The Manbottle Library

ANSWER


New Jersey, South Carolina, and Panama.

A mostly Scottish group founded the colony of East New Jersey in 1683. It was a fairly successful colony, and survived nicely until it merged with the neighboring English colony of West New Jersey in 1702.

Less successful was the Scottish settlement of Stuart's Town in South Carolina. It was founded in 1684, and summarily destroyed by the Spanish in 1686.

But the most spectacular of 17th century Scottish settlements was the Darien Scheme. In 1695 the "Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies" was established. As the name implies, the goal of the company was to establish trade with Africa and East Indies. William Paterson, a director of the company, had a plan to do this from a single location on the Isthmus of Panama (known at the time as the Isthmus of Darien). From this position between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the colony could open up trade in either direction, effectively creating a trade "bridge" between east and west. The company ultimately raised £400,000 from investors, a sum of money which represented half the liquid assets of Scotland. The first expedition set sail in 1698.

While it sounded like a fine plan on paper, there were a few problems in the actual execution. First, no one involved with the planning had ever actually been to Panama. Consequently the site they selected was mostly swamp, not at all suited for farming. Second, like most colonial expeditions, they took a variety of goods with them to trade with the locals. In retrospect, their choice of products was less than ideal. They brought with them bibles, wigs, and wool clothing. Not surprisingly, these were of little interest to the natives, or anyone else in the area for that matter. The third problem was the anyone else in the area, namely the Spanish, who were not at all happy about having a Scottish colony in their midst. All this coupled a lack of support from the English led to the expedition's ultimate failure.

Unfortunately, word of the colony's failure had not yet reached Scotland by 1699, when the second expedition was launched. They arrived to find an abandoned settlement, but decided to give it a go anyway. Sadly, they met the same fate as the first expedition. Over 2,000 men lost their lives in the two failed expeditions.

The failure of the Darien colony was a huge financial disaster for Scotland. It single-handedly wiped out one fourth of the wealth of the country. This financial collapse is often cited as one of the primary reasons for the Act of Union of 1707, whereby Scotland and England joined together to become the United Kingdom.



WHO GOT IT RIGHT:  Bob Milligan, JP Weigt, Marc Quinlivan, Allan Christensen, Robin Campbell, Jim Ahumada, and Justin Maloska.



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