AMERICAN children are taught a simple rhyme in school: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”
This of course is a reference to the voyage of Christopher Columbus that paved the way for the European conquest and colonisation of the Americas. But in July 1698 a very different voyage sailed across the ocean blue.
From Leith harbour, a small expeditionary fleet was launched into the North Sea. The fleet was comprised of five ships; the Saint Andrew, Caledonia, Unicorn, Dolphin and the Endeavour. Their destination? Modern day Panama. Their objective? Establish a Scottish colony there. This was the first expedition of the ambitious Darien scheme, the failed-blueprint for a Scottish Empire in Central America.
This scheme was by no means Scotland’s first colonial venture. Decades before in the 1620s, James VI had sponsored the colonisation of Nova Scotia. This was eventually abandoned in the face of French hostility. Several other abortive attempts were made later in the 17th Century, with Scots trying to establish colonies in South Carolina and New Jersey. Like Nova Scotia, these also failed and Scotland remained without a colonial empire. What then influenced Scots to try again?
The 1690s were a hard time for Scotland. In this decade the country faced what was known as the “seven ill years” reeling from famine and economic crisis. Death rates had skyrocketed across the country. Scotland’s ruling classes looked for methods to alleviate this. Parliament granted the Bank of Scotland a charter in 1695 and that same year, established the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies.
It was this latter organisation that devised the idea of colonising Central America, a plan now known as the Darien scheme.
Named after the historical name for the Panama, the Isthmus of Darien, the Darien scheme proposed establishing a Scottish colony in what is now Panama backed by public investors. Through this it was hoped that Scotland would emulate England’s colonial Empire and hopefully increase Scottish exports and share of the global trading market, thus improving the economic situation at home.
England had grown rich off of the African slave trade and its colonial empire in the Americas whilst Scotland looked on enviously. Scottish exports were low, the Scottish navy a dwarf compared to its English counterpart and the country was very economically dependent on its southern neighbour.
To many, Darien seemed to be both the perfect panacea to the nation’s difficulties and the means through which Scotland could lessen its economic dependence on England.
The Company of Scotland raised millions of pounds for the venture. At the end of its fundraising, it is estimated that 20% of Scottish capital was invested in the scheme. It was with this vast sum behind them and a watchful English fleet nearby that the first Darien expedition was launched from Leith in July 1698.
The fleet made port at Madeira and the West Indies, briefly taking control of Crab Island off the coast of Puerto Rico in the process. Landing at Darien, Panama on November 2 1698, the colonists proclaimed the land “New Caledonia”, beginning construction of Fort St Andrews and the town of New Edinburgh.
It was here the scheme came undone. Cultivating agriculture was difficult and the indigenous people were unwilling to trade with the Scots. Passing merchants declined to trade as well. As summer came, many of the colonists began falling to disease. So dire was the situation that the colony was eventually abandoned.
These difficulties were exacerbated by the refusal of King William II to sanction any support for his Scottish subjects from the English colonies in the Caribbean, fearing that it would anger the Spanish as it was their empire that Scotland had encroached upon. With England at war with France, he wished to avoid enraging the Spanish.
An attempt at resupply from Scotland was made and later in 1699, another expedition set sail for Darien. But these too failed, with the latter ending after a Spanish force besieged the colonists.
In the end, Scotland’s imperial dreams crumbled and the country sank further into economic crisis given the vast amount that had been invested into Darien.
The disaster had a profound economic and political effect on Scotland but did nothing to deter Scotland’s hunger for Empire. Indeed, it was this desire for access to colonial markets and the disaster at Darien that played a part in motivating the Scottish political class to agreeing to the Union of 1707.
The utter failure of Darien and the little trace left behind has seen few Scottish politicians talk up the “centuries old” connection between the two countries.
In modern Scottish discourse, Darien often features in the independence debate and conversations surrounding the origins of the Union.
But such a role is reductive to the historical significance of Darien, particularly given the considerable amount of research now available on the subject. Scotland’s failure to create a colonial empire on its own was a major driving force of the Union and doesn’t fit easily into the binary independence debate which so often appropriates history to use it uncomplicatedly.
The fleet departing Leith 324 years ago this month represents something more than a doomed venture. To modern Scotland, the Darien fleet represents the centrality of colonialism and imperialism as historical driving forces within Scottish society. In that sense it illustrates the easy and close relationship Scottishness had with empire.
More specifically, Darien is proof that colonialism and imperialism were not alien concepts to an independent Scotland whilst also illustrating that these two phenomena were driving forces behind the Scottish ruling class pursuing the Union of 1707. Both pro-Union and pro-independence Scots should remember this when discussing the disaster at Darien.
