Today in History: 1739 War of Jenkins’ Ear starts: British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declares war on Spain
In the 1700s, the Spanish empire in the Caribbean was a lucrative trade monopoly directed from Madrid, with Cadiz designated as the official port for trade to and from Spain and its colonies. Cadiz was also the collection point for the king’s duties on all trade to the New World colonies. Foreigners were banned from trading directly with the Spanish colonies; any foreign ship found trading with them was considered to be smuggling and was seized together with its cargo. The ban was enforced by the Guarda Costa, or coast guard, a flotilla of well-armed ships that could outsail and outgun any heavily laden merchant ship.
Under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that ended the War of the Spanish Succession, Great Britain received a 30-year asiento, or contract right, from Spain. The asiento was in two parts, the Asiento de Negros, which allowed Britain a monopoly to supply 5,000 slaves each year to the Spanish colonies, and the Navio de Permiso, which permitted a single British ship to take 500 tons of trade goods to the annual trade fair at Porto Bello. The British government granted a monopoly for both of the agreements to the South Sea Company. But other British merchants and bankers also wanted access to the lucrative Spanish markets of the Caribbean, and Spanish colonists in turn desired British-made goods. The result was a thriving black market in smuggled goods between industrious merchants in both countries.
In an effort to curb British smugglers, Great Britain in 1729 granted Spain the right to stop and search British ships in Spanish waters to ensure that the terms of the agreements were being respected. But the smuggling continued, and the Spanish continued to board and seize British ships and take their crews prisoner, often torturing them for good measure. This led to a swell of anti-Spanish sentiment in Great Britain.
In April 1731, the East India Company ship Rebecca, captained by Robert Jenkins, was on a voyage from Jamaica to London when she was becalmed off Havana, Cuba. Spanish officials from the coast guard sloop San Antonio, captained by Julio Leon Fandino, boarded and searched the English ship. The cargo was found to be legal; it was sugar. Nevertheless, the Spaniards attempted to make Jenkins reveal any contraband or valuables he might have hidden on the ship, hoisting him up the mast three times by his neck and throwing him down a hatch. Fandino then “took hold of his left ear and slit it down with his cutlass and another coast guard took hold of it and tore it off.” Fandino reportedly gave the ear back to Jenkins, saying, “Go, and tell your King George that I will do the same to him if he dares to do the same as you.”
That Jenkins lost an ear, probably as reported, was true enough, and seven years later, in March 1738, he displayed his preserved ear when he was called to appear in the House of Commons in London, reporting that his ear had been cut off by the Spanish coast guards who boarded his ship, pillaged it, and set it adrift. This and other reports of Spanish atrocities heightened the war fever that was building inside Great Britain, both in Parliament and on the streets. “Jenkins’ ear” became a catchword, slogan, and rallying cry—a gruesome atrocity that was easily remembered among the many atrocities committed by the Spanish on British merchant seamen in the Caribbean.
The controversy disguised the fact that the British were the main offenders in the lucrative illicit trade with the colonies and illegal logging efforts on the coast of Honduras. For years British ships, foremost among them the powerful and privileged South Sea Company, had carried on an extensive trade with the silver-rich Spanish colonies, sometimes with the connivance of corrupt Spanish colonial governors and officials, depriving the king of Spain of his rightful royal duties. Over the years, British merchants had lost many ships and cargoes to the Guarda Costa, including some ships carrying legal cargoes.
Read more of this story here The War of Jenkins’ Ear - Warfare History Network
Also on this day:
42 BC Roman Republican civil wars: Second Battle of Philippi - Brutus’s army is decisively defeated by Mark Antony and Octavian. Brutus commits suicide.
425 Valentinian III is elevated to Roman Emperor, at the age of 6
1091 Tornado (possible T8/F4) strikes the heart of London killing two and demolishing the wooden London Bridge
1642 Battle of Edgehill (Warwickshire): King Charles I beat English parliamentarian forces
1911 1st aerial reconnaissance mission is flown by an Italian pilot over Turkish lines during the Italo-Turkish War
1917 1st Infantry division “Big Red One” shoots 1st US shot in WW I
1935 American mobsters Dutch Schultz, Abe Landau, Otto Berman, and Bernard “Lulu” Rosencrantz are fatally shot by organized crime hitmen at a saloon in Newark, New Jersey, what becomes known as “The Chophouse Massacre”
1958 The Smurfs first appear in the story “Johan and Pirlouit” by Belgium cartoonist Peyo
1973 Richard Nixon agrees to turn over White House tape recordings to Judge John Sirica
1977 Paleontologist Elso Barghoorn announces discovery of a 3.4-billion year old one-celled fossil, one of the earliest life forms on Earth
2001 Apple releases the iPod
2018 World’s longest sea-crossing bridge, the Hong Kong Macau Zhuhai bridge at 55km, opened by Chinese President Xi Jinping
2018 World’s oldest intact shipwreck, ancient Greek vessel 2,400 years old, found at bottom of the Black Sea by archaeologists
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1986 Emilia Clarke - English actress (Game of Thrones), born in London, England
1976 Ryan Reynolds - Canadian-American actor (The Proposal; Deadpool), born in Vancouver, British Columbia
1970 Grant Imahara - American TV Mythbuster, born in Lod Angeles, California (d. 2020)
1964 Robert Trujillo - American musician and songwriter (Metallica), born in Santa Monica, California
1959 Weird Al Yankovic - American accordionist and parody singer-songwriter (“Eat It”; “Another One Rides The Bus”), and actor (UHF; Naked Gun), born in Downey, California
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2014 Alvin Stardust [Bernard Jewry] - English rock singer(“Jealous Mind”), dies of prostate cancer at 72
1957 Christian Dior - French fashion designer (New Look), dies of a heart attack at 52
1950 Al Jolson - American-Lithuanian jazz singer and silent film actor (Mamie, Swanee), dies at 64
1915 WG Grace - English cricket batsman and captain (22 Tests; 2 x 100, HS 170; 54,896 runs over record 44 FC seasons; Gloucestershire CCC), dies of a heart attack at 67
42 BC Marcus Junius Brutus - Roman senator and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar, commits suicide at about 42/43 (b. 85 BC)
Holidays on this day
Event Organizers Day
International Print Day (Fourth Wednesday in October)
IPod Day
Medical Assistants Recognition Day (Wednesday of the Third Full Week in October)
National Boston Cream Pie Day
National Canning Day
National Croc Day
National Mole Day - (related to Chemistry)
National Slap Your Irritating Co-Worker Day
Paralegal Day
Swallows Depart from San Juan Capistrano Day
TV Talk Show Host Day
The Funnies:
Interesting (not necessarily extinct) animal of the day:
Stalking through tropical marshes on the lookout for prey, the jabiru is a truly striking figure; its long, bald neck and scaly legs giving it a distinctly dinosaurian appearance.
From the perspective of the small creatures it hunts, it is certainly comparable to the monstrous predators of the Cretaceous Period and doubtless just as terrifying.
Jabirus are large storks, and the tallest flying birds in South and Central America, looming over every other avian species in their range apart from the flightless rhea.
They sometimes wander into the USA and are most common in the Pantanal region of Brazil.
They are indiscriminate predators, and spend their time stalking through shallow pools and wetlands on the lookout for pretty much any small animal that will fit in their beak.
Although they share the family Ciconiidae with twenty other stork species, they are uniquely alone in their genus; all the other genera within the family contain at least two species.
They live in large groups near rivers and ponds and diet on fish, insects, small mammals, amphibians and even reptiles.
Jabiru are widespread and are considered a species of least concern by the IUCN currently.
Source: 14 Jabiru Stork Facts - Fact Animal
Quote of the Day:
“I intend to live forever, or die trying.”
― Groucho Marx
Video of the Day:
Another double bubble today, this time celebrating my birthday last weekend. I saw Alice Cooper, with Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols in support, so here’s a couple of their numbers…
And while I’m on the subject of videos, I’ve just had to endure a 3 minute advert before I could get to play one of these videos, so if anyone knows how I can block these, I’d love to hear… I already use AdBlock, but Youtube seems to be getting around it. Almost at the point where I won’t be using YouTube again…
Comic of the Day:
Credit: The Tinkerer’s Handbook, Page 6 (of 8) – Wondermark
Inspirobot Always Controversial, Occasionally Inspirational Quote of the Day:
Read @Vikingmichael’s post-impressionist Spark! from yesterday https://community.spiceworks.com/t/spark-pro-series-22-october-2024
Don’t forget to leave some spice right here ↓
