The War of Jenkins’ Ear began in 1739 and involved the international ambitions of Britain and Spain. Although the fighting did not begin in earnest until 1740, the event that led to the conflict occurred nearly 10 years earlier. In 1731 Captain Juan de Leon Fandino, a Spanish naval officer, boarded a British vessel off Havana’s coast. Fandino accused British captain Robert Jenkins of smuggling. During the search an argument ensued, and in the heat of the altercation Fandino sliced off Jenkins’s ear. Throwing the ear at Jenkins, Fandino reportedly exclaimed “Take this to your king and tell him if he were here I would do the same.”
As tensions increased between the British and Spanish in North America, Jenkins returned to London with ear in hand. Addressing Parliament, Jenkins described his altercation with the Spanish sailor and, to prove his point of Spanish savagery, produced the preserved ear. Although the Jenkins incident was one of numerous altercations along the North American frontier, his ear became a rallying cry for aggressive action. As Parliamentarians protested Spain’s belligerency on the coast, further developments near Florida increased tensions. When the British established Georgia, slavery was prohibited. This prohibition was supposed to create a buffer zone between British South Carolina’s slaves and Spanish Florida’s offer of asylum to those who successfully ran away. Despite their best efforts, British planters could not stop escaped slaves from reaching freedom in Florida. Fort Mose continued to threaten the peace in South Carolina, and in 1739 Britain declared war against Spain, supposedly for Jenkins’ ear but more important because of the threat of slave unrest.
In the fall of 1739 slaves in Stono, South Carolina, revolted. For those involved the ultimate goal was passage to St. Augustine and freedom. Fort Mose, once an abstract threat to British control, became an immediate concern for the very survival of Britain’s southern colonies. Hoping to drive the Spanish from Florida, Georgia founder and general James Oglethorpe led troops on a mission to take St. Augustine in the spring of 1740. Although the
British destroyed numerous frontier outposts, including Fort Mose, they could not remove the Spanish from St. Augustine. As the British advanced the residents of St. Augustine sought protection in the city’s large stone fort. While the Spaniards waited for reinforcements to arrive, Oglethorpe shelled the city. The fort, however, proved impenetrable to the British attack; the British ultimately left Florida in defeat on July 4, 1740.
—Shane Runyon
Warren, Mary Cole (1653-1 697?) farmer Mary Cole was born at the family TOBACCO farm, St. Clement’s Manor, in Maryland to prosperous English Roman Catholic immigrants Robert and Rebecca Cole. The first daughter of five children, Mary learned to read the Bible and to sew. Like many Maryland children of the 17th century, Mary became an orphan when her mother died in 1642 and her father a year later. While many orphans suffered abuse or neglect at the hands of strangers, Mary was more fortunate in that Robert had both inventoried his possessions and chosen guardians to provide materially and spiritually for his offspring. Neighbor Luke Gardiner raised the children and sent Mary to live for a short time with her grandmother in England. Following the custom of the day, daughters received movable property from estates, and, accordingly, Mary inherited 11 cattle, a feather bed with sheets, an iron pot, an 18-gallon copper kettle, and a spice mortar when she came of age. By 1673 she had married tobacco planter and innkeeper Ignatius Warren of Newtown Hundred. Mary then disappears from the historical record. It is not known if Mary had any children, and it is believed that she died, aged about 45, before Ignatius went bankrupt.
See also women’s status and rights.
Further reading: Lois Green Carr, Russell R. Menard and Lorena S. Walsh, Robert Cole’s World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991).
—Caryn E. Neumann
Weiser, Johann Conrad (1696-1760) German-American interpreter
Johann Conrad Weiser helped maintain the alliance between the Iroquois Indians and the British. He was born November 2, 1696, in Affstat, Wurttemberg, in present-day Germany. Responding to the constant warfare and destruction of their homeland and following the death of his mother, in 1710 Weiser’s family heeded the advertisements of the British colonies and joined other migrants from the Palatinate to the New World. After several months in New York City the Weiser family moved to upstate New York, joining other Palatines in the Schoharie Valley. When Conrad was 16, he lived in a village of Mohawk. By the end of his visit he had learned to speak Iroquoian fluently, had begun to understand Native American culture, and had developed what would become lifelong friendships. In 1729 Weiser moved from Schoharie and settled in the Tulpehocken Valley of western Berks County, Pennsylvania, where he joined other German migrants and established a prosperous farm. In religious matters he was an active member of the local German Lutheran church and, during a time of personal spiritual crisis, spent time among the religious community at Ephrata. Like many other prosperous farmers and tradesmen, Weiser speculated in land after his arrival in Berks County. Through his investments he cultivated a relationship with the proprietary government that proved mutually beneficial.
His experience with Native Americans as a youth was advantageous for both the Pennsylvania government and the regional Indian confederacies. In 1731 Weiser accompanied Shikellamy, a chieftain of the Oneida, to Philadelphia for negotiations with provincial officials, serving as translator for both parties. Over time Weiser became renowned for his skill at mediating between the agents of the Penn family and the area tribes, earning the name “Holder of the Heavens” for his services. Through his efforts the province was able to maintain peaceful relations with the Native Americans throughout much of the 18th century. On several occasions he assisted with the negotiations for land purchases, as in the notorious Walking Purchase of 1737 with the Delaware Indians. His diplomatic skills extended beyond Pennsylvania, as his efforts also improved Native American relations with Maryland and Virginia. His last great act was at Easton in 1758, when he persuaded Native Americans of the Ohio Valley to sever ties with the French. By the time of his death in 1760, Weiser had also succeeded in mediating relations between German and English interests in Pennsylvania as well as among white settlers and the Native Americans.
See also David Zeisberger.
Further reading: James H. Merrell, Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier (New York: Norton, 1999); Paul A. W. Wallace, Conrad Weiser, 1696-1760: Friend of Colonist and Mohawk (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1945).
—Karen Guenther
Wesley, John (1703-1791) minister John Wesley was born in 1703 in Epworth, Lincolnshire. The son of an Anglican rector, Wesley was educated at Christ Church College, Oxford, and was ordained as an
John Wesley (Library of Congress)
Anglican priest in 1725. While at Oxford, Wesley, together with his brother Charles and George Whiteeield, formed a “Holy Club” known as the Oxford Methodists to discuss spiritual issues. Although Wesley gained a reputation for piety and came to the notice of the Georgia trustees as a result, his time at Oxford seems only to have deepened his sense of spiritual inadequacy. However, when the trustees offered him the chance to be a missionary to the Indians while acting as the minister in Savannah, Wesley accepted.
Wesley arrived in North America in February 1736 in the throes of a spiritual crisis but determined to bring a new religious discipline to Savannah. Even at this young age, Wesley’s implementation of Anglicanism was more rigorous than that of many other ministers. While his sober habits and his willingness to hold regular services in Savannah earned him the initial respect of colonists, Wesley eventually fell foul of his own stern morality. Like his brother Charles, who had taken the post as minister in Frederica farther south, John found that Georgians did not enjoy having their numerous faults and moral failings repeatedly pointed out to them. Charles returned to England after only six months, but John remained in Georgia for nearly two years.
His strict moral code earned Wesley the animosity of Savannah’s citizenry, but his personal failings brought Wesley’s downfall in the colony. Wesley had formed an attachment to Sophia Hopkey, niece of Thomas Causton, who managed the trustees’ store and was one of the most powerful and influential men in Savannah. Many, including James Oglethorpe and Causton, believed that the pair would marry. However, when Sophia rejected a marriage proposal from Wesley and wed another man instead, Wesley reacted by singling out the newlyweds for criticism. After Sophia missed several church services, Wesley felt justified in denying her Holy Communion. The decision caused an uproar and led to a defamation suit from Sophia’s husband, John Williamson. Under this threat of court action, Wesley fled Savannah in 1737.
Despite claiming later that his time in Georgia had been a success, it is clear that Wesley failed to have a significant impact in colonial America. However, shortly after his return to London in 1738 Wesley underwent a religious conversion experience and embarked on a nationwide evangelical revival. Until his death in 1791 Wesley shaped religious revivalism in England and North America and the future of the Methodist faith.
See also Great Awakening.
Further reading: David T. Morgan, “John Wesley’s Sojourn in Georgia Revisited,” Georgia Historical Quarterly (1980): 253-262.
—Timothy James Lockley
West Indies See Caribbean.
World History
