King George's War is the name given to the operations in
North America that formed part of the 1744–1748
War of the Austrian Succession. It was the third of the four
French and Indian Wars.
The
War of Jenkins’s Ear officially began when a
Spanish commander chopped off the ear of English merchant captain
Robert Jenkins and told him to take that to his king,
George II. War broke out in 1739 between the Spain and Britain, but was confined to the
Caribbean Sea and the British colony of
Georgia. This escalated into King George’s War in 1744, when the
French allied themselves with Spain.
In 1745,
British colonial forces in the
Siege of Louisbourg captured the strategic French
Fortress Louisbourg on
Cape Breton Island. On
November 28,
1745 the French with their Indians allies destroyed the village of
Saratoga, New York, killing and capturing more than one hundred of its inhabitants. All of the English settlements north of
Albany were accordingly abandoned. In July 1746 an
Iroquois and intercolonial force assembled in northern New York for a retaliatory attack against Canada; however, the British regulars never arrived and the attack was called off. The colonial troops camped at Albany for the winter, but the following year again failed to launch their expedition. In 1748, Indian allies of the French attacked
Schenectady, New York.
The war took a heavy toll on the northern colonies. The losses of
Massachusetts men alone in 1745-46 has been estimated as 8% of that colony's adult male population.
Aftermath
According to the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, the
Fortress of Louisbourg was returned to France three years later, in exchange for the city of
Madras in
India, captured by the French from the British. The peace treaty, which restored all colonial borders to their pre-war status, did little to end the lingering enmity between France, Britain, and their respective colonies, nor did it resolve any territorial disputes.
Austria shifted its allegiance in 1754, with the outbreak of the
French and Indian War, which spread to Europe two years later as the
Seven Years' War.
See also
