A War Wtihin a War Within a War: How a Severed Ear Sparked a Colonial War

This is one of the more bizarre Colonial Wars in the way it began and the fact that it did not stop over time, but mushroomed into ever bigger conflicts.  Since Natives participated in all three conflicts, we'll put it in its proper context here.

In 1731 Spanish coast guard vessels surrounded and boarded an English merchant ship belonging to Robert Jenkins.  While Jenkins was a legitimate merchant captain, he was also a known smuggler and the Spaniards had had enough.  As they confiscated his cargo and he threatened war in Britain's name one of the Spaniards sliced off his ear with a sword, telling him to take that to King George II and see if George even cared.  Jenkins picked his severed ear in a jar of alcohol, returned home to Britain and showed his ear to anyone who could bear to look.  He even testified before parliament and displayed the ear there.  At first, no one was interested in conducting reprisals against Spain on behalf of Jenkins' Ear.

Fast forward to 1738, when the British South Sea Company, which hoped to break Spain's control of trade in the Caribbean, hoped the time was right to convince Britain to find an excuse to start a war against Spain.  Jenkins and his ear became celebrities again as members of the South Sea Company and their wealthy investors lobbied parliament.  This time, it worked.  Britain declared war on Spain and began ravaging Spanish shipping in the Caribbean, including the wealthy galleons which brought silver and other wealth from Mexican mines back to Spain.  Most of this War was on the sea, but the British managed to blockade the Spanish port city of St. Augustine, Florida in 1740.  James Oglethorpe lead an expedition of Georgia and South Carolina colonists to attack St. Augustine by land.  Whether Creek auxiliaries fought with Oglethorpe no one knows.  St. Augustine, guarded by the Castillo de San Marco, held out against the attack.  Oglethorpe's men went back to Georgia.  However, there were raids back and forth between English and Spanish settlers on the Florida-Georgia border.  More slaves bolted from Florida plantations, and many Natives enlisted to fight with Spain also liberated themselves.  At first called marones by the Spanish, and later cimarrones or wild ones, these escaped Native auxiliaries merged with the runaway slaves, become one of the origin points for a new tribe of Natives, the Seminoles, who don't otherwise figure much in this story.

Florida quickly became a side note as another larger issue began to worry Europe.  The last male Habsburg emperor of Austria, Charles VI died, leaving his heiress Maria Theresa as heir to the Holy Roman Empire and all of Austria's dominions in Europe.  It was understood that the new Holy Roman Emperor would actually be her husband, Francis of Lorraine but that the ruling power would be hers.  The two rulers in Europe most angry with this situation were Louis XV of France and Frederick the Great of Prussia who had the excuse they needed to strip Austria of her prized Italian possessions, possibly unseat Maria Theresa and either place a candidate to their liking on the throne or divvy up the Austrian Empire for themselves.  France dragged England into the War with attacks on English shipping and on England's North American possessions, particularly Nova Scotia.

As we've seen in earlier posts, France had been forced to give up claims to Nova Scotia after Queen Anne's War about thirty years before.  They were still sore, as they considered Nova Scotia and Acadia, read New Brunswick and parts of Maine, as parts of New France.  In May, 1744, French forces from Quebec, supported by Mikmaq and Maliseet auxiliaries, attacked the British fishing outpost of Canso, then decided to besiege the provincial capitol of Annapolis Royal.  Meanwhile, local Acadiens and other Natives rallied under the banner of Father Jean LeLoutre and attacked Annapolis Royal on their own initiative.  Their beef with Britain was the oppression of Acadian Catholics by British authorities, and raids on Native hunting grounds by settlers in Maine. 

The British rushed help to Annapolis in the form of provincial troops from Massachusetts and broke the French siege in 1745.  British forces also captured Louisbourg, the last French outpost in Nova Scotia.  This prompted raids on British outposts and colonial settlements from member tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy, whom we've already seen in action.  The French tried to retake Louisbourg in 1746 but disease and other misfortunes forced them to give up the effort and admit the inevitable.  Skirmishing between French and American Settlers broke out along the Frontier, with various Natives also getting on the drama.  There were so many raids along the Massachusetts border that the Governor there ordered a construction of frontier outposts to protect communities there.  French soldiers with Native allies, most likely Abenaki, burned the village of Saratoga, New York, prompting anger among Settlers and the powerful Iroquois tribes.  French and Indian attacks were also launched against Fort Massachusetts, now Adams, Massachusetts and Schenectady, NY. 

The various wars would wear on until 1748 in Europe, taking in the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland, among others.  The North American theater took a heavy toll on New England, where 8% of the male population was lost.  The British government compensated Massachusetts for its losses, which gave them an economic boost.  Meanwhile, the Acadians under Father LeLoutre and a guerilla leader named Joseph Broussard (Beausoleil), continued to resist the British efforts to remove Acadians from New Brunswick and Maine.  More on this side war and the part Natives played in it, in a later post.