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STEVE HEIMLER: The War of Jenkins' Ear was a skirmish over smuggling and piracy in the West Indies. It would spark the much greater conflict called King George's War.

It started in 1731, when the Spanish coastguard stopped the boat of British merchant Robert Jenkins in the West Indies. The Spanish officers claimed he was trespassing through their waters and proceeded to search his ship. A vicious fight broke out. One of the Spanish agents sliced off Jenkins' ear and told him to present it to the English king.

When Jenkins displayed his severed ear to the House of Commons, public opinion turned against Spain. Eight years later, in 1739, England declared war against Spain.

By 1742, the War of Jenkins' Ear escalated into the War of the Austrian Succession. It spread to America, where the European powers of England, France, and Spain fought over territories and trade routes. Since they saw the conflict as a war among European monarchs, the colonists referred to it as King George's War.

France and Spain fought England. Battles raged from Georgia's plantations, to the trading posts of Canada, and into the French-owned Louisiana Territory. Thousands of British colonists also fought for England.

After a ragtag colonial army, led by William Pepperell of Massachusetts, managed to capture the French fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, England won the war. The Treaty of Aix-La-Chappele was signed by England, France, and Spain. The Massachusetts colonists were outraged when England returned the hard-won fortress of Louisbourg to France.

KAREN ORDAHL KUPPERMAN: Often at the peace treaties, what happens is that colonies will simply be swapped, which, of course, makes it even more dangerous from the point of view of the colonists because the idea that their interests come last, that if it makes sense for the crown to simply hand over something, the crown will do that.

STEVE HEIMLER: Although the British had won King George's War, their concession of Louisbourg ensured that the French would remain powerful in North America for another two decades.