March 18, 2025 • 39 mins
Scotland is a fascinating place, with its own rich culture, cuisine and history. Today, it's part of the United Kingdom -- but this wasn't always the case. Join Ben, Noel and Max as they dive into Scotland's wildly ambitious plan to build a colonial trade empire straddling the Pacific and the Atlantic. At enormous expense, Scotland gambled everything on taming the Darién Gap... and lost.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the
myth Legend super producer mister Max Williams. Hello, Hello Max?
Who's that woo waing over? There?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Is that you?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Noel Brown? Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
You know, I like a good wu and to wo
you with history. And by you I mean the ridiculous
historians at home.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I think we all do. I am Ben Bollen and
we are we are following up on a guys. I
don't think any of us have been to Scotland right,
not yet. No, I haven't. But I've seen Trainspotting in
Brave Heart. Does that count?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, I've got the full history of Scotland in those
two films, Past and Present.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You're plugged in, You're plugged in. Max also, has not
been a Scotland, but it's currently part of the United Kingdom.
This was not always the case. In fact, Scotland became
a part of the UK as recently as seventeen o seven,
but it's still a very different part of the world.
(01:34):
You know, It's got its own culture, its own cuisine.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Oh yeah, I thought of another Scotland movie, Highlander series
that's like Scotland of the future but also the past.
It's weird the way those movies work.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, yeah, do check out the entirety of the franchise
before you write to our complaint department. Jonathan Strickland at
iHeartMedia dot.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Com, especially the third one I think is called The Quickening.
Maybe did I make that up? Or is that a
dune thing?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well? The Quickening is what happens when you kill another
immortal in the Highlander franchise.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Oh no, Highlander two is subtitled The Quickening, and Highlander
two is mega weird. It's like very futuristic and very
very strange.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, there's a time jump in there, right big time.
What you got Max?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I will say I brought up Scotland with my mom
recently as I pointed out to her that King James
first I e. Bible dude is also King James six
of Scotland, and she's like how, I'm like, well, they
merged the lines together and explained HERM like, but yeah,
it's kind of weird. It's a fun little trivia question.
And I also then dropped her the legendary King James
quote where he says, in the eyes of God, kings
(02:42):
are gods too. It's like the most egotistical line I've
ever seen.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
That.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, James always known as a humble dude, as most
rulers are. You know, it's funny. We were talking about
this on a different show that inspired our episode. Today.
Every so often, our beloved Scots will raise the flag
and hold a referendum on regaining the independence that was
lost in seventeen oh seven.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Remember that freedom, Freedom, That's the thing, right. Sorry, sorry,
I'm hung up on brave heart guys. Please Scottish listeners, don't.
I'm not making fun. I love the culture and the
country of Scotland. I'm just purposefully sounding like a rube.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Well, we could say that there is a conspiracy afoot,
because depending upon whom you ask, there will be people
who tell you that every time Scotland pushes for independence,
the United Kingdom sabotages those efforts. Why would they do that, rascals?
It's a you know, maybe a story for a different
(03:44):
day or a different show, But up up, I wonder
what show you're referring to. Men. We'll never know, we
will know we do stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I don't want you to know this show, the podcast,
the movie, the ride, the book. Check out the book
by the way, it's still available anywhere fine books are sold.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, it's a real sexy book. Fine book anyway. In
today's episode, no, we're exploring how Scotland lost its independence
in the first place, and it gets so ridiculous. This
is something we discovered in the course of unrelated research.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, it's true for that other aforementioned show, and it
doesn't start in Scotland. Actually, the real tale unfolds and
a fantastical, terrifying, gif full and severely unconquerable stretch of
jungle known as the Darien Gap.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
We're back, all right. What is the Darien Gap? Surprise, folks,
It is not a gap store in Darien. That was
our first guess. I think I was wanting to get
some slacks, some slacks from the Daryan Gap in gap slacks,
gap slacks. The Gap instead is like roughly a sixty
six or so square mile region of rainforest and unforgiving
(05:08):
mountains between Panama and Columbia. For all of known human history,
it has been untamable. You can't put infrastructure in there. Really,
no big civilization succeed. It's got everything. Stefan voice from SNL,
brutal temperature extremes, dangerous wildlife, criminal cartels, human trafficking, disease, mudslides, gullies.
(05:32):
If you're talking about danger, this place has it all.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Indeed, and on a map, it does kind of look like,
you know, on paper, a pretty solid location strategically, geopolitically,
you know, economically speaking for trade, et cetera. It's the
only land crossing from South to Central America, and it's
very very convenient.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
To the Caribbean.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
It's also right next to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, like you were saying, no, if you just look
at the map, you never actually stepped foot in the gap.
Like a lot of other people throughout history, you might
assume it's kind of the park Place or the Broadway
in the Great Game of Geopolitical Monopoly, and back in
the sixteen hundreds, Scotland made the same assumption. Beat me here, Max.
(06:22):
Holy shit, were they wrong. They were super super wrong.
They were disastrously incorrect. Boy oh boy, they were.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
One thing that we have to understand about this age
of exploration is that as soon as European powers kind
of clocked that there were these vast stretches of land
that contained riches, untold and natural resources over there in
the America. Everybody wanted a piece. It's like the gold
Rush in that way. Everyone's trying to get a piece
(06:50):
of the action. And we do literally mean everyone, Scotland
being no exception.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah. Back in sixteen ninety eight, the Scots made a
trading colony in the Darien Gap and this was part
of something they called the Darien Venture, which is routinely
described optimistically as the most ambitious colonial scheme attempted in
the seventeenth century. And we want to give credit where
(07:17):
it's due. We're getting a lot of this from an
awesome book by John Prebble called The Darien Disaster.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
And this was not cheap and it required, i mean
buy in from regular folks.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
This was something that needed to be crowdsourced in order
to pay for it.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, this is where we introduce our flawed protagonists. There's
a pretty successful Scottish guy named William Patterson Clan Patterson,
our buddy Willie was born in Tinwall in sixteen fifty
eight and he would later go on to found the
Bank of England. So he made his first fortune doing that,
(07:58):
and he also traveled extent throughout the Americas and West Indies.
Dude was a big deal. And when he came back
to Scotland from his aventions abroad, Uh, he said, I'm
gonna make a second fortune. You see, I heard a
story from a sailor.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yes, a yarn, a ripping yarn. Yeah. He was in
London before he came back to Scotland and he met
a sailor. This is his real name, Lionel Wafer, and
he's a big fan of that hard tack. It's doesn't
it sound like one of the fake names we would
make up and improv. Oh my gosh, you know what
(08:40):
ELSEO reminds me of them?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
A name that you might find in the fantastic Seminole
British television series Toast of London.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
One hundred percent. Yes, good call there. Our buddy Lionel
tells r. Pal Willie about this wonderful paradise on Earth,
located in distant exotic Panama. Lionel says, this has a
sheltered bay, the natives are friendly, the land is rich
and fertile. It's a place called Darien. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
(09:12):
Again on paper? Yeah, again on paper, especially if you're
from Scotland. No offense Scotland.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Well no, I mean they not to say that Scotland
doesn't have lush, rolling hills and all that good stuff,
but nothing resembling this type of potentially flourishing ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah. Yeah. And Willie immediately just something about this story
hooks it the idea that Darien could be the future
of Scotland. He says, Look, everybody is getting into this
colonialism game. Why not us? Why not us? Yeah? What
if we start a trading colony right there at the
(09:54):
crossroads of the Atlantic and the Pacific. And he was
already thinking about how how much money you could make,
because this could get This is pre Panama Canal, right,
so this could give you a shortcut through these continents.
Otherwise you have to sail around Cape Horn at the
very bottom of South America, at the deer of South America.
(10:17):
And that's just a bummer. It takes forever. Oh my gosh,
what a hassle. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So Peterson has dollar signs in his eyes, and he's
looking at the big picture of all of this, and
perhaps he's so kind of enamored by the whole idea
of this, and he used the word that's going to
come up later scheme that he might have overlooked some
of the potential drawbacks.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, he was super hype. Like if you have ever
been brainstorming with your friends on a great idea and
you get crazy optimistic, it's tough to be the person
who says no or the person who says, hey on,
let's really think about this. He didn't have anybody like
that bringing him back to Earth. He didn't have any
(11:04):
no men only yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was straight
up thinking they could pull a wicked and defy gravity.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I was waiting for that reference just in general, just
in life, just expecting let's hold some space with those lyrics,
with a good ridiculous story.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And our buddy Willie says, he writes this down when
he's describing the possibility of a Scottish colony in the
dairy and Gap. He says, this could be the door
to the seas and the key of the universe. Okay, wow,
you know what it is. The door to the seas.
That doesn't seem very practical. I could see the key
(11:41):
to the universe, but door to the seas is a
bit of an odd metaphor. Key to the Universe is
the one that freaks me out a little. But I
think we could both agree this is if nothing else,
this is a bit ambitious, bit pie in the sky
and a bit highlandery. Yes he was experiencing the quickening,
(12:03):
it seems so. Yes. Yeah. It's sixteen ninety three and
Willie helped set up something called the Company of Scotland
Trading to Africa and the Indies in Edinburgh descriptive. I
get what they're about.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Their purpose you couldn't clock it from the name was
to establish a Scottish foothold there on the Isthmus of
Darien in South America, right on top of that famous
gap which they would also need to.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Mind they mind the gap they fall in, which they
kind of did. And he and his partners and this
became an international affair. They said, look, our company is
going to prosper with all this foreign trade, right, we're
going to we're going to control the passage. And you,
(12:54):
fellow local Scottish residents, you can travel with us to
this far flung remote spot. You can settle down there.
You can have your own fortune, your own pursuit of happiness.
You can establish a new life a world away, your
own copy of the Key to the Universe. Mm hmm, yeah, your.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
It really is a massive sales pitch, oh h to
the Scottish people. Like like we were saying earlier, this
is an early example of kind of crowdfunding something because
they certainly you know, were putting out He was putting
up his own money, of course, but it was going
to be such an expensive proposition that they needed some
serious help.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
In order to do that, they had to sell this idea,
and sell they did. Big shout out to Ben Johnson
over at Historic UK dot com who breaks down some
of the blow by blow here to be completely crystal clear,
this is a crazy.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Idea, absolutely bonkers. After a certain threshold, As you point out,
Ben and your in your outline here going to paraphrase,
this ambition often meets with some diminishing returns and it's
very important at this point in our story to wrap
our heads around that. I think we've been teasing this already,
(14:12):
but Scotland was in a state of massive national crisis
and this was almost being presented as.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
A path forward. One hundred percent. Yeah, if we go
to doctor Mike Ibiji, writing for the BBC. Then we
get a sense of just how dire the situation had
become at home. This is a little bit of a
longer quote, so let's round robin it. Here we go.
Decades of warfare had combined with seven years of famine
(14:42):
to 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 England's continual wars against
continental Europe, and its homegrown industries were withering on the vibe.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
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 richer neighbor south.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Of the border. And then, I mean not only did
they need this economically, I mean morale was super low.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
This would be a way to kind of regain some
national pride after all of this misfortune.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And now we see that there's not just a need
for this, but there's a time window. The clock is
ticking down, so this had to work. This could be
a life saving move for Scotland. And more and more
people were saying, do we have any other options. Our
friends at the Company of Scotland. They go to some
(15:50):
associates who are English and Dutch, and half of the
capital for the crazy plan here comes from English Dutch investors,
the other half entirely from Scotland. However, things went sour
almost immediately, and to be fair, they went sour due
to forces outside of Scottish control. A big company conspired
(16:13):
against them.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Oh yeah, one of the big ones, the big big
bads of history, the infamous East India trading company Boom Max.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Give us a boo here a louder one. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
They were putting a ton of pressure on England to
pull out of this investment.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
The scheme, oh yeah, and we should point this out
because we mentioned it a few times. Scheme has a
sinister or sleazy connotation here in American English or US English,
but in European English.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Scheming plans plan Yeah, yeah, And I mean I think
when I was pointing out the kind of I think
I was definitely leaning into the English connotations around that
at the top of the show.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
But that's not what they were going for here.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Though, looking back on it in history, that English interpretation
kind of tracks a little better than plan.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
They Yeah, that's the thing. There is a conspiracy here.
The East India boys had this monopoly on trade and
they were very serious players in the game. They wanted
to eradicate all possible competition as soon as possible. Yeah,
by any means necessary. They've got bodies they can claim,
just like the just like the Big Mule Lobby and
(17:36):
the US Cable Core.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Okay, maybe a little worse, but fair enough, arguably a
bit worse that. You know, there's tons of fiction that
involves the East India Training Company as well, just as
like these sinister Illuminati type pullers of the strings of
commerce and history.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
One of the first most dangerousnational corporations right and inherently
tied into the politics of the Crown at the time.
So it came to pass that they used their monopolistic
leverage to force all of the English funding out of
the game at the last minute, at the eleventh hour.
(18:18):
The Dutch dipped out as well, so Scotland is left
holding the bag. They become the soul investors. But they
feel they're too far along, Like you were saying earlier,
they need a win, so they just had to keep
selling the play and sort of pray that it worked
out in the end.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah, So they just onward and hopefully upward. It was
their trajectory at this point. At first it seemed like
it might be salvageable. They had been, of course betrayed,
you know one time of many by England and their
corporate entities or extensions of the Crown in the East
India Company. Scotland was able to lean on its own
(18:59):
native kind of businessmen and politicians I luminaries for more support.
This included we're getting to now extending the offer to
thousands of ordinary Scottish people who were invited to invest
in the expedition. I think around five hundred thousand pounds
(19:21):
of Scottish people's money went into this. And since we
don't know the exact year, unfortunately we can't give that
one a boop. But what we do know is that
this comprised about half of the national capital available like overall.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, it's for modern comparison, folks, it's as though everybody
in the United States got a clarion call. They took
all the extra money they had and they put half
of it into making a space mission. So we are
not exaggerating. This is not hyperbole. Literally, almost every Scottish
person who had five pounds to spare invested in this scheme.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Somehow two tuppens to rub together got thrown into this scheme.
A quote from the BBC article that we mentioned before
by Ben Johnson. The money was used to fit out
five ships for the expedition. The Unicorn, great name for
a ship. Saint Andrew Caledonia also.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Really cool name.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
A couple cool names coming up too, Endeavor like that
one very spacelike. We have a spaceship called the Endeavor
and the Dolphin, which I just dig Despite efforts by
the English authorities to block them, the English ambassador to
Holland even threatened to embargo any merchants who traded with
the new company, so.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Really really continuing to.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Ratchet up the pressure there and make sure that nobody
was going to come to the aid of Scotland.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
And we know that thousands, as you mentioned, thousands of
Scottish people volunteer to travel on these five ships. And
they said, look, we're a lot of these people honestly
are fighting with famine at home. There are a lot
of disaffected veterans of previous wars and they're looking for
(21:08):
the next chapter in their lives. So thousands of people
are moving to the tune of William Patterson and his
founders or his co founders. And it was all inspired
by a single guy, by the toll tales of a sailor.
If Lionel Wafer was not lying, he was at least
in Belisheet a little bit. These guys had a wildly
(21:30):
optimistic view of what they would find in the Darien Gap.
And you know, you can tell they have big plans
by going to the manifest, the cargo manifest of the
first expedition. They weren't bringing well, they were obviously bringing
some survival equipment, but they also brought a lot of
(21:50):
chochke's that they thought they could sell to the native people,
not particularly clued in to the lay of the land.
There wigs.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
What are you going to do with boxes of wigs?
What are the native people going to do with wigs?
Even like I don't know it does it's very very
tone deaf, the whole thing. And you know, another thing
to think about too, is that these Scott's, these you know,
normal citizens who went along for this right, they'd already
lost so much and experienced so much hardship and lost
(22:22):
that even the unknown of this to them was worth
the risk. However, it was being sold to them as this,
you know, new world kind of adventure, you know, finding
this like paradise, you know in the Darien Gap.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
And I don't know, Ben, do you think this was.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Like an active grift or was it really just an
example of like putting the cart before the horse and
kind of overly optimistic outlook on what was maybe to come.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, the latter Patterson very much believed in this and
as a as a patriot, he was being sincere in
genuine in that he honestly believed this would work. And
so the Darien scheme now is more than an exciting
business venture. It is a matter of national pride. It
is patriotism. It's everybody chipping in to save Scotland, that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
So the first expedition begins, sets forth and arrives. Writing
for BBC History, doctor Mike Ebeggie puts it this way.
The ship sets sail from Leith Harbor on fourth July
sixteen ninety eight, under the command of Captain Robert Penachem.
Of the twelve hundred settlers in the first expedition, only
he and William Patterson knew of their destination, which was
(23:43):
outlined in sealed packages to be open only once the
ships were on the open sea. They're protecting their what
their investment here. They're making sure that there's no espionage
that like clocks the location and beats them to it.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Part of it. And we remember those Spanish forces are
very active at this point in time as well. But
another part is they already have the English opposition, so
if they let word get out about their destination, things
may get complicated. So it takes a while to travel
across the ocean at this time. They don't land until
(24:17):
November two. Seventy people die on the way. Okay, not
a great start.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
However, those that did arrive remained optimistic and they named
the peninsula that they landed on in New Caledonia and
started the work of building a series of homesteads, you know,
a settlement.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And this is where we go to some primary sources.
Our pal Willie Patterson is pretty honest about this in retrospect.
He by the way, just spoiler. He later goes on
to repair his reputation by giving a very objective, unforgiving
review of the events. But they arrive at this initial site,
(25:02):
he describes it as quote Emir Morass, neither fit to
be fortified, nor planted, nor indeed for the men to
lie upon. We were clearing and making huts upon this
improper place near two months, in which time Experience the
school Master of Fools convinced our masters that the new place,
now called Fort Saint Andrew, was a more proper place
(25:24):
for us. And I want to take a second and
just say how beautiful that writing is. Experience the school
Master of.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Fools indeed, and the idea of an improper place neither
fit to be fortified nor planted. So within the fort
they started to build the huts of what would.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Then be named New Edinburgh. Makes sense they were still
putting new in front of all the names.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
That's right, of course, And yeah, like you do when
you're I mean, they're trying to again, they're trying to
extend their home to this new land, and so it
may sense that they would use familiar city names, kind
of like a sister city situation. However, they soon found
that the land was also completely unsuited for the kind
of agriculture they were familiar with, and the native people
(26:14):
there were super not down for combs, wigs and mirrors.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, and the weather was rough because this is the
Darien Gap. So spring of sixteen ninety nine we're talking delugious,
torrential rain, biblical rain. And with that came a lack
of sanitation and of course disease. So if you go
to March of sixteen ninety nine, more than two hundred
(26:41):
of the original colonists have died and things are just
getting worse. The death rate is now over ten people
a day. So you wake up and you wonder which
ten of the folks you know are now dead. Yeah,
really bad news.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
And to add insult to injury, the trade ships that
were sent out to retrieve supplies came back with the
news that all English ships and colonies surprise, surprise, were
forbidden from trading with the Scots by order of the
king himself.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, so the other European outposts that you could ask
for help, they can't mess with you. And one ship
doesn't one ship doesn't make it off the sea at all.
The dolphin was captured by the Spanish over there the Spanish.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Main and it's its crew imprisoned. So it's likely that
the folks who never made it to the gap in
the first place. However, may have actually had an easier
going than one member of the first expedition, a young
(27:53):
man named Robert Oswald, wrote a very graphic and detailed
account of his experience in the colony, and ben, maybe
we should do a little round robin of this one.
I think it's worth beating the whole thing because it
really does paint quite the picture.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yeah, when I was doing the research for this, this
really stood out to me because it's long and it's graphic,
but it's important to hear it. Oswald begins by noting
the settlers lived on less than a pound of flour
per week per person. And get this, the flower was moldy.
It was gross. So he goes into detail. He goes
(28:31):
into detail about his terrible experience. And he here's what
he says, What don't you pop the top on this one?
Sure thing?
Speaker 3 (28:40):
But when boiled with a little water without anything else,
big maggots and worms must be skimmed off the top.
In short, a man might easily have destroyed his whole
week's rations in one day and have but one ordinary
stomach neither Yet for all this short allowance, every man
(29:00):
let him never be so weak. Daily turned out to
work by daylight, whether with the hatchet or wheelbarrow, pickaxe, shovel,
fore hammer, or any other instrument the case required.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
And so continued until twelve o'clock, and to two again,
and stayed till night, sometimes working all day up to
the headbands of the breeches and water at the trenches.
My shoulders have been so war with carrying burdens that
the skin has come off them and grew full of boils.
If a man were sick, Oswald continues, and obliged to
(29:35):
stay within no victuals for him that day, which just
to step out here means if you took a sick day,
you would starve here, he continues. Our counselors, all the while,
lying at their ease, sometimes divided into factions, and being
swayed by particular interest, ruined the public. Our bodies pined
(29:55):
away and grew so macerated with such allowance that we
were like so many skeletons, so many skeletons.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Also excellent writing, great find there Ben. The Darien disaster
by John Prebble you've mentioned previously is an excellent account
of this, and I believe that's where that quote came.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
From Yeah, and we also know we also know that Patterson,
like despite the fact that clearly Oswald is saying the
people at the top were not putting in the same effort.
You know, he says, they're lying at ease, they're fighting
with themselves. Patterson is the leader of this group and
(30:39):
he still has a terrible time even though he's at
the top. He loses his wife, his dreams clearly go wrong.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
You're right, and he really was a true believer in
this plan. I mean, he wasn't trying to builk anybody
to his credit.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, there's a final straw. There's news that the Spanish
are going to plan an attack on the colony. So
this settlers run off to the sea panicking. They abandoned
the settlement. There are four ships that fled the colony
and only one made it back to Scotland with.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Less than three hundred folks on board. And you'd think
this was the end of the whole mess. Unfortunately there
is more. There was, in fact, a second expedition that
left Scotland in August of sixteen ninety nine, and they
didn't know what they were in for, you know, with
the distance and the arduousness of the expedition.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
There was no way of getting word back. It reminds
me a bit of the Russian fleet that was traveling
in our earlier episode about the Japanese or the Russo
Japanese War. That's right, because they were sailing for months
and they had no idea what happened to the first folks, Oh, Noel,
the second expedition, we've got three ships, their flagship is
(31:56):
the Rising Sun. Altogether they carry thirteen hundred and two people.
One hundred and sixty of those folks are never going
to make it across the ocean. They die on the way.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Now, and this is all too common with these kinds
of sea expeditions. I mean, it's just there's no way
around it. It really is a bit of a roll
of the dice as to who's going to make it
to the destination. Finding the colony completely abandoned, they started
to go about the process, the arduous task of rebuilding it.
(32:28):
But the second colony didn't do a whole heck of
a lot better than the first. Understandably, the conditions were
just not conducive to settlement m hm.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
And we know that everybody was looking for someone to blame.
One Presbyterian minister in the second expedition immediately said the
harsh conditions had driven the colonists away from God and
said it's your fault. He specifically wrote, our land has
spewed out its scout. We could not veiled to get
(33:00):
that wicked diss restrained, all the growth of its stopped. Ooh,
spewed out its scum. He was like, you guys are barbarians.
You've become monsters, and that's why everybody is sick and dying.
You are damn need a lot of you.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
He felt that the disease and all of the harsh
conditions were a it's like a Sodom and Gomorra type situation.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Or something like.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
This was a form of divine punishment rained down from
the heavens.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
And add to that the constant, very real and actionable
threat of Spanish attacks no support from any of the
English colonies. This inspires one officer, a young guy named
Captain Alexander Campbell, to organize a pre emptive strike against
Spanish forces that are massing along the mainland. Their attack
(33:57):
is successful, It's a surprise attack, but all it does,
all this victory does is piss off the Spanish, and
the Spanish finally say okay, we're going to come down
with a hammer now, that's right.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And they're led by Governor General Pimento. That's how it's
waiver and Pemiento, like a delightful snack led this massive
fleet and an army that besieged Fort Saint Andrew.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
And Fort Saint Andrew, outmatched, out gunned, they finally surrender
in March of seventeen hundred. As a condition of the surrender,
the surviving Scottish colonists are permitted to leave the fort peacefully,
to board their ships and make it back to Scotland.
Only a handful do, and the blow of Scottish morale
(34:50):
is incalculable. The colonists who did return, they were pariahs
in their own land. They were now living representations of
this amazing plan that went so wrong.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
What was meant to be a way to regain some
national sense of pride and also financial stability had the
exact opposite effect, really set them back even further.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
It's really sad. Yeah. Some years later, Patterson was granted
a pension, a pretty good pension for the time, but
he died a broken man. Despite having done so many
astonishing things in his life. The Darien scheme shipwrecked the
Scottish economy overall, like people had lost their lives, savings
(35:41):
left and right. Scotland was incapable of continuing as an
independent nation. You have to wonder was England steepling its
fingers the whole time? Was this their endgame? I think
so very.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I mean, look, we know that they can be some
pretty calculating beat me here, Max, of course, But yeah,
I don't know, man, I think it's certainly whether or
not it was the ultimate end game.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
They certainly weren't mad about it. That's a good That's
very diplomatic, that's a good way to put it. They
were at the very least opportunistic because seven years after
everything goes terrible in Darien, Scotland is forced to concede
to the Active Union to sign the Treaty of Union,
becoming the junior partner in the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
(36:33):
So they had to take the back seat. As part
of the deal, England pays off Scotland's debts. Was something
they call the equivalent and I just love that term,
you know.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Very diplomatic in and of itself, right, you should have
the equivalentnes indeed.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah. This also led to the establishment of.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
The Royal Bank of Scotland as an entity to administer
and you know, distribute and invest this money.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
And not to sound too cynical here, but Noel riddled
me this. Why do the banks always seem to come
out on top? Can't fight city hall? Can't fight city hall.
That that is our show for today. That is the
true ridiculous story of how Scotland lost its independence due
to the Darien scheme. We can't thank you enough for
(37:25):
tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians, but here we go. Thank you.
We're gonna try. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Huge thanks to you ridiculous historians, Yes, you, as well
as to super producer Max the Hagis Williams.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yes, I was hoping you would do it all right.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Max long Shanks Williams remember that character. He was the
big bad in Braveheart. Sorry, I'm coming back to Braveheart, Williams.
I kind of think that Scottish people don't like Braveheart
because I think there's I think there were some like
liberties taken with the.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Depiction of that whole Absolutely, I think that's right. Sorry,
I keep bringing it. Have you seen have you, guys,
ever seen a film made about US history that is
not made by people from the US. One of the
Patriot he No, he was in it. Gibson was in it.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
I'm just trying to name another Mel Gibson pe apocalypto.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Uh. Speaking of segues. Thank you also to Alex Williams
who composed this bank and track. Christopher hasiotis Eve's jeffcoat
here in spirit. I was our research associate for their
work and killer job.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
And also, by the way, you are also as as
you always are, the research associate for the stuff they
don't want you to know episode about the Darien Gap,
which is less about the Scottish aspect and just more about.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
It being kind of this corridor for human trafficking. Yes,
do check out our episode there, and thank you for
recommending that. No, we've got other people to thank too,
like the Rude Dude's a ridiculous crime, big time. And
of course now we are going to call it a
day because we're going to hop off the mic and
have an intense conversation about Haggis. Thanks so much, ah Man,
(39:11):
to you as well. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the
myth Legend super producer mister Max Williams. Hello, Hello Max?
Who's that woo waing over? There?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Is that you?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Noel Brown? Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
You know, I like a good wu and to wo
you with history. And by you I mean the ridiculous
historians at home.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I think we all do. I am Ben Bollen and
we are we are following up on a guys. I
don't think any of us have been to Scotland right,
not yet. No, I haven't. But I've seen Trainspotting in
Brave Heart. Does that count?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, I've got the full history of Scotland in those
two films, Past and Present.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You're plugged in, You're plugged in. Max also, has not
been a Scotland, but it's currently part of the United Kingdom.
This was not always the case. In fact, Scotland became
a part of the UK as recently as seventeen o seven,
but it's still a very different part of the world.
(01:34):
You know, It's got its own culture, its own cuisine.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Oh yeah, I thought of another Scotland movie, Highlander series
that's like Scotland of the future but also the past.
It's weird the way those movies work.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, yeah, do check out the entirety of the franchise
before you write to our complaint department. Jonathan Strickland at
iHeartMedia dot.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Com, especially the third one I think is called The Quickening.
Maybe did I make that up? Or is that a
dune thing?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well? The Quickening is what happens when you kill another
immortal in the Highlander franchise.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Oh no, Highlander two is subtitled The Quickening, and Highlander
two is mega weird. It's like very futuristic and very
very strange.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, there's a time jump in there, right big time.
What you got Max?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I will say I brought up Scotland with my mom
recently as I pointed out to her that King James
first I e. Bible dude is also King James six
of Scotland, and she's like how, I'm like, well, they
merged the lines together and explained HERM like, but yeah,
it's kind of weird. It's a fun little trivia question.
And I also then dropped her the legendary King James
quote where he says, in the eyes of God, kings
(02:42):
are gods too. It's like the most egotistical line I've
ever seen.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
That.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, James always known as a humble dude, as most
rulers are. You know, it's funny. We were talking about
this on a different show that inspired our episode. Today.
Every so often, our beloved Scots will raise the flag
and hold a referendum on regaining the independence that was
lost in seventeen oh seven.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Remember that freedom, Freedom, That's the thing, right. Sorry, sorry,
I'm hung up on brave heart guys. Please Scottish listeners, don't.
I'm not making fun. I love the culture and the
country of Scotland. I'm just purposefully sounding like a rube.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Well, we could say that there is a conspiracy afoot,
because depending upon whom you ask, there will be people
who tell you that every time Scotland pushes for independence,
the United Kingdom sabotages those efforts. Why would they do that, rascals?
It's a you know, maybe a story for a different
(03:44):
day or a different show, But up up, I wonder
what show you're referring to. Men. We'll never know, we
will know we do stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I don't want you to know this show, the podcast,
the movie, the ride, the book. Check out the book
by the way, it's still available anywhere fine books are sold.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, it's a real sexy book. Fine book anyway. In
today's episode, no, we're exploring how Scotland lost its independence
in the first place, and it gets so ridiculous. This
is something we discovered in the course of unrelated research.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, it's true for that other aforementioned show, and it
doesn't start in Scotland. Actually, the real tale unfolds and
a fantastical, terrifying, gif full and severely unconquerable stretch of
jungle known as the Darien Gap.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
We're back, all right. What is the Darien Gap? Surprise, folks,
It is not a gap store in Darien. That was
our first guess. I think I was wanting to get
some slacks, some slacks from the Daryan Gap in gap slacks,
gap slacks. The Gap instead is like roughly a sixty
six or so square mile region of rainforest and unforgiving
(05:08):
mountains between Panama and Columbia. For all of known human history,
it has been untamable. You can't put infrastructure in there. Really,
no big civilization succeed. It's got everything. Stefan voice from SNL,
brutal temperature extremes, dangerous wildlife, criminal cartels, human trafficking, disease, mudslides, gullies.
(05:32):
If you're talking about danger, this place has it all.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Indeed, and on a map, it does kind of look like,
you know, on paper, a pretty solid location strategically, geopolitically,
you know, economically speaking for trade, et cetera. It's the
only land crossing from South to Central America, and it's
very very convenient.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
To the Caribbean.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
It's also right next to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, like you were saying, no, if you just look
at the map, you never actually stepped foot in the gap.
Like a lot of other people throughout history, you might
assume it's kind of the park Place or the Broadway
in the Great Game of Geopolitical Monopoly, and back in
the sixteen hundreds, Scotland made the same assumption. Beat me here, Max.
(06:22):
Holy shit, were they wrong. They were super super wrong.
They were disastrously incorrect. Boy oh boy, they were.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
One thing that we have to understand about this age
of exploration is that as soon as European powers kind
of clocked that there were these vast stretches of land
that contained riches, untold and natural resources over there in
the America. Everybody wanted a piece. It's like the gold
Rush in that way. Everyone's trying to get a piece
(06:50):
of the action. And we do literally mean everyone, Scotland
being no exception.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah. Back in sixteen ninety eight, the Scots made a
trading colony in the Darien Gap and this was part
of something they called the Darien Venture, which is routinely
described optimistically as the most ambitious colonial scheme attempted in
the seventeenth century. And we want to give credit where
(07:17):
it's due. We're getting a lot of this from an
awesome book by John Prebble called The Darien Disaster.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
And this was not cheap and it required, i mean
buy in from regular folks.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
This was something that needed to be crowdsourced in order
to pay for it.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, this is where we introduce our flawed protagonists. There's
a pretty successful Scottish guy named William Patterson Clan Patterson,
our buddy Willie was born in Tinwall in sixteen fifty
eight and he would later go on to found the
Bank of England. So he made his first fortune doing that,
(07:58):
and he also traveled extent throughout the Americas and West Indies.
Dude was a big deal. And when he came back
to Scotland from his aventions abroad, Uh, he said, I'm
gonna make a second fortune. You see, I heard a
story from a sailor.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yes, a yarn, a ripping yarn. Yeah. He was in
London before he came back to Scotland and he met
a sailor. This is his real name, Lionel Wafer, and
he's a big fan of that hard tack. It's doesn't
it sound like one of the fake names we would
make up and improv. Oh my gosh, you know what
(08:40):
ELSEO reminds me of them?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
A name that you might find in the fantastic Seminole
British television series Toast of London.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
One hundred percent. Yes, good call there. Our buddy Lionel
tells r. Pal Willie about this wonderful paradise on Earth,
located in distant exotic Panama. Lionel says, this has a
sheltered bay, the natives are friendly, the land is rich
and fertile. It's a place called Darien. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
(09:12):
Again on paper? Yeah, again on paper, especially if you're
from Scotland. No offense Scotland.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Well no, I mean they not to say that Scotland
doesn't have lush, rolling hills and all that good stuff,
but nothing resembling this type of potentially flourishing ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah. Yeah. And Willie immediately just something about this story
hooks it the idea that Darien could be the future
of Scotland. He says, Look, everybody is getting into this
colonialism game. Why not us? Why not us? Yeah? What
if we start a trading colony right there at the
(09:54):
crossroads of the Atlantic and the Pacific. And he was
already thinking about how how much money you could make,
because this could get This is pre Panama Canal, right,
so this could give you a shortcut through these continents.
Otherwise you have to sail around Cape Horn at the
very bottom of South America, at the deer of South America.
(10:17):
And that's just a bummer. It takes forever. Oh my gosh,
what a hassle. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
So Peterson has dollar signs in his eyes, and he's
looking at the big picture of all of this, and
perhaps he's so kind of enamored by the whole idea
of this, and he used the word that's going to
come up later scheme that he might have overlooked some
of the potential drawbacks.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, he was super hype. Like if you have ever
been brainstorming with your friends on a great idea and
you get crazy optimistic, it's tough to be the person
who says no or the person who says, hey on,
let's really think about this. He didn't have anybody like
that bringing him back to Earth. He didn't have any
(11:04):
no men only yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was straight
up thinking they could pull a wicked and defy gravity.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I was waiting for that reference just in general, just
in life, just expecting let's hold some space with those lyrics,
with a good ridiculous story.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And our buddy Willie says, he writes this down when
he's describing the possibility of a Scottish colony in the
dairy and Gap. He says, this could be the door
to the seas and the key of the universe. Okay, wow,
you know what it is. The door to the seas.
That doesn't seem very practical. I could see the key
(11:41):
to the universe, but door to the seas is a
bit of an odd metaphor. Key to the Universe is
the one that freaks me out a little. But I
think we could both agree this is if nothing else,
this is a bit ambitious, bit pie in the sky
and a bit highlandery. Yes he was experiencing the quickening,
(12:03):
it seems so. Yes. Yeah. It's sixteen ninety three and
Willie helped set up something called the Company of Scotland
Trading to Africa and the Indies in Edinburgh descriptive. I
get what they're about.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Their purpose you couldn't clock it from the name was
to establish a Scottish foothold there on the Isthmus of
Darien in South America, right on top of that famous
gap which they would also need to.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Mind they mind the gap they fall in, which they
kind of did. And he and his partners and this
became an international affair. They said, look, our company is
going to prosper with all this foreign trade, right, we're
going to we're going to control the passage. And you,
(12:54):
fellow local Scottish residents, you can travel with us to
this far flung remote spot. You can settle down there.
You can have your own fortune, your own pursuit of happiness.
You can establish a new life a world away, your
own copy of the Key to the Universe. Mm hmm, yeah, your.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
It really is a massive sales pitch, oh h to
the Scottish people. Like like we were saying earlier, this
is an early example of kind of crowdfunding something because
they certainly you know, were putting out He was putting
up his own money, of course, but it was going
to be such an expensive proposition that they needed some
serious help.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
In order to do that, they had to sell this idea,
and sell they did. Big shout out to Ben Johnson
over at Historic UK dot com who breaks down some
of the blow by blow here to be completely crystal clear,
this is a crazy.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Idea, absolutely bonkers. After a certain threshold, As you point out,
Ben and your in your outline here going to paraphrase,
this ambition often meets with some diminishing returns and it's
very important at this point in our story to wrap
our heads around that. I think we've been teasing this already,
(14:12):
but Scotland was in a state of massive national crisis
and this was almost being presented as.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
A path forward. One hundred percent. Yeah, if we go
to doctor Mike Ibiji, writing for the BBC. Then we
get a sense of just how dire the situation had
become at home. This is a little bit of a
longer quote, so let's round robin it. Here we go.
Decades of warfare had combined with seven years of famine
(14:42):
to 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 England's continual wars against
continental Europe, and its homegrown industries were withering on the vibe.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
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 richer neighbor south.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Of the border. And then, I mean not only did
they need this economically, I mean morale was super low.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
This would be a way to kind of regain some
national pride after all of this misfortune.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And now we see that there's not just a need
for this, but there's a time window. The clock is
ticking down, so this had to work. This could be
a life saving move for Scotland. And more and more
people were saying, do we have any other options. Our
friends at the Company of Scotland. They go to some
(15:50):
associates who are English and Dutch, and half of the
capital for the crazy plan here comes from English Dutch investors,
the other half entirely from Scotland. However, things went sour
almost immediately, and to be fair, they went sour due
to forces outside of Scottish control. A big company conspired
(16:13):
against them.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Oh yeah, one of the big ones, the big big
bads of history, the infamous East India trading company Boom Max.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Give us a boo here a louder one. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
They were putting a ton of pressure on England to
pull out of this investment.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
The scheme, oh yeah, and we should point this out
because we mentioned it a few times. Scheme has a
sinister or sleazy connotation here in American English or US English,
but in European English.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Scheming plans plan Yeah, yeah, And I mean I think
when I was pointing out the kind of I think
I was definitely leaning into the English connotations around that
at the top of the show.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
But that's not what they were going for here.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Though, looking back on it in history, that English interpretation
kind of tracks a little better than plan.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
They Yeah, that's the thing. There is a conspiracy here.
The East India boys had this monopoly on trade and
they were very serious players in the game. They wanted
to eradicate all possible competition as soon as possible. Yeah,
by any means necessary. They've got bodies they can claim,
just like the just like the Big Mule Lobby and
(17:36):
the US Cable Core.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Okay, maybe a little worse, but fair enough, arguably a
bit worse that. You know, there's tons of fiction that
involves the East India Training Company as well, just as
like these sinister Illuminati type pullers of the strings of
commerce and history.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
One of the first most dangerousnational corporations right and inherently
tied into the politics of the Crown at the time.
So it came to pass that they used their monopolistic
leverage to force all of the English funding out of
the game at the last minute, at the eleventh hour.
(18:18):
The Dutch dipped out as well, so Scotland is left
holding the bag. They become the soul investors. But they
feel they're too far along, Like you were saying earlier,
they need a win, so they just had to keep
selling the play and sort of pray that it worked
out in the end.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah, So they just onward and hopefully upward. It was
their trajectory at this point. At first it seemed like
it might be salvageable. They had been, of course betrayed,
you know one time of many by England and their
corporate entities or extensions of the Crown in the East
India Company. Scotland was able to lean on its own
(18:59):
native kind of businessmen and politicians I luminaries for more support.
This included we're getting to now extending the offer to
thousands of ordinary Scottish people who were invited to invest
in the expedition. I think around five hundred thousand pounds
(19:21):
of Scottish people's money went into this. And since we
don't know the exact year, unfortunately we can't give that
one a boop. But what we do know is that
this comprised about half of the national capital available like overall.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, it's for modern comparison, folks, it's as though everybody
in the United States got a clarion call. They took
all the extra money they had and they put half
of it into making a space mission. So we are
not exaggerating. This is not hyperbole. Literally, almost every Scottish
person who had five pounds to spare invested in this scheme.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Somehow two tuppens to rub together got thrown into this scheme.
A quote from the BBC article that we mentioned before
by Ben Johnson. The money was used to fit out
five ships for the expedition. The Unicorn, great name for
a ship. Saint Andrew Caledonia also.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Really cool name.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
A couple cool names coming up too, Endeavor like that
one very spacelike. We have a spaceship called the Endeavor
and the Dolphin, which I just dig Despite efforts by
the English authorities to block them, the English ambassador to
Holland even threatened to embargo any merchants who traded with
the new company, so.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Really really continuing to.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Ratchet up the pressure there and make sure that nobody
was going to come to the aid of Scotland.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
And we know that thousands, as you mentioned, thousands of
Scottish people volunteer to travel on these five ships. And
they said, look, we're a lot of these people honestly
are fighting with famine at home. There are a lot
of disaffected veterans of previous wars and they're looking for
(21:08):
the next chapter in their lives. So thousands of people
are moving to the tune of William Patterson and his
founders or his co founders. And it was all inspired
by a single guy, by the toll tales of a sailor.
If Lionel Wafer was not lying, he was at least
in Belisheet a little bit. These guys had a wildly
(21:30):
optimistic view of what they would find in the Darien Gap.
And you know, you can tell they have big plans
by going to the manifest, the cargo manifest of the
first expedition. They weren't bringing well, they were obviously bringing
some survival equipment, but they also brought a lot of
(21:50):
chochke's that they thought they could sell to the native people,
not particularly clued in to the lay of the land.
There wigs.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
What are you going to do with boxes of wigs?
What are the native people going to do with wigs?
Even like I don't know it does it's very very
tone deaf, the whole thing. And you know, another thing
to think about too, is that these Scott's, these you know,
normal citizens who went along for this right, they'd already
lost so much and experienced so much hardship and lost
(22:22):
that even the unknown of this to them was worth
the risk. However, it was being sold to them as this,
you know, new world kind of adventure, you know, finding
this like paradise, you know in the Darien Gap.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
And I don't know, Ben, do you think this was.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Like an active grift or was it really just an
example of like putting the cart before the horse and
kind of overly optimistic outlook on what was maybe to come.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, the latter Patterson very much believed in this and
as a as a patriot, he was being sincere in
genuine in that he honestly believed this would work. And
so the Darien scheme now is more than an exciting
business venture. It is a matter of national pride. It
is patriotism. It's everybody chipping in to save Scotland, that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
So the first expedition begins, sets forth and arrives. Writing
for BBC History, doctor Mike Ebeggie puts it this way.
The ship sets sail from Leith Harbor on fourth July
sixteen ninety eight, under the command of Captain Robert Penachem.
Of the twelve hundred settlers in the first expedition, only
he and William Patterson knew of their destination, which was
(23:43):
outlined in sealed packages to be open only once the
ships were on the open sea. They're protecting their what
their investment here. They're making sure that there's no espionage
that like clocks the location and beats them to it.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Part of it. And we remember those Spanish forces are
very active at this point in time as well. But
another part is they already have the English opposition, so
if they let word get out about their destination, things
may get complicated. So it takes a while to travel
across the ocean at this time. They don't land until
(24:17):
November two. Seventy people die on the way. Okay, not
a great start.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
However, those that did arrive remained optimistic and they named
the peninsula that they landed on in New Caledonia and
started the work of building a series of homesteads, you know,
a settlement.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And this is where we go to some primary sources.
Our pal Willie Patterson is pretty honest about this in retrospect.
He by the way, just spoiler. He later goes on
to repair his reputation by giving a very objective, unforgiving
review of the events. But they arrive at this initial site,
(25:02):
he describes it as quote Emir Morass, neither fit to
be fortified, nor planted, nor indeed for the men to
lie upon. We were clearing and making huts upon this
improper place near two months, in which time Experience the
school Master of Fools convinced our masters that the new place,
now called Fort Saint Andrew, was a more proper place
(25:24):
for us. And I want to take a second and
just say how beautiful that writing is. Experience the school
Master of.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Fools indeed, and the idea of an improper place neither
fit to be fortified nor planted. So within the fort
they started to build the huts of what would.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Then be named New Edinburgh. Makes sense they were still
putting new in front of all the names.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
That's right, of course, And yeah, like you do when
you're I mean, they're trying to again, they're trying to
extend their home to this new land, and so it
may sense that they would use familiar city names, kind
of like a sister city situation. However, they soon found
that the land was also completely unsuited for the kind
of agriculture they were familiar with, and the native people
(26:14):
there were super not down for combs, wigs and mirrors.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, and the weather was rough because this is the
Darien Gap. So spring of sixteen ninety nine we're talking delugious,
torrential rain, biblical rain. And with that came a lack
of sanitation and of course disease. So if you go
to March of sixteen ninety nine, more than two hundred
(26:41):
of the original colonists have died and things are just
getting worse. The death rate is now over ten people
a day. So you wake up and you wonder which
ten of the folks you know are now dead. Yeah,
really bad news.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
And to add insult to injury, the trade ships that
were sent out to retrieve supplies came back with the
news that all English ships and colonies surprise, surprise, were
forbidden from trading with the Scots by order of the
king himself.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah, so the other European outposts that you could ask
for help, they can't mess with you. And one ship
doesn't one ship doesn't make it off the sea at all.
The dolphin was captured by the Spanish over there the Spanish.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Main and it's its crew imprisoned. So it's likely that
the folks who never made it to the gap in
the first place. However, may have actually had an easier
going than one member of the first expedition, a young
(27:53):
man named Robert Oswald, wrote a very graphic and detailed
account of his experience in the colony, and ben, maybe
we should do a little round robin of this one.
I think it's worth beating the whole thing because it
really does paint quite the picture.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yeah, when I was doing the research for this, this
really stood out to me because it's long and it's graphic,
but it's important to hear it. Oswald begins by noting
the settlers lived on less than a pound of flour
per week per person. And get this, the flower was moldy.
It was gross. So he goes into detail. He goes
(28:31):
into detail about his terrible experience. And he here's what
he says, What don't you pop the top on this one?
Sure thing?
Speaker 3 (28:40):
But when boiled with a little water without anything else,
big maggots and worms must be skimmed off the top.
In short, a man might easily have destroyed his whole
week's rations in one day and have but one ordinary
stomach neither Yet for all this short allowance, every man
(29:00):
let him never be so weak. Daily turned out to
work by daylight, whether with the hatchet or wheelbarrow, pickaxe, shovel,
fore hammer, or any other instrument the case required.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
And so continued until twelve o'clock, and to two again,
and stayed till night, sometimes working all day up to
the headbands of the breeches and water at the trenches.
My shoulders have been so war with carrying burdens that
the skin has come off them and grew full of boils.
If a man were sick, Oswald continues, and obliged to
(29:35):
stay within no victuals for him that day, which just
to step out here means if you took a sick day,
you would starve here, he continues. Our counselors, all the while,
lying at their ease, sometimes divided into factions, and being
swayed by particular interest, ruined the public. Our bodies pined
(29:55):
away and grew so macerated with such allowance that we
were like so many skeletons, so many skeletons.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Also excellent writing, great find there Ben. The Darien disaster
by John Prebble you've mentioned previously is an excellent account
of this, and I believe that's where that quote came.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
From Yeah, and we also know we also know that Patterson,
like despite the fact that clearly Oswald is saying the
people at the top were not putting in the same effort.
You know, he says, they're lying at ease, they're fighting
with themselves. Patterson is the leader of this group and
(30:39):
he still has a terrible time even though he's at
the top. He loses his wife, his dreams clearly go wrong.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
You're right, and he really was a true believer in
this plan. I mean, he wasn't trying to builk anybody
to his credit.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, there's a final straw. There's news that the Spanish
are going to plan an attack on the colony. So
this settlers run off to the sea panicking. They abandoned
the settlement. There are four ships that fled the colony
and only one made it back to Scotland with.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Less than three hundred folks on board. And you'd think
this was the end of the whole mess. Unfortunately there
is more. There was, in fact, a second expedition that
left Scotland in August of sixteen ninety nine, and they
didn't know what they were in for, you know, with
the distance and the arduousness of the expedition.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
There was no way of getting word back. It reminds
me a bit of the Russian fleet that was traveling
in our earlier episode about the Japanese or the Russo
Japanese War. That's right, because they were sailing for months
and they had no idea what happened to the first folks, Oh, Noel,
the second expedition, we've got three ships, their flagship is
(31:56):
the Rising Sun. Altogether they carry thirteen hundred and two people.
One hundred and sixty of those folks are never going
to make it across the ocean. They die on the way.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Now, and this is all too common with these kinds
of sea expeditions. I mean, it's just there's no way
around it. It really is a bit of a roll
of the dice as to who's going to make it
to the destination. Finding the colony completely abandoned, they started
to go about the process, the arduous task of rebuilding it.
(32:28):
But the second colony didn't do a whole heck of
a lot better than the first. Understandably, the conditions were
just not conducive to settlement m hm.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
And we know that everybody was looking for someone to blame.
One Presbyterian minister in the second expedition immediately said the
harsh conditions had driven the colonists away from God and
said it's your fault. He specifically wrote, our land has
spewed out its scout. We could not veiled to get
(33:00):
that wicked diss restrained, all the growth of its stopped. Ooh,
spewed out its scum. He was like, you guys are barbarians.
You've become monsters, and that's why everybody is sick and dying.
You are damn need a lot of you.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
He felt that the disease and all of the harsh
conditions were a it's like a Sodom and Gomorra type situation.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Or something like.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
This was a form of divine punishment rained down from
the heavens.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
And add to that the constant, very real and actionable
threat of Spanish attacks no support from any of the
English colonies. This inspires one officer, a young guy named
Captain Alexander Campbell, to organize a pre emptive strike against
Spanish forces that are massing along the mainland. Their attack
(33:57):
is successful, It's a surprise attack, but all it does,
all this victory does is piss off the Spanish, and
the Spanish finally say okay, we're going to come down
with a hammer now, that's right.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And they're led by Governor General Pimento. That's how it's
waiver and Pemiento, like a delightful snack led this massive
fleet and an army that besieged Fort Saint Andrew.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
And Fort Saint Andrew, outmatched, out gunned, they finally surrender
in March of seventeen hundred. As a condition of the surrender,
the surviving Scottish colonists are permitted to leave the fort peacefully,
to board their ships and make it back to Scotland.
Only a handful do, and the blow of Scottish morale
(34:50):
is incalculable. The colonists who did return, they were pariahs
in their own land. They were now living representations of
this amazing plan that went so wrong.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
What was meant to be a way to regain some
national sense of pride and also financial stability had the
exact opposite effect, really set them back even further.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
It's really sad. Yeah. Some years later, Patterson was granted
a pension, a pretty good pension for the time, but
he died a broken man. Despite having done so many
astonishing things in his life. The Darien scheme shipwrecked the
Scottish economy overall, like people had lost their lives, savings
(35:41):
left and right. Scotland was incapable of continuing as an
independent nation. You have to wonder was England steepling its
fingers the whole time? Was this their endgame? I think
so very.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I mean, look, we know that they can be some
pretty calculating beat me here, Max, of course, But yeah,
I don't know, man, I think it's certainly whether or
not it was the ultimate end game.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
They certainly weren't mad about it. That's a good That's
very diplomatic, that's a good way to put it. They
were at the very least opportunistic because seven years after
everything goes terrible in Darien, Scotland is forced to concede
to the Active Union to sign the Treaty of Union,
becoming the junior partner in the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
(36:33):
So they had to take the back seat. As part
of the deal, England pays off Scotland's debts. Was something
they call the equivalent and I just love that term,
you know.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Very diplomatic in and of itself, right, you should have
the equivalentnes indeed.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah. This also led to the establishment of.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
The Royal Bank of Scotland as an entity to administer
and you know, distribute and invest this money.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
And not to sound too cynical here, but Noel riddled
me this. Why do the banks always seem to come
out on top? Can't fight city hall? Can't fight city hall.
That that is our show for today. That is the
true ridiculous story of how Scotland lost its independence due
to the Darien scheme. We can't thank you enough for
(37:25):
tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians, but here we go. Thank you.
We're gonna try. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Huge thanks to you ridiculous historians, Yes, you, as well
as to super producer Max the Hagis Williams.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yes, I was hoping you would do it all right.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Max long Shanks Williams remember that character. He was the
big bad in Braveheart. Sorry, I'm coming back to Braveheart, Williams.
I kind of think that Scottish people don't like Braveheart
because I think there's I think there were some like
liberties taken with the.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Depiction of that whole Absolutely, I think that's right. Sorry,
I keep bringing it. Have you seen have you, guys,
ever seen a film made about US history that is
not made by people from the US. One of the
Patriot he No, he was in it. Gibson was in it.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
I'm just trying to name another Mel Gibson pe apocalypto.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Uh. Speaking of segues. Thank you also to Alex Williams
who composed this bank and track. Christopher hasiotis Eve's jeffcoat
here in spirit. I was our research associate for their
work and killer job.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
And also, by the way, you are also as as
you always are, the research associate for the stuff they
don't want you to know episode about the Darien Gap,
which is less about the Scottish aspect and just more about.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
It being kind of this corridor for human trafficking. Yes,
do check out our episode there, and thank you for
recommending that. No, we've got other people to thank too,
like the Rude Dude's a ridiculous crime, big time. And
of course now we are going to call it a
day because we're going to hop off the mic and
have an intense conversation about Haggis. Thanks so much, ah Man,
(39:11):
to you as well. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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