BBC - History - British History in Depth The Darien Venture

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section">History for Kids</a></li> <li class="last"><a href="/history/on_this_day/" title="Go to th e On This Day section">On This Day</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="prg-wrapper" id="prg-wrapper-shell"> <div id="blq-content"> <div id="prg-wrapper-featured"> <div class="box top_promo"> <div class="header"><h1>The Darien Venture</h1><p><em>By Dr Mike Ibeji<br/> Last updated 2011-02-17</em></p></div> <div class="content"> <img alt="Black and white illustration showing Herman Moll's 173 5 map of Darien" height="241" src="/history/british/civil_war_revolution/images/ scotland_darien_map.jpg" width="196"/> <p>It began as an ambitious scheme to establish a Scottish colon y in Panama, but ended in loss of life and financial ruin. So what really happen ed during the Darien Venture?</p> </div> <div class="footer"> </div> </div> <div class="p-grp p-grp-a p-grp-theme-n nth-row-n">  <div class="left-nav"> <h2>On this page</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#one">The idea</a></li> <li><a href="#two">Founding the company</a></li> <li><a href="#three">First expedition</a></li> <li><a href="#four">Second expedition</a></li> <li><a href="#five">Aftermath</a></li> <li><a href="#six">Find out more</a></li> </ul> <h3>Page options</h3> <ul class="tools"> <li class="print"><a href="#" onclick="window.print();return fal se;">Print this page</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="center"> <div class="content-main-header"> </div> <div class="p-mod nth-child-1 content-main"> <div class="promo"> <h2 class="heading-nth-1" id="one">The idea</h2>
<p>Scotland at the end of the Seventeenth Century was in a state of crisis. Decades of warfare had combined with seven years of famine t o drive people from their homesteads and choke the cities with homeless vagrants , starving to death in the streets. The nation's trade had been crippled by Engl and's continual wars against continental Europe, and its home-grown industries w
ere withering on the vine. Something had to be done. Some way had to be found to revive Scotland's economic fortunes before it got swallowed up by its much rich er neighbour south of the border.</p> <p>The man who came up with the answer was a financial a dventurer called William Paterson, a Scot who had made his name down south as on e of the founding directors of the Bank of England. Paterson returned to Edinbur gh with an audacious scheme to turn Scotland into the major broker of trade acro ss the Pacific Ocean. Whilst in London, he had met a sailor called Lionel Wafer, who had told him about a wonderful paradise on the Isthmus of Panama, with a sh eltered bay, friendly Indians and rich, fertile land - a place called Darien.</p > <p>Paterson had immediately seen the potential of Darien as the location of a trading colony. Trade with the incredibly lucrative Pacifi c markets was a hugely expensive business, since all merchant ships had to make the hazardous trip round Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America. This ad ded months to the journey, and the ships involved had a high chance of being los t at sea. If a colony could be established at Darien, goods could be ferried fro m the Pacific across Panama and loaded onto ships in the Atlantic from there, sp eeding up Pacific trade and making it much more reliable. Moreover, the Scottish directors of the Darien Venture could charge a nice fat commission for the priv ilege. Never mind that the Spanish claimed control of that part of Panama: no-on e ever made a profit without stepping on some toes.</p> <div class="article_end"><a href="#top" title="go to the top"><s pan class="top_anchor">Top</span></a></div> </div> <div class="promo"> <h2 id="two">Founding the company</h2>
<p><span class="image_with_caption float_right" style="w idth:196px;"> <img alt="Photograph showing Signatures of some of those who sub scribed to support" height="121" src="images/scotland_signatures_darien_venture. jpg" width="196"/> <span class="caption" style="width:186px;"> Signatures of some of those who subscribed to support the Darien Venture <a href="/history/about/copyright.shtml#nls"></a></span> </span> The idea proved hugely popular, and there was a great rush to su bscribe to the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, founded in June 1695; but it was not just the Spanish who felt threatened by it. The Englis h East India Company, fearing the loss of its monopoly on British trade to the I ndies, successfully lobbied the English Parliament, which threatened the new com pany with impeachment, forcing its English investors to withdraw.</p> <p>Undaunted, Paterson and his colleagues turned to the Scottish people for support. Thousands of Scots, both rich and poor, flocked to subscribe, and within 6 months 400,000 had been raised. The money was used to fit out five ships for the expedition, the Unicorn, St Andrew, Caledonia, Endeavour and Dolphin, despite efforts by the English authorities to block them. The Engli sh ambassador to Holland even threatened to embargo any merchants who traded wit h the new company.</p>
<div class="content_promo fr"> <div class="promo p-quote"> <div class="q-open"> </div><blockquote><p>Thousands of Scots, bo th rich and poor, flocked to subscribe...</p></blockquote><div class="q-closed"> </div> </div> </div>
<p>However, Lionel Wafer's stories of long-haired Indian s living a life of luxury in a land of milk and honey had given the company's fo unders an unrealistic vision of what lay ahead. The cargo manifests of the first expedition list thousands of combs and mirrors, which they expected to sell to the Indians, along with boxes of wigs and other useless items which the colonist s expected to use in their new life. They were completely unprepared for the ord eal which lay ahead.</p> <div class="article_end"><a href="#top" title="go to the top"><s pan class="top_anchor">Top</span></a></div> </div> <div class="promo"> <h2 id="three">First expedition</h2>
<p>The ships set sail from Leith harbour on 4th July 169 8, under the command of Captain Robert Pennecuik. Of the 1,200 settlers in the f irst expedition, only he and William Paterson knew of their destination, which w as outlined in sealed packages to be opened only once the ships were on the open sea.</p> <p>They made landfall at Darien on 2nd November, having lost only 70 people during the voyage. Full of optimism, they named the peninsul a New Caledonia, and set to work building a settlement. However, their first cho ice of site was, as Paterson put it: 'A mere morass, neither fit to be fortified nor planted, nor indeed for men to lie upon... We were clearing and making huts upon this improper place near two months, in which time experience, the schoolm aster of fools, convinced our masters that the place now called Fort St Andrew w as a more proper place for us'.</p> <p>Within the fort stockade, they began to erect the hut s of New Edinburgh. However, they soon found that the land was unsuited to agric ulture and the Indians were uninterested in the trinkets they had brought with t hem. Spring 1699 brought torrential rain, and with it disease. By March 1699, mo re than 200 colonists had died, and the death rate had risen to over 10 a day. T o make matters worse, the ships sent out to trade for supplies returned with new s that all English ships and colonies were forbidden to trade with the Scots by order of the King. One ship did not return at all. The Dolphin was captured by t he Spanish and its crew imprisoned.</p> <div class="content_promo fr"> <div class="promo p-quote"> <div class="q-open"> </div><blockquote><p>By March 1699, more th an 200 colonists had died, and the death rate had risen to over 10 a day.</p></b lockquote><div class="q-closed"> </div> </div> </div>
<p>They were the lucky ones. Roger Oswald, a young gentl eman who had joined the venture full of hope and optimism, wrote a harrowing acc ount of what life was like that Spring on the Darien Peninsula. They lived on le ss than a pound of mouldy flour a week: 'When boiled with a little water, withou t anything else, big maggots and worms must be skimmed off the top... In short, a man might easily have destroyed his whole week's ration in one day and have bu t one ordinary stomach neither... Yet for all this short allowance, every man (l et him never be so weak) daily turned out to work by daylight, whether with the hatchet, or wheelbarrow, pick-axe, shovel, fore-hammer or any other instrument t he case required; and so continued until 12 o'clock, and at 2 again and stayed t ill night, sometimes working all day up to the headbands of the breeches in wate r at the trenches. My shoulders have been so wore with carrying burdens that the skin has come off them and grew full of boils. If a man were sick and obliged t o stay within, no victuals for him that day. Our Councillors all the while lying at their ease, sometimes divided into factions and, being swayed by particular interest, ruined the public... Our bodies pined away and grew so macerated with such allowance that we were like so many skeletons.'</p> <p>William Paterson's wife died on that peninsula, along with his dreams. The final straw was news that the Spanish were planning an att ack on the colony. The settlers took to the sea in panic, abandoning the settlem ent. Of the four ships that fled the colony, only the Caledonia made it back to Scotland, with less than 300 souls on board.</p> <div class="article_end"><a href="#top" title="go to the top"><s pan class="top_anchor">Top</span></a></div> </div> <div class="promo"> <h2 id="four">Second expedition</h2>
<p>A second expedition left Scotland in August 1699, kno wing nothing about the fate of the first colony. Three ships, led by The Rising Sun, carried a further 1,302 settlers, of which 160 died in the crossing. Findin g the colony abandoned, they set about rebuilding it; but the second colony fare d no better than the first. The Revd Archibald Stobo, one of three Presbyterian ministers who accompanied the second expedition, was scandalised by the barbarit y of the colonists. 'Our land hath spewed out its scum...' he wrote, 'We could n ot prevail to get their wickedness restrained, nor the growth of it stopped...' He viewed the sickness and contagion which plagued the colony as the just judgem ent of God.</p> <p>In fact, his judgement is harsh. The men and women se nt out to Darien were completely unprepared for the harshness of the territory i n which they found themselves, and the collapse of discipline and rampant diseas e which afflicted them were the natural consequence of their altered circumstanc es. On top of this, they faced the constant threat of attack from the Spanish, w ith absolutely no support from the English colonies which had been ordered not t o aid them.</p> <div class="content_promo fr"> <div class="promo p-quote"> <div class="q-open"> </div><blockquote><p>The men and women sent out to Darien were completely unprepared for the harshness of the territory in
which they found themselves...</p></blockquote><div class="q-closed"> </div> </div> </div>
<p>Seeing this, one newly-arrived young officer, Captain Alexander Campbell of Fonab, persuaded the colonists to launch a pre-emptive st rike against the Spanish forces massing at Toubacanti on the mainland. The attac k was outrageously successful, but only served to sting the Spanish into concert ed action. Under the command of Governor-General Pimiento, a massive fleet and a rmy besieged Fort St Andrew, which finally surrendered in March 1700. The surviv ing colonists were permitted to vacate the fort on board their remaining ships. Only a handful ever made it back to Scotland.</p> <div class="article_end"><a href="#top" title="go to the top"><s pan class="top_anchor">Top</span></a></div> </div> <div class="promo"> <h2 id="five">Aftermath</h2>
<p>The Darien Venture was a complete disaster for Scotla nd. The blow to Scottish morale was incalculable. Those colonists who returned f ound themselves cast as pariahs in their own land. Roger Oswald, disowned by his father, wrote to a friend: 'Since it pleased God that I have preserved [my life ], and had not the good fortune (if I may term it so) to lose it in that place, and so have been happy by wanting the sight of so many miseries that have come u pon myself... I never intended, nor do intend, to trouble my father any more.'</ p> <p>William Paterson found himself forced to defend his a ctions. He partially vindicated himself with a no-holds-barred account of the co lony. Some years later, he was granted a pension of 18,000, but he died a deeply d isillusioned man. Only Campbell of Fonab came out of the affair with honour. He made it back to Scotland, where he was awarded the 'Toubacanti Medal' for his pa rt in the dbacle, but he never stopped blaming the Company for failing to support its colonists.</p> <div class="content_promo fr"> <div class="promo p-quote"> <div class="q-open"> </div><blockquote><p>Those colonists who re turned found themselves cast as pariahs in their own land.</p></blockquote><div class="q-closed"> </div> </div> </div>
<p>It was an economic disaster too. The company had lost over 232,884, made up of the life savings of many of the Scottish people. Scotlan d was now completely incapable of going it alone. Just 7 years after the failure at Darien, it was forced to concede to the Act of Union, joining Scotland with England as the junior partner in the united kingdom of Great Britain. As part of the deal, England paid off Scotland's debts with the 'Equivalent', a sum of 398,0 00, most of which went to cover the Company of Scotland's losses. The institutio n established to administer this money eventually became the Royal Bank of Scotl
and.</p> <p>No amount of money could make up for the nation's sen se of betrayal, however. Many Scots believed that their chance of independence h ad been deliberately sabotaged by the English, and the resentment this fostered played no small part in the Jacobite rebellions which were to plague the Union.< /p> <div class="article_end"><a href="#top" title="go to the top"><s pan class="top_anchor">Top</span></a></div> </div> <div class="promo"> <h2 id="six">Find out more</h2>
<p><strong>Books</strong></p> <p><em>The Darien Disaster</em> by John Prebble (Penguin, 1968)</p> <p><em>Darien: The Scottish Dream of Empire</em> by John Prebble (2000) </p> <p><em>Darien Venture</em> by Frank Gill Slaughter (1976)</p> <p><em>The Rising Sun: A Novel</em> by Douglas Galbraith, 2001</p> <div class="article_end"><a href="#top" title="go to the top"><s pan class="top_anchor">Top</span></a></div> </div> <div class="promo"> <h2>About the author</h2> <p>Dr Mike Ibeji is a Roman military historian who was an associate producer on Simon Schama's <em>A History of Britain</em>.</p> <div class="article_end"><a title="go to the top" href="#top"><span class="top_a nchor">Top</span></a></div> </div></div> <div class="content_bottom"> </div>
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