Latest / Ridiculous History / The Darién Gap, or: the Real Reason Scotland Lost Its Independence

Transcript

The Darién Gap, or: the Real Reason Scotland Lost Its Independence · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: myth Legend super producer mister Max Williams. Hello, Hello Max?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Who's that woo waing over? There?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Is that you?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Noel Brown? Oh?
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: You know, I like a good wu and to wo
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: you with history. And by you I mean the ridiculous
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: historians at home.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I think we all do. I am Ben Bollen and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: we are we are following up on a guys. I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: don't think any of us have been to Scotland right,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: not yet. No, I haven't. But I've seen Trainspotting in
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Brave Heart. Does that count?
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got the full history of Scotland in those
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: two films, Past and Present.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: You're plugged in, You're plugged in. Max also, has not
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: been a Scotland, but it's currently part of the United Kingdom.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: This was not always the case. In fact, Scotland became
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a part of the UK as recently as seventeen o seven,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: but it's still a very different part of the world.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: You know, It's got its own culture, its own cuisine.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I thought of another Scotland movie, Highlander series
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: that's like Scotland of the future but also the past.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: It's weird the way those movies work.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, do check out the entirety of the franchise
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: before you write to our complaint department. Jonathan Strickland at
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Com, especially the third one I think is called The Quickening.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Maybe did I make that up? Or is that a
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: dune thing?
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Well? The Quickening is what happens when you kill another
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: immortal in the Highlander franchise.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Oh no, Highlander two is subtitled The Quickening, and Highlander
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: two is mega weird. It's like very futuristic and very
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: very strange.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a time jump in there, right big time.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: What you got Max?
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I will say I brought up Scotland with my mom
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: recently as I pointed out to her that King James
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: first I e. Bible dude is also King James six
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: of Scotland, and she's like how, I'm like, well, they
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: merged the lines together and explained HERM like, but yeah,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: it's kind of weird. It's a fun little trivia question.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And I also then dropped her the legendary King James
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: quote where he says, in the eyes of God, kings
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: are gods too. It's like the most egotistical line I've
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: ever seen.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: That.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, James always known as a humble dude, as most
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: rulers are. You know, it's funny. We were talking about
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: this on a different show that inspired our episode. Today.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Every so often, our beloved Scots will raise the flag
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and hold a referendum on regaining the independence that was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: lost in seventeen oh seven.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Remember that freedom, Freedom, That's the thing, right. Sorry, sorry,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: I'm hung up on brave heart guys. Please Scottish listeners, don't.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not making fun. I love the culture and the
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: country of Scotland. I'm just purposefully sounding like a rube.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Well, we could say that there is a conspiracy afoot,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: because depending upon whom you ask, there will be people
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: who tell you that every time Scotland pushes for independence,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the United Kingdom sabotages those efforts. Why would they do that, rascals?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: It's a you know, maybe a story for a different
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: day or a different show, But up up, I wonder
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: what show you're referring to. Men. We'll never know, we
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: will know we do stuff.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I don't want you to know this show, the podcast,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: the movie, the ride, the book. Check out the book
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: by the way, it's still available anywhere fine books are sold.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a real sexy book. Fine book anyway. In
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: today's episode, no, we're exploring how Scotland lost its independence
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: in the first place, and it gets so ridiculous. This
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: is something we discovered in the course of unrelated research.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true for that other aforementioned show, and it
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: doesn't start in Scotland. Actually, the real tale unfolds and
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: a fantastical, terrifying, gif full and severely unconquerable stretch of
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: jungle known as the Darien Gap.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: We're back, all right. What is the Darien Gap? Surprise, folks,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: It is not a gap store in Darien. That was
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: our first guess. I think I was wanting to get
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: some slacks, some slacks from the Daryan Gap in gap slacks,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: gap slacks. The Gap instead is like roughly a sixty
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: six or so square mile region of rainforest and unforgiving
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: mountains between Panama and Columbia. For all of known human history,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: it has been untamable. You can't put infrastructure in there. Really,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: no big civilization succeed. It's got everything. Stefan voice from SNL,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: brutal temperature extremes, dangerous wildlife, criminal cartels, human trafficking, disease, mudslides, gullies.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: If you're talking about danger, this place has it all.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Indeed, and on a map, it does kind of look like,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: you know, on paper, a pretty solid location strategically, geopolitically,
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: you know, economically speaking for trade, et cetera. It's the
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: only land crossing from South to Central America, and it's
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: very very convenient.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: To the Caribbean.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: It's also right next to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you were saying, no, if you just look
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: at the map, you never actually stepped foot in the gap.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Like a lot of other people throughout history, you might
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: assume it's kind of the park Place or the Broadway
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: in the Great Game of Geopolitical Monopoly, and back in
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the sixteen hundreds, Scotland made the same assumption. Beat me here, Max.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Holy shit, were they wrong. They were super super wrong.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: They were disastrously incorrect. Boy oh boy, they were.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: One thing that we have to understand about this age
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: of exploration is that as soon as European powers kind
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: of clocked that there were these vast stretches of land
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: that contained riches, untold and natural resources over there in
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: the America. Everybody wanted a piece. It's like the gold
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Rush in that way. Everyone's trying to get a piece
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: of the action. And we do literally mean everyone, Scotland
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: being no exception.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Back in sixteen ninety eight, the Scots made a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: trading colony in the Darien Gap and this was part
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: of something they called the Darien Venture, which is routinely
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: described optimistically as the most ambitious colonial scheme attempted in
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the seventeenth century. And we want to give credit where
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: it's due. We're getting a lot of this from an
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: awesome book by John Prebble called The Darien Disaster.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: And this was not cheap and it required, i mean
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: buy in from regular folks.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: This was something that needed to be crowdsourced in order
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: to pay for it.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is where we introduce our flawed protagonists. There's
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a pretty successful Scottish guy named William Patterson Clan Patterson,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: our buddy Willie was born in Tinwall in sixteen fifty
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: eight and he would later go on to found the
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Bank of England. So he made his first fortune doing that,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and he also traveled extent throughout the Americas and West Indies.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Dude was a big deal. And when he came back
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: to Scotland from his aventions abroad, Uh, he said, I'm
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: gonna make a second fortune. You see, I heard a
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: story from a sailor.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Ah.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, a yarn, a ripping yarn. Yeah. He was in
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: London before he came back to Scotland and he met
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: a sailor. This is his real name, Lionel Wafer, and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: he's a big fan of that hard tack. It's doesn't
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: it sound like one of the fake names we would
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: make up and improv. Oh my gosh, you know what
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: ELSEO reminds me of them?
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: A name that you might find in the fantastic Seminole
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: British television series Toast of London.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yes, good call there. Our buddy Lionel
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: tells r. Pal Willie about this wonderful paradise on Earth,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: located in distant exotic Panama. Lionel says, this has a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: sheltered bay, the natives are friendly, the land is rich
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: and fertile. It's a place called Darien. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Again on paper? Yeah, again on paper, especially if you're
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: from Scotland. No offense Scotland.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Well no, I mean they not to say that Scotland
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: doesn't have lush, rolling hills and all that good stuff,
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: but nothing resembling this type of potentially flourishing ecosystem.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And Willie immediately just something about this story
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: hooks it the idea that Darien could be the future
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: of Scotland. He says, Look, everybody is getting into this
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: colonialism game. Why not us? Why not us? Yeah? What
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: if we start a trading colony right there at the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: crossroads of the Atlantic and the Pacific. And he was
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: already thinking about how how much money you could make,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: because this could get This is pre Panama Canal, right,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: so this could give you a shortcut through these continents.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Otherwise you have to sail around Cape Horn at the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: very bottom of South America, at the deer of South America.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And that's just a bummer. It takes forever. Oh my gosh,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: what a hassle. Yeah, it's true.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: So Peterson has dollar signs in his eyes, and he's
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: looking at the big picture of all of this, and
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: perhaps he's so kind of enamored by the whole idea
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: of this, and he used the word that's going to
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: come up later scheme that he might have overlooked some
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: of the potential drawbacks.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was super hype. Like if you have ever
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: been brainstorming with your friends on a great idea and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you get crazy optimistic, it's tough to be the person
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: who says no or the person who says, hey on,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: let's really think about this. He didn't have anybody like
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: that bringing him back to Earth. He didn't have any
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: no men only yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was straight
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: up thinking they could pull a wicked and defy gravity.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I was waiting for that reference just in general, just
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: in life, just expecting let's hold some space with those lyrics,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: with a good ridiculous story.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And our buddy Willie says, he writes this down when
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: he's describing the possibility of a Scottish colony in the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: dairy and Gap. He says, this could be the door
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to the seas and the key of the universe. Okay, wow,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: you know what it is. The door to the seas.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: That doesn't seem very practical. I could see the key
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: to the universe, but door to the seas is a
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: bit of an odd metaphor. Key to the Universe is
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the one that freaks me out a little. But I
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: think we could both agree this is if nothing else,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: this is a bit ambitious, bit pie in the sky
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: and a bit highlandery. Yes he was experiencing the quickening,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: it seems so. Yes. Yeah. It's sixteen ninety three and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Willie helped set up something called the Company of Scotland
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Trading to Africa and the Indies in Edinburgh descriptive. I
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: get what they're about.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Their purpose you couldn't clock it from the name was
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: to establish a Scottish foothold there on the Isthmus of
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Darien in South America, right on top of that famous
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: gap which they would also need to.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Mind they mind the gap they fall in, which they
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: kind of did. And he and his partners and this
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: became an international affair. They said, look, our company is
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: going to prosper with all this foreign trade, right, we're
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: going to we're going to control the passage. And you,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: fellow local Scottish residents, you can travel with us to
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: this far flung remote spot. You can settle down there.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: You can have your own fortune, your own pursuit of happiness.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: You can establish a new life a world away, your
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: own copy of the Key to the Universe. Mm hmm, yeah, your.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: It really is a massive sales pitch, oh h to
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: the Scottish people. Like like we were saying earlier, this
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: is an early example of kind of crowdfunding something because
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: they certainly you know, were putting out He was putting
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: up his own money, of course, but it was going
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: to be such an expensive proposition that they needed some
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: serious help.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: In order to do that, they had to sell this idea,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and sell they did. Big shout out to Ben Johnson
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: over at Historic UK dot com who breaks down some
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of the blow by blow here to be completely crystal clear,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: this is a crazy.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Idea, absolutely bonkers. After a certain threshold, As you point out,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Ben and your in your outline here going to paraphrase,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: this ambition often meets with some diminishing returns and it's
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: very important at this point in our story to wrap
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: our heads around that. I think we've been teasing this already,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: but Scotland was in a state of massive national crisis
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: and this was almost being presented as.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: A path forward. One hundred percent. Yeah, if we go
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: to doctor Mike Ibiji, writing for the BBC. Then we
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: get a sense of just how dire the situation had
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: become at home. This is a little bit of a
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: longer quote, so let's round robin it. Here we go.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Decades of warfare had combined with seven years of famine
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to drive people from their homesteads and choke the cities
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: with homeless vagrants starving to death in the streets. The
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: nation's trade had been crippled by England's continual wars against
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: continental Europe, and its homegrown industries were withering on the vibe.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Something had to be done, Some way had to be
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: found to revive Scotland's economic fortunes before it got swallowed
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: up by its much richer neighbor south.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Of the border. And then, I mean not only did
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: they need this economically, I mean morale was super low.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: This would be a way to kind of regain some
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: national pride after all of this misfortune.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And now we see that there's not just a need
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: for this, but there's a time window. The clock is
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: ticking down, so this had to work. This could be
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: a life saving move for Scotland. And more and more
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: people were saying, do we have any other options. Our
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: friends at the Company of Scotland. They go to some
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: associates who are English and Dutch, and half of the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: capital for the crazy plan here comes from English Dutch investors,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the other half entirely from Scotland. However, things went sour
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: almost immediately, and to be fair, they went sour due
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: to forces outside of Scottish control. A big company conspired
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: against them.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, one of the big ones, the big big
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: bads of history, the infamous East India trading company Boom Max.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Give us a boo here a louder one. Yeah, for sure.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: They were putting a ton of pressure on England to
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: pull out of this investment.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: The scheme, oh yeah, and we should point this out
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: because we mentioned it a few times. Scheme has a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: sinister or sleazy connotation here in American English or US English,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: but in European English.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Scheming plans plan Yeah, yeah, And I mean I think
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: when I was pointing out the kind of I think
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: I was definitely leaning into the English connotations around that
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: at the top of the show.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: But that's not what they were going for here.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Though, looking back on it in history, that English interpretation
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: kind of tracks a little better than plan.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: They Yeah, that's the thing. There is a conspiracy here.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: The East India boys had this monopoly on trade and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: they were very serious players in the game. They wanted
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: to eradicate all possible competition as soon as possible. Yeah,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: by any means necessary. They've got bodies they can claim,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: just like the just like the Big Mule Lobby and
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the US Cable Core.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, maybe a little worse, but fair enough, arguably a
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: bit worse that. You know, there's tons of fiction that
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: involves the East India Training Company as well, just as
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: like these sinister Illuminati type pullers of the strings of
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: commerce and history.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: One of the first most dangerousnational corporations right and inherently
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: tied into the politics of the Crown at the time.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: So it came to pass that they used their monopolistic
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: leverage to force all of the English funding out of
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the game at the last minute, at the eleventh hour.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: The Dutch dipped out as well, so Scotland is left
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: holding the bag. They become the soul investors. But they
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: feel they're too far along, Like you were saying earlier,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: they need a win, so they just had to keep
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: selling the play and sort of pray that it worked
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: out in the end.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So they just onward and hopefully upward. It was
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: their trajectory at this point. At first it seemed like
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: it might be salvageable. They had been, of course betrayed,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: you know one time of many by England and their
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: corporate entities or extensions of the Crown in the East
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: India Company. Scotland was able to lean on its own
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: native kind of businessmen and politicians I luminaries for more support.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: This included we're getting to now extending the offer to
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: thousands of ordinary Scottish people who were invited to invest
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: in the expedition. I think around five hundred thousand pounds
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: of Scottish people's money went into this. And since we
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: don't know the exact year, unfortunately we can't give that
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: one a boop. But what we do know is that
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: this comprised about half of the national capital available like overall.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's for modern comparison, folks, it's as though everybody
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: in the United States got a clarion call. They took
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: all the extra money they had and they put half
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of it into making a space mission. So we are
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: not exaggerating. This is not hyperbole. Literally, almost every Scottish
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: person who had five pounds to spare invested in this scheme.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Somehow two tuppens to rub together got thrown into this scheme.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: A quote from the BBC article that we mentioned before
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: by Ben Johnson. The money was used to fit out
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: five ships for the expedition. The Unicorn, great name for
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: a ship. Saint Andrew Caledonia also.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Really cool name.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: A couple cool names coming up too, Endeavor like that
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: one very spacelike. We have a spaceship called the Endeavor
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: and the Dolphin, which I just dig Despite efforts by
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: the English authorities to block them, the English ambassador to
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Holland even threatened to embargo any merchants who traded with
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: the new company, so.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Really really continuing to.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Ratchet up the pressure there and make sure that nobody
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: was going to come to the aid of Scotland.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And we know that thousands, as you mentioned, thousands of
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Scottish people volunteer to travel on these five ships. And
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: they said, look, we're a lot of these people honestly
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: are fighting with famine at home. There are a lot
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: of disaffected veterans of previous wars and they're looking for
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the next chapter in their lives. So thousands of people
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: are moving to the tune of William Patterson and his
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: founders or his co founders. And it was all inspired
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: by a single guy, by the toll tales of a sailor.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: If Lionel Wafer was not lying, he was at least
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: in Belisheet a little bit. These guys had a wildly
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: optimistic view of what they would find in the Darien Gap.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And you know, you can tell they have big plans
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: by going to the manifest, the cargo manifest of the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: first expedition. They weren't bringing well, they were obviously bringing
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: some survival equipment, but they also brought a lot of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: chochke's that they thought they could sell to the native people,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: not particularly clued in to the lay of the land.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: There wigs.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: What are you going to do with boxes of wigs?
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: What are the native people going to do with wigs?
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Even like I don't know it does it's very very
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: tone deaf, the whole thing. And you know, another thing
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: to think about too, is that these Scott's, these you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: normal citizens who went along for this right, they'd already
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: lost so much and experienced so much hardship and lost
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: that even the unknown of this to them was worth
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: the risk. However, it was being sold to them as this,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: you know, new world kind of adventure, you know, finding
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: this like paradise, you know in the Darien Gap.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, Ben, do you think this was.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Like an active grift or was it really just an
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: example of like putting the cart before the horse and
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: kind of overly optimistic outlook on what was maybe to come.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the latter Patterson very much believed in this and
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: as a as a patriot, he was being sincere in
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: genuine in that he honestly believed this would work. And
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: so the Darien scheme now is more than an exciting
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: business venture. It is a matter of national pride. It
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: is patriotism. It's everybody chipping in to save Scotland, that's right.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: So the first expedition begins, sets forth and arrives. Writing
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: for BBC History, doctor Mike Ebeggie puts it this way.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: The ship sets sail from Leith Harbor on fourth July
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: sixteen ninety eight, under the command of Captain Robert Penachem.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Of the twelve hundred settlers in the first expedition, only
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: he and William Patterson knew of their destination, which was
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: outlined in sealed packages to be open only once the
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: ships were on the open sea. They're protecting their what
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: their investment here. They're making sure that there's no espionage
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: that like clocks the location and beats them to it.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Part of it. And we remember those Spanish forces are
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: very active at this point in time as well. But
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: another part is they already have the English opposition, so
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: if they let word get out about their destination, things
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: may get complicated. So it takes a while to travel
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: across the ocean at this time. They don't land until
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: November two. Seventy people die on the way. Okay, not
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a great start.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: However, those that did arrive remained optimistic and they named
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: the peninsula that they landed on in New Caledonia and
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: started the work of building a series of homesteads, you know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: a settlement.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And this is where we go to some primary sources.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Our pal Willie Patterson is pretty honest about this in retrospect.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: He by the way, just spoiler. He later goes on
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to repair his reputation by giving a very objective, unforgiving
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: review of the events. But they arrive at this initial site,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: he describes it as quote Emir Morass, neither fit to
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: be fortified, nor planted, nor indeed for the men to
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: lie upon. We were clearing and making huts upon this
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: improper place near two months, in which time Experience the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: school Master of Fools convinced our masters that the new place,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: now called Fort Saint Andrew, was a more proper place
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: for us. And I want to take a second and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: just say how beautiful that writing is. Experience the school
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Master of.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Fools indeed, and the idea of an improper place neither
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: fit to be fortified nor planted. So within the fort
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: they started to build the huts of what would.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Then be named New Edinburgh. Makes sense they were still
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: putting new in front of all the names.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: That's right, of course, And yeah, like you do when
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: you're I mean, they're trying to again, they're trying to
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: extend their home to this new land, and so it
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: may sense that they would use familiar city names, kind
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: of like a sister city situation. However, they soon found
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: that the land was also completely unsuited for the kind
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: of agriculture they were familiar with, and the native people
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: there were super not down for combs, wigs and mirrors.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the weather was rough because this is the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Darien Gap. So spring of sixteen ninety nine we're talking delugious,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: torrential rain, biblical rain. And with that came a lack
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: of sanitation and of course disease. So if you go
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: to March of sixteen ninety nine, more than two hundred
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of the original colonists have died and things are just
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: getting worse. The death rate is now over ten people
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: a day. So you wake up and you wonder which
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: ten of the folks you know are now dead. Yeah,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: really bad news.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: And to add insult to injury, the trade ships that
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: were sent out to retrieve supplies came back with the
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: news that all English ships and colonies surprise, surprise, were
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: forbidden from trading with the Scots by order of the
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: king himself.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the other European outposts that you could ask
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: for help, they can't mess with you. And one ship
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: doesn't one ship doesn't make it off the sea at all.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: The dolphin was captured by the Spanish over there the Spanish.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Main and it's its crew imprisoned. So it's likely that
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: the folks who never made it to the gap in
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: the first place. However, may have actually had an easier
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: going than one member of the first expedition, a young
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: man named Robert Oswald, wrote a very graphic and detailed
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: account of his experience in the colony, and ben, maybe
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: we should do a little round robin of this one.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: I think it's worth beating the whole thing because it
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: really does paint quite the picture.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when I was doing the research for this, this
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: really stood out to me because it's long and it's graphic,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: but it's important to hear it. Oswald begins by noting
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the settlers lived on less than a pound of flour
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: per week per person. And get this, the flower was moldy.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It was gross. So he goes into detail. He goes
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: into detail about his terrible experience. And he here's what
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: he says, What don't you pop the top on this one?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Sure thing?
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: But when boiled with a little water without anything else,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: big maggots and worms must be skimmed off the top.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: In short, a man might easily have destroyed his whole
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: week's rations in one day and have but one ordinary
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: stomach neither Yet for all this short allowance, every man
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: let him never be so weak. Daily turned out to
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: work by daylight, whether with the hatchet or wheelbarrow, pickaxe, shovel,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: fore hammer, or any other instrument the case required.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And so continued until twelve o'clock, and to two again,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and stayed till night, sometimes working all day up to
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the headbands of the breeches and water at the trenches.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: My shoulders have been so war with carrying burdens that
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the skin has come off them and grew full of boils.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: If a man were sick, Oswald continues, and obliged to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: stay within no victuals for him that day, which just
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: to step out here means if you took a sick day,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: you would starve here, he continues. Our counselors, all the while,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: lying at their ease, sometimes divided into factions, and being
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: swayed by particular interest, ruined the public. Our bodies pined
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: away and grew so macerated with such allowance that we
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: were like so many skeletons, so many skeletons.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Also excellent writing, great find there Ben. The Darien disaster
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: by John Prebble you've mentioned previously is an excellent account
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: of this, and I believe that's where that quote came.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: From Yeah, and we also know we also know that Patterson,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: like despite the fact that clearly Oswald is saying the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: people at the top were not putting in the same effort.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: You know, he says, they're lying at ease, they're fighting
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: with themselves. Patterson is the leader of this group and
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: he still has a terrible time even though he's at
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the top. He loses his wife, his dreams clearly go wrong.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: You're right, and he really was a true believer in
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: this plan. I mean, he wasn't trying to builk anybody
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: to his credit.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a final straw. There's news that the Spanish
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: are going to plan an attack on the colony. So
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: this settlers run off to the sea panicking. They abandoned
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the settlement. There are four ships that fled the colony
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and only one made it back to Scotland with.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Less than three hundred folks on board. And you'd think
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: this was the end of the whole mess. Unfortunately there
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: is more. There was, in fact, a second expedition that
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: left Scotland in August of sixteen ninety nine, and they
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: didn't know what they were in for, you know, with
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: the distance and the arduousness of the expedition.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: There was no way of getting word back. It reminds
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: me a bit of the Russian fleet that was traveling
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: in our earlier episode about the Japanese or the Russo
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Japanese War. That's right, because they were sailing for months
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and they had no idea what happened to the first folks, Oh, Noel,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the second expedition, we've got three ships, their flagship is
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the Rising Sun. Altogether they carry thirteen hundred and two people.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: One hundred and sixty of those folks are never going
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: to make it across the ocean. They die on the way.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: Now, and this is all too common with these kinds
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: of sea expeditions. I mean, it's just there's no way
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: around it. It really is a bit of a roll
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: of the dice as to who's going to make it
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: to the destination. Finding the colony completely abandoned, they started
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: to go about the process, the arduous task of rebuilding it.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: But the second colony didn't do a whole heck of
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: a lot better than the first. Understandably, the conditions were
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: just not conducive to settlement m hm.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: And we know that everybody was looking for someone to blame.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: One Presbyterian minister in the second expedition immediately said the
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: harsh conditions had driven the colonists away from God and
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: said it's your fault. He specifically wrote, our land has
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: spewed out its scout. We could not veiled to get
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: that wicked diss restrained, all the growth of its stopped. Ooh,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: spewed out its scum. He was like, you guys are barbarians.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: You've become monsters, and that's why everybody is sick and dying.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: You are damn need a lot of you.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: He felt that the disease and all of the harsh
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: conditions were a it's like a Sodom and Gomorra type situation.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Or something like.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: This was a form of divine punishment rained down from
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: the heavens.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: And add to that the constant, very real and actionable
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: threat of Spanish attacks no support from any of the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: English colonies. This inspires one officer, a young guy named
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Captain Alexander Campbell, to organize a pre emptive strike against
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Spanish forces that are massing along the mainland. Their attack
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: is successful, It's a surprise attack, but all it does,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: all this victory does is piss off the Spanish, and
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the Spanish finally say okay, we're going to come down
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: with a hammer now, that's right.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: And they're led by Governor General Pimento. That's how it's
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: waiver and Pemiento, like a delightful snack led this massive
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: fleet and an army that besieged Fort Saint Andrew.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: And Fort Saint Andrew, outmatched, out gunned, they finally surrender
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: in March of seventeen hundred. As a condition of the surrender,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the surviving Scottish colonists are permitted to leave the fort peacefully,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to board their ships and make it back to Scotland.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Only a handful do, and the blow of Scottish morale
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: is incalculable. The colonists who did return, they were pariahs
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: in their own land. They were now living representations of
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: this amazing plan that went so wrong.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: What was meant to be a way to regain some
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: national sense of pride and also financial stability had the
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: exact opposite effect, really set them back even further.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: It's really sad. Yeah. Some years later, Patterson was granted
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: a pension, a pretty good pension for the time, but
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: he died a broken man. Despite having done so many
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: astonishing things in his life. The Darien scheme shipwrecked the
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Scottish economy overall, like people had lost their lives, savings
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: left and right. Scotland was incapable of continuing as an
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: independent nation. You have to wonder was England steepling its
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: fingers the whole time? Was this their endgame? I think
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: so very.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, we know that they can be some
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: pretty calculating beat me here, Max, of course, But yeah,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: I don't know, man, I think it's certainly whether or
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: not it was the ultimate end game.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: They certainly weren't mad about it. That's a good That's
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: very diplomatic, that's a good way to put it. They
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: were at the very least opportunistic because seven years after
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: everything goes terrible in Darien, Scotland is forced to concede
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to the Active Union to sign the Treaty of Union,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: becoming the junior partner in the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: So they had to take the back seat. As part
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: of the deal, England pays off Scotland's debts. Was something
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: they call the equivalent and I just love that term,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Very diplomatic in and of itself, right, you should have
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: the equivalentnes indeed.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This also led to the establishment of.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: The Royal Bank of Scotland as an entity to administer
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: and you know, distribute and invest this money.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: And not to sound too cynical here, but Noel riddled
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: me this. Why do the banks always seem to come
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: out on top? Can't fight city hall? Can't fight city hall.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: That that is our show for today. That is the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: true ridiculous story of how Scotland lost its independence due
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: to the Darien scheme. We can't thank you enough for
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians, but here we go. Thank you.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: We're gonna try. Yeah.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: Huge thanks to you ridiculous historians, Yes, you, as well
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: as to super producer Max the Hagis Williams.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, I was hoping you would do it all right.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Max long Shanks Williams remember that character. He was the
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: big bad in Braveheart. Sorry, I'm coming back to Braveheart, Williams.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: I kind of think that Scottish people don't like Braveheart
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: because I think there's I think there were some like
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: liberties taken with the.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Depiction of that whole Absolutely, I think that's right. Sorry,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I keep bringing it. Have you seen have you, guys,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: ever seen a film made about US history that is
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: not made by people from the US. One of the
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Patriot he No, he was in it. Gibson was in it.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to name another Mel Gibson pe apocalypto.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Uh. Speaking of segues. Thank you also to Alex Williams
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: who composed this bank and track. Christopher hasiotis Eve's jeffcoat
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: here in spirit. I was our research associate for their
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: work and killer job.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: And also, by the way, you are also as as
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: you always are, the research associate for the stuff they
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: don't want you to know episode about the Darien Gap,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: which is less about the Scottish aspect and just more about.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: It being kind of this corridor for human trafficking. Yes,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: do check out our episode there, and thank you for
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: recommending that. No, we've got other people to thank too,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: like the Rude Dude's a ridiculous crime, big time. And
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: of course now we are going to call it a
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: day because we're going to hop off the mic and
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: have an intense conversation about Haggis. Thanks so much, ah Man,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: to you as well. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.