The War of Jenkins' Ear: The Forgotten Struggle for North and South America, 1739 - 1742 by Robert Gaudi
The War of Jenkins' Ear: The Forgotten Struggle for North and South America, 1739 - 1742 by Robert Gaudi
It was a war filled with maritime misadventure and unforgettable characters, including George Washington's beloved older brother Lawrence; "Foul Weather" Jack Byron, the famous poet's grandfather; the redoubtable Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia; Edward Vernon, England's "Angry Admiral" and his tenacious Basque counterpart, el medio hombre (the "half-man") Blas de Lezo, so-called because he had lost half his body parts fighting for his Spanish king; and the insane Felipe V. According to historian Thomas Carlyle, who coined the war's unusual moniker, the War of Jenkins' Ear, this began with a Welsh sea captain's severed ear. This act of mutilation was itself one of the consequences of an economic curse -- the dreadful Asiento de Negros -- the contract to supply African slaves to the rich colonies of the Spanish Empire, which was won by England as a result of previous victories over Spain.
The Asiento ended in the massive conflict all had sought to avoid, engaging the European powers on the battlefields ranging from the Caribbean to the China Seas, from the Georgia swamps to the impregnable walls of Cartagena de Indias. In this war and in the bitter treatment of the American volunteer regiment -- the first to serve "on the Establishment" with the British army -- lies the roots of the American Revolution a generation later.
With vivid prose, Robert Gauti, author of the critically acclaimed African Kaiser, takes the reader from the brackish waters of the Chesapeake to the rocky promontories of Tierra del Fuego. We travel around the Cape of Storms with Commodore Anson, "The Circumnavigator," across the Pacific to the Cantonese coast, and back to the shores of the New World
A definitive work of history, The War of Jenkins' Ear is the only single volume on the subject. In these pages, Robert Gaudi explores the causes and consequences of a neglected conflict that dictated the destinies of two continents.
Pegasus Books, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2021
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.