The Asiento and the War of Jenkin’s Ear

I went to an exhibition at the New York Public Library on 42^nd Street. Titled Fortune and Folly 1720, it is about the bubble based on land speculation in the New World. Portrayed as the land of milk, honey and gold, no mention was made about swamps, mosquitoes or hostile inhabitants. It burst, as bubbles are wont to do. The economies of France, England and the Netherlands would all crash due to this. It is a moderate sized display, well worth the visit if you have any interest in the topic. All this before bit coin or NFTs. And it is free, a rarity in NYC.

Edit: Here's a link to the exhibition.

What got my attention was the display of the Asiento. For those who don’t know, it was a treaty signed between England and Bourbon Spain in 1713 when England exited the War of the Spanish Succession, leaving their Habsburg allies in the lurch. I had always heard that the Asiento allowed English merchants to bring one ship of enslaved Africans every year to sell in Spanish America. Below is a photo of a printed copy of the Asiento from that period and the accompanying text in the exhibition. 

It turns out the Asiento allowed the English to sell 4,800 Africans every year for 30 years.

 

English merchants who didn’t get in on the Asiento wanted to make money trading with the Spanish colonies too. So, they smuggled. A number of the “English” smugglers were American colonists. The treaty was due to expire in 1743 or so.

 

In 1731 one Robert Jenkins’ smuggling brig was boarded by Spanish coast guards. One of them cut off part of Jenkin’s ear. There was some fuss in England that blew over. In 1738 he was paraded in Parliament as cause for a war to force Spanish America to open their markets to English trade. This led to the so-called War of Jenkin’s Ear, a war restricted to the colonies and not fought in Europe. The Spanish call it the War of the Asiento. In 1744 it merged into the War of the Austrian Succession, a general European conflict which raged until 1748.

 

The major English amphibious attack on Cartagena failed. As in all Caribbean warfare of this period, any attack that didn’t succeed quickly would see the imported Europeans start dying of yellow fever, the dreaded yellow jack. The locals were comparatively immune, the vulnerable having already died or recovered earlier.  The local Spanish garrison put up a stout resistance. Soon infection ran riot through the English forces, killing many and sickening the rest.

 

This puts me in mind of writing a piece about Napoleon’s attempt to recapture Haiti. It has similarities and kept the infant United States from having one of Napoleon’s armies on its southern border. Another time…