping things
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  Speaker 1: in the colonies, especially in Georgia and Florida where France
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  Speaker 1: and Spain who were hostile to one another. As the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: results of this War of Spanish Succession, Um, we're butted
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  Speaker 1: upright against one another, and there was a lot of
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  Speaker 1: border skirmishes. Um. I think by the time rolled around
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  Speaker 1: and the hostilities really came to a head. Uh, Georgia
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  Speaker 1: had only been formed as an English colony like six
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  Speaker 1: years before, so it was real tentative and tenuous, and
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  Speaker 1: that with the Spanish really had a respectable navy that
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  Speaker 1: could take out a coastal town if it wanted to,
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  Speaker 1: and so Georgia was in a really vulnerable position. So. UM,
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  Speaker 1: one of the things from that War of Spanish Spanish
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  Speaker 1: Succession that it addressed the Treaty of You Trecked that
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  Speaker 1: came out of it, said okay, Spain, you you in England,
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  Speaker 1: we haven't forgotten about you guys. We need to make
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  Speaker 1: trade amongst you much more smooth and legal and maybe
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  Speaker 1: that will keep some of the skirmishes from from happening.
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  Speaker 1: And so the English were allowed, for i think the
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  Speaker 1: first time, to actually trade with Spain from Georgia to Florida,
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  Speaker 1: which seems like it would be a good move, but
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  Speaker 1: it ultimately led to disaster. Yeah, and what you know,
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  Speaker 1: there were a lot of things at stake here, but
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  Speaker 1: we shouldn't whitewash this and leave out that what England
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  Speaker 1: was really doing here and all these all the battling
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  Speaker 1: was trying to improve their their trade capabilities in the Caribbean,
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  Speaker 1: not just with stuff, but with human beings and slaves.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, true. So it was very very ugly
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  Speaker 1: what was going on. And in the Treaty of Utrecht, uh,
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  Speaker 1: they they set all these guidelines. Um, England had all
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  Speaker 1: these ambitions in that area, and Spain though says, all right,
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  Speaker 1: you know what, though, we're going to act as the
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  Speaker 1: I guess sort of the the coast guard and the
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  Speaker 1: cops um of the high seas. And if we think
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  Speaker 1: that you're smuggling something you shouldn't be smuggling, we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: board your ship. And maybe we should take a break
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  Speaker 1: here and finish the story right after this okay, chuck.
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  Speaker 1: So the Spanish Armada, the Spanish navy is acting as
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  Speaker 1: the coast guard because technically the English traders are allowed
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  Speaker 1: into trade, but they're they're supposed to be like their
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  Speaker 1: cargo is supposed to pay taxes, tariffs, duties, all this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: The problem is is that the English were um rampant
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  Speaker 1: uh smugglers, and it was way easier to say like, oh, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you in Florida, you need scissors and yarn and I
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  Speaker 1: want some of your silver. So I'm just gonna sneak
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  Speaker 1: some of those things past the Spanish coast guard in
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  Speaker 1: the hopes that they won't find it and then we
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  Speaker 1: can trade. And that's what the Spaniards called contraband. And
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  Speaker 1: so the Spanish was well aware that this was going on,
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  Speaker 1: so they would board ships routinely um and search them.
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  Speaker 1: And on I believe April April nine, they happened to
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  Speaker 1: board a ship in particular called the Rebecca that was
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  Speaker 1: captained by a guy named Robert Jenkins. Yeah, and this
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  Speaker 1: was one of those Spanish patrol boats. It was called Isabella,
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  Speaker 1: and they said we're coming aboard and we're gonna check
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  Speaker 1: out what you got here. There was a bit of
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  Speaker 1: a um. Well, they found them out they were smuggling
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  Speaker 1: things that they shouldn't have had after they expected the
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  Speaker 1: manifest in the cargo, and there was punishment levied one
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  Speaker 1: Juan de Leon Fandino, who uh was the Spanish captain
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  Speaker 1: tried to send a message straight to the king and
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  Speaker 1: said with his sword you like that, he said, with
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: his sword, off with your ear and cut off Captain
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: jenkins ear. And Captain Jenkins ostensibly picked it up, put
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  Speaker 1: it in his pocket, and later pickled it. He did
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  Speaker 1: pickle it, and he carried it around with him for
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  Speaker 1: like seven years, and finally one day, I don't know how,
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  Speaker 1: but he managed to get into the House of Commons
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  Speaker 1: and said, look at this, look at what the Spanish
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  Speaker 1: captain did to my ear, um, just for trying to
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  Speaker 1: be like a respectable businessman smuggling a little contraband into Florida.
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  Speaker 1: And he said that if the King of England were
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  Speaker 1: here and in violation of law, he would have done
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  Speaker 1: it to the King of England too, And Parliament said,
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  Speaker 1: that is it. We are declaring war on Spain Georgia.
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  Speaker 1: Go get him. Yeah, he was actually called in to testify,
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  Speaker 1: so okay, um, he was an important, um, important witness
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  Speaker 1: I guess to the activities down there. Maybe that's why
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  Speaker 1: they called him in. The one bad part about that
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  Speaker 1: story is supposedly there is no evidence that he actually
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  Speaker 1: presented his ear, and people think that it may have
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: just been sort of gussied up through history and telling
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: him this tale. But he did testify, we know that.
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  Speaker 1: But it certainly makes for a great story that he
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  Speaker 1: actually held his ear up and said, look at this
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  Speaker 1: pickled ear. I'm hoping that at the very least they
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  Speaker 1: inspected to make sure he was missing an ear. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it would be so um obviously, I think we should say, like,
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  Speaker 1: no one ever started a war over somebody's ear being
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  Speaker 1: lopped off. That just became shorthand. Again, the tensions between
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  Speaker 1: England and Spain and the tensions between their their colonial
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  Speaker 1: presence was already simmering. Uh. There have been a lot
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  Speaker 1: of overland skirmishes between Georgia and Florida, and this was
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  Speaker 1: This is pointed to historically as the thing that that
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  Speaker 1: the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And the sort of the um anticlimax of this story
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  Speaker 1: is the War of Jenkins. Ear was not much of
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a war um. Like we said, it was sort of
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  Speaker 1: part of smaller wars that they just gave a name
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  Speaker 1: to ten years later. But there wasn't much that got
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  Speaker 1: accomplished during the War of Jenkins. Ear Over that that
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  Speaker 1: few years that they had these battles, well, a couple
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  Speaker 1: of things did come out of it. One there was
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  Speaker 1: something called the Battle of Bloody Marsh. So you're thinking, like,
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  Speaker 1: oh man, a lot of people died. Now it was
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  Speaker 1: called Bloody Marsh already that just happened to be where
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  Speaker 1: the battle was was staged on St. Simon's Island and Georgia.
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  Speaker 1: But in that battle, like five thousand Spanish troops sailed
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  Speaker 1: to Georgia and landed and came came into Georgia and
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  Speaker 1: were repelled by the Georgian colonial defense people, the Georgia
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  Speaker 1: defensive line exactly. They pushed him back, pushed him back
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: way back, right, and that was huge for them because
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  Speaker 1: up to this point, remember the Spanish were like like
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  Speaker 1: inconceivably powerful, and Georgia said, oh wait, we actually can
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  Speaker 1: defeat them. So that was one big thing. And then
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  Speaker 1: it also solidified George's position safely as an English colony.
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  Speaker 1: That it was like, hey, man, we're here to stay.
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  Speaker 1: You stayed down in Florida, we'll stay up here in Georgia.
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  Speaker 1: We're an English colony, you're a Spanish colony. Don't mess
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  Speaker 1: with us anymore. So those two things did kind of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: come out of it. Actually. Yeah, and Oglethorpe he mounted
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  Speaker 1: his own campaign to invade St. Augustine and did okay there,
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  Speaker 1: but eventually retreated and even left his armaments and weapons
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  Speaker 1: and stuff. Uh so there, I mean, there were some
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  Speaker 1: major battles, but I think in the end, the War
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  Speaker 1: of jenkins Ear is just sort of, um, a bit
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  Speaker 1: of a historical footnote in a lot of ways. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Historically it got absorbed in the larger King George's War,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: which was a part of the War of Austrian Succession,
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  Speaker 1: I think, right exactly. So it was a war within
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  Speaker 1: a war within a war. It was like inception in
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: colonial America. And Ellen Page will be here in just
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  Speaker 1: a minute to fully explain it over and over. Right,
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  Speaker 1: thank you for listening to our attempt at explaining the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: War of jenkins Ear. Uh, we'll see you next time
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: on short stuff.