The impetus for war was the hope that a successful outcome would advance British interests and trade possibilities in the Caribbean world and to force Spain to adhere to the asiento contract which allowed British slave traders to sell their slaves in Spain’s American colonies. Behind some of these government leaders in Parliament was the powerful British South Sea Company, a joint-stock company formed in 1711 to facilitate trade with South America.
Yet, response by the British was lukewarm and not until eight years later in 1739, did British opposition leaders take up the cause of the ear and use it to spur outrage against the Spanish. This is when the root cause of the conflict, the infamous ear, was severed.
In 1731, Robert Jenkins, a British merchant captain and known smuggler had his vessel boarded by Spanish coast guards. The connections that this conflict would have with the successful outcome of the American Revolutionary War is what is most striking. In one of the most comical, bewildering, and interesting causes for war, the conflict known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear began eight years after the incident itself. Propaganda, imperial ambitions, and one small ear caused a flare-up in the New World between the European powers of Great Britain and Spain.
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