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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm to blame a chuck reboarding

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Speaker 1: and I was thinking about it. It's been a while

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Speaker 1: since we've done a real disastrous expedition podcast, hasn't it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think it's been since the Dr Livingston episode, the

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Speaker 1: last time I had to do a fake voice, and

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Speaker 1: even then there's a little success in that mission. It

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Speaker 1: seems like you never expect, when you're packing your bags

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Speaker 1: with truffles and cases of champagne, that the trip is

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Speaker 1: going to end with your strange altering vehicle not being

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Speaker 1: so altering after all and stuck in the mud, or

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Speaker 1: that maybe sharks will eat your ponies, or that, in

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Speaker 1: Stanley's case, crocodiles will eat your donkey. Yeah, that's never

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Speaker 1: any fun. But listener Rich promised us highs and low

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Speaker 1: similar to that when he wrote in to suggest the

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Speaker 1: dairy En Expedition for our next podcast. And it involves

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Speaker 1: the seventeenth century Scottish attempt to settle Panama, and it's

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Speaker 1: always been somewhere in I think our mental topic list. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I definitely I remember reading about it briefly in Matthew

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Speaker 1: Parker's book Panama Fever a couple of years back now,

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Speaker 1: while I was researching an article on the Panama Now. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's always been sort of hanging out in our

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Speaker 1: in our mental list for sure. Yeah. But Rich told

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Speaker 1: us that while he couldn't guarantee an exhimation, the dairy

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Speaker 1: En expedition was certainly in the best tradition of expedition podcasts,

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Speaker 1: a shockingly unrealistic idea of what to expect, unpreparedness, severe deprivation,

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Speaker 1: and also strange items brought along for the trip which

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Speaker 1: will go over. So, yeah, Rich, I think you really

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Speaker 1: sold it there with that explanation. But the dairy En

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Speaker 1: story is also a little different from some of the

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Speaker 1: other expedition podcasts we've done in the past, which are

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Speaker 1: often just pure adventures, adventure for the sake of adventure.

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Speaker 1: This was more than just a personal folly, and it

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Speaker 1: was definitely more than a disaster for just the people

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Speaker 1: who were involved. It was a national fiasco and it

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Speaker 1: really played no small part in eighteenth century nation building,

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Speaker 1: so it had far reaching consequences for sure. So before

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Speaker 1: we get too involved into what happened in Panama. We're

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Speaker 1: going to start with the primary player involved, which was Scotland. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the country was experiencing troubled times in the late sixteen hundreds.

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Speaker 1: There had been war, famine, and poor international trade due

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Speaker 1: to England's constant continental wars, and a lot of people

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Speaker 1: around this time we're getting out they were immigrating to

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Speaker 1: the English colonies, but the ones who stayed behind needed

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Speaker 1: some hope. And with some peace with the French and

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Speaker 1: English finally on hand and continental trade opening up again,

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Speaker 1: it seemed like global commerce was the way to go,

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Speaker 1: specifically bringing valuable Eastern commodities to the West. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: enter William Patterson. He was a young Scotsman and he

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Speaker 1: had spent his youth traveling. Matthew Parker, the author I

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Speaker 1: just mentioned, described him as part missionary, part buccaneer. If

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Speaker 1: that gives you a good idea of what kind of

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Speaker 1: man he was in his youth at least. But he

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Speaker 1: had made his fortune in business in England, and in

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Speaker 1: sixteen ninety four he had even helped start the Bank

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Speaker 1: of England. But his main operation at this point was

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Speaker 1: promoting speculative money making schemes which sounds kind of promising

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Speaker 1: and ominous considering we've already told you this podcast doesn't

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Speaker 1: exactly work out for the people involved, right, So here's

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Speaker 1: how it starts. Well, Patterson's in London. He meets a

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Speaker 1: sailor named Lionel Wafer who tells him about a place

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Speaker 1: called Darien on the eastern side of the Panamanian Isthmus.

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Speaker 1: And it's supposedly this wonderful paradise naturally. Yeah. And the

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Speaker 1: true beauty of the place, so as we'll find out,

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Speaker 1: was not its supposed bounty, but in its geography. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: Europeans had been enchanted by the narrow strip of land

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Speaker 1: between North and South America for a really long time,

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Speaker 1: since they first saw it in the fift hundreds fifteen

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Speaker 1: o one, in fact. So dreams of some kind of

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Speaker 1: overland route or maybe even a canal eventually started in

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Speaker 1: fifteen thirteen when Vasco Nunez de Balboa made his march

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Speaker 1: to the Pacific and realized that he could see both

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Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean from a peak

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Speaker 1: at Darienne. And Patterson was thinking along similar lines here.

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Speaker 1: He was thinking, if you established ports on both sides

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Speaker 1: of the Isthmus then hauled goods overland. You'd be in

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Speaker 1: control of this global trade artery. As Scotland controlled Darienne

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Speaker 1: and established a colony there, it would consequently soon become

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Speaker 1: fabulously wealthy from all of the trade levies going through

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Speaker 1: because ships loaded down with Pacific goods would no longer

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Speaker 1: have to go all the way around South America around

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Speaker 1: the Cape Horn, which was not only a long and

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Speaker 1: expensive trip, but a dangerous one to you might just

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Speaker 1: wreck your entire ship and lose everything. So instead, he figuard,

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Speaker 1: people would be willing to pay a little bit to

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Speaker 1: the Scottish territory and take the shortcut through Darien. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but Patterson actually took plans a step further and envisioned

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Speaker 1: not just a highway like outpost with financial ties to Scotland,

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Speaker 1: but a melting pot of all nationalities, races, and religions.

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Speaker 1: He said that whoever controlled the Cosmopolitan Center would possess

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Speaker 1: quote the gates to the Pacific and the keys to

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Speaker 1: the universe. Do but open these doors and trade will

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Speaker 1: increase and money will be get money. Right. But the

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Speaker 1: problem was, while Patterson had been to the Caribbean and

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Speaker 1: had traveled there, he had never actually been to Panama,

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Speaker 1: and the reports coming back on the terrain and the

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Speaker 1: climate especially weren't exactly accurate. He was hearing about these

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Speaker 1: nice low valleys, the kind of the kind of terrain

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Speaker 1: it's easy to imagine just cutting a road through and

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Speaker 1: hauling goods. The Darien region in reality, is really hot.

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Speaker 1: It's humid, there's dense rainforests, there are mangrove swamps, and

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Speaker 1: they're low mountains, so it's difficult and pretty much every

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Speaker 1: way you can think of. Yeah, and it is a paradise,

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Speaker 1: but it's a paradise of flora and fauna. You know, jaguars, awesole,

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Speaker 1: it's my favorite animal, your favorite animals showing up in Dareen.

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Speaker 1: And they're also giant ant eaters, harpie eagles, American crocs,

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Speaker 1: things like that. But it's not a paradise in the

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Speaker 1: way Linel Wafer described it. In fact, the Darien region

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Speaker 1: is such a tough place to live. It's actually believed

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Speaker 1: to have been always the sparsely populated and it still

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Speaker 1: is today. So it doesn't exactly sound like the best

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Speaker 1: spot to send a few shipfuls of Scottish immigrants. A

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Speaker 1: paired Scottish immigrants. No, it doesn't, although the Scottish Parliament

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Speaker 1: thinks that it sounds like a great idea even though

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Speaker 1: it seems too good to be true to set up

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Speaker 1: this colony. The Parliament backed the scheme and allow the

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Speaker 1: creation of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and

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Speaker 1: the Indies, which is quite a mouthful in June now,

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Speaker 1: though they had to raise the money to build the

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Speaker 1: ship's stock them and and just get the materials they

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Speaker 1: need to start trade and and start up a colony. Unsurprisingly, though,

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Speaker 1: the English and the English backed East India Company weren't

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Speaker 1: really thrilled by the idea of this new potential rival

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Speaker 1: in a global trade. They weren't thrilled at all. In fact,

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Speaker 1: English investors who had put money into the new Scottish

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Speaker 1: company early on were forced to withdraw it um and

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Speaker 1: the ambassador, the English ambassador in Holland even threatened to

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Speaker 1: embargo merchants that traded with this new company. So the

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Speaker 1: English were really throwing up any roadblocks they could to

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Speaker 1: try to put the lockdown on this thing before it

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Speaker 1: even got started. Yeah, and you think that would be

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Speaker 1: a bad omen, But it's funny those that English opposition

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Speaker 1: actually seemed to only make the Scots more gung ho

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Speaker 1: about this entire plan, So subscriptions soared and in six

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Speaker 1: months time, the rich and the poor alike raised four

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand pounds together half of the country's capital. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But even then, even with all of this support and enthusiasm,

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Speaker 1: there was an early glitch. A company member named James

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Speaker 1: Smith ran off with seventeen thousand pounds Earmarch for boat construction,

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Speaker 1: and Patterson, of course, being in charge of this new company,

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Speaker 1: was sort of under suspicion, but nobody could prove that

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Speaker 1: he was involved. He even paid back nine thousand pounds

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Speaker 1: of his own money, but he was still kind of

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Speaker 1: tainted by the scandal, and he lost his position at

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Speaker 1: the head of the company and was forced to travel

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Speaker 1: just as a simple settler one of the masses, and

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Speaker 1: that kind of set up a leadership issue that was

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Speaker 1: going to prove to be a major problem down the road. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so their troubles right off the bat, but still plans

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Speaker 1: marched on. There were five ships built in Hamburg and Amsterdam.

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Speaker 1: Their names were the Caledonia, the st Andrew, the Unicorn,

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Speaker 1: the Dolphin, and the Endeavor and they were stocked with

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Speaker 1: medical supplies for fift hundred people for two years. It

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Speaker 1: included food like biscuits, beef, pork, prunes um. They brought

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Speaker 1: along tobacco, pipes, cloth, and tons of brandy and rum.

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Speaker 1: But they also brought along some pretty unnecessary items to

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Speaker 1: it in nice Sarah, Yeah, wigs. I mean, you would

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Speaker 1: not think you'd need wigs for moving to Panama, but

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Speaker 1: they were expecting there was some stylish living in their futures.

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Speaker 1: And they also brought items to trade with the local Indians,

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Speaker 1: like heavy Scottish cloth and mirrors and combs because they

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Speaker 1: heard that the native people had really long hair and

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Speaker 1: and we're kind of vain about it. And they even

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Speaker 1: brought fifteen hundred English language bibles thinking they would be

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Speaker 1: able to sell those. So again, kind of a bad

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Speaker 1: sign here if this is your packing list. But on

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Speaker 1: July twelve, they left Scotland with all of those twelve

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Speaker 1: hundred colonists on board and p people were so desperate

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Speaker 1: to go to join this mission, which which was full

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Speaker 1: and there weren't any spaces left that stowaways had hidden

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Speaker 1: themselves on the ships and had to be expelled before

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Speaker 1: they sailed off. It was a real big to do.

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Speaker 1: The whole city turned out. It was the celebration for

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Speaker 1: the country. People thought this was gonna was gonna make Scotland,

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Speaker 1: which is so wild because they did not even know

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Speaker 1: where they were going. No, at the time, they didn't.

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Speaker 1: With the exception of men like Patterson, most of the

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Speaker 1: people on board didn't know the destination. Like they did

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Speaker 1: not know where they were sailing to. It was contained.

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Speaker 1: The destination was contained in a sealed packet and it

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Speaker 1: wasn't opened until Madeira, and at that point it was

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Speaker 1: revealed to be a place called Golden Island on the

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Speaker 1: coast of Darienne. So even then they have a name,

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Speaker 1: but they're still not exactly sure what to expect there.

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Speaker 1: It's a three month voyage to yeah, and it's kind

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Speaker 1: of treacherous. I mean forty three die en route, which

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Speaker 1: was supposed to be fairly typical unfortunately for a a

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Speaker 1: journey at this time. That's true. And they landed November

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Speaker 1: three at a spot they named Caledonia Bay and it

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Speaker 1: was fortunately but deceivingly the beginning of a short dry

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Speaker 1: season when they got there, so things seemed okay at first.

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Speaker 1: Patterson wrote, quote our situation is in one of the

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Speaker 1: best and most defensible harbors perhaps in the world. The

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Speaker 1: country is healthful, exceedingly fertile, and the weather is temperate,

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Speaker 1: so positive attitude right at the get go, and the

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Speaker 1: locals were nice to the Kuna and the Choco were

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Speaker 1: friendly and helpful, and they liked to fly the Cross

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Speaker 1: of St. Andrew and their canoes too, so they seemed

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Speaker 1: on board with what was going on. So they were

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Speaker 1: getting along. But things started to go bad pretty quickly,

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Speaker 1: and their first choice of a building site wasn't at

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Speaker 1: all suitable. Paterson called it quote a mere morass, neither

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Speaker 1: fit to be fortified, nor planted, nor indeed for men

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Speaker 1: to lie upon. We were clearing and making huts upon

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Speaker 1: this improper place near two months, in which time experience,

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Speaker 1: this cool master of fools convinced our masters that the

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Speaker 1: place now called Fort St Andrew's was a more proper

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Speaker 1: place for us. So at the Fort site they started

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Speaker 1: to build New Edinburgh. And by that point though, there

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Speaker 1: was major trouble because rainy season had started, and of

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Speaker 1: course rain brought bugs and disease, and by March of

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Speaker 1: that year, two hundred colonists were dead and the death

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Speaker 1: rate eventually increased to about ten people per day. So

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Speaker 1: they're dropping like flies in this weather and heat and

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Speaker 1: bad climate. Yea. And to add to that situation, food

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Speaker 1: was scarce despite the large supplies they had bought with them.

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Speaker 1: It was rotting because of the damp, and there just

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Speaker 1: wasn't enough of it. There was no strong leadership, and

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Speaker 1: lots of infighting, and basically they just lost hope at

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Speaker 1: that point, they lost their spirit. Yeah. There's an account

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Speaker 1: from a young gentleman who was on the trip named

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Speaker 1: Roger Oswald, and he described his experience at Darien, living

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Speaker 1: off of less than a pound of moldy flower a week.

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Speaker 1: And here's here's what he had to say. It pretty

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Speaker 1: much sums up all of the points we just made.

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Speaker 1: When boiled with a little water without anything else, big

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Speaker 1: maggots and worms must be skimmed off the top. Yet,

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Speaker 1: for all this short allowance, every man let him never

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Speaker 1: be so weak. Daily turned out to work by daylight,

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Speaker 1: whether with the hatchet or wheelbarrow, pick ax, shovel, fore hammer,

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Speaker 1: or any other instrument the case required. And so continued

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Speaker 1: until twelve o'clock and at two again, and stayed till night.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes working all day up to the headbands of the

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Speaker 1: breeches in water at the trenches. My shoulders have been

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Speaker 1: so war with carrying burdens that the skin has come

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Speaker 1: off them and grew full of boils. If a man

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Speaker 1: were sick and obliged to stay within, no victuals for

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Speaker 1: him that day. Are counselors all the while, lying at

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Speaker 1: their ease, sometimes divided into factions, and being swayed by

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Speaker 1: particular interest ruined the public. Our bodies pined away and

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Speaker 1: grew so maserated with such allowance that we were like

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Speaker 1: so many skeletons. So it wasn't quite the gates to

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Speaker 1: the Pacific and possessing the keys to the universe that

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Speaker 1: Patterson thought it would be. And even basic non overland

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Speaker 1: trading was not going according to plan, so they weren't

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Speaker 1: able to make money either. For example, and surprisingly the

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Speaker 1: Indians did not want to buy lots of Scottish cloth

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Speaker 1: or combs, and the English colonies in the West Indies

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Speaker 1: and in North America were actually forbidden by London to

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Speaker 1: communicate with the Scots, let alone trade with them, so

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Speaker 1: they were frozen out. Yeah, and only a few traders

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Speaker 1: in Boston and New York were willing to trade food

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Speaker 1: for cash, and obviously, if you're trading for cash, that's

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Speaker 1: not a long term solution. So we have to ask

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Speaker 1: why did the English just come down so hard on

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Speaker 1: trade for this new company. The East India thing was

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Speaker 1: obviously still a sore point, but the main issue here

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Speaker 1: was maintaining diplomatic relations with Spain, because yes, in addition

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Speaker 1: to overlooking the climate of darry And and it's mosquitoes

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Speaker 1: and the difficult terrain, the expedition's promoters had just completely

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Speaker 1: ignored the fact that Spain already laid claim to Panama.

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Speaker 1: Powerful Spain with all of its armies and ships. Whoops,

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Speaker 1: big mistakes. So by June, survivors had sort of packed

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Speaker 1: it in. Patterson's wife and son had both died, and

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Speaker 1: the party sailed to Jamaica and then to New York,

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Speaker 1: leaving ships and dead behind along the way. Some of

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Speaker 1: the ships crashed, I think some were sold off, and

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Speaker 1: really the only one that made it back home to

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Speaker 1: Scotland was the Caledonia, and survivors in New York were

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Speaker 1: described as looking quote, rather like skelets than men being starved.

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Speaker 1: But before word could get back to Scotland that the

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Speaker 1: settlers had abandoned the colony. The company had actually sent

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Speaker 1: more people out there, so several more ships were sent

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Speaker 1: out to Darien, and they met with numerous disasters along

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Speaker 1: the way. But when the new settlers finally arrived in

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Speaker 1: November six what they found there obviously was an abandoned colony,

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Speaker 1: and again they had a terrible time. There was no leadership, um,

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Speaker 1: no decent goods to trade, and they wondered, you know again,

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Speaker 1: they came to this question, should we stay or should

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Speaker 1: we go back home? Yeah, and there was a man

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Speaker 1: named James Buyers who took control and had folks vote

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Speaker 1: to keep five hundred men at Darien and send the

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Speaker 1: rest to Jamaica and on to home. And he ran

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Speaker 1: into some trouble. There was a mutiny, one man was executed,

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Speaker 1: and finally this in fighting was put to a stop

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Speaker 1: by the Spanish. The Spanish got fed up with the

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Speaker 1: situation and attacked, and Buyers abandoned the settlement. Others stayed

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Speaker 1: behind to fight, and obviously the poor starving colonists were

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Speaker 1: no match for the Spanish. The Spanish soon blockaded the

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Speaker 1: port and forced the colonists to surrender. March sevent hundred.

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Speaker 1: But fortunately for the Scots, the Spanish commander was pretty generous.

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Speaker 1: He gave them two weeks to pack up supplies and

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Speaker 1: and scavenge for food get what they could together before

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Speaker 1: they got out. But the settlers who returned home, and

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Speaker 1: there weren't many of them since many had obviously died,

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Speaker 1: were considered pariah's really by their own countrymen. The company

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Speaker 1: had lost the life savings of much of the country

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Speaker 1: and people held them responsible for that. Yeah. According to

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Speaker 1: Scottish Parliament, it was about the cost of one quarter

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Speaker 1: of Scotland's liquid assets that they lost, so pretty big deal.

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Speaker 1: And Scotland was so deeply in debt at that point

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Speaker 1: that they could no longer they no longer have the

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Speaker 1: resources to compete with England. Instead, the country dissolved its

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Speaker 1: parliament and in seventeen oh seven joined the Act of

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Speaker 1: Union with England, and as part of that Act, England

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Speaker 1: paid Scotland's debts. They paid three thousand pounds and that

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Speaker 1: was to be managed by the eventual Royal Bank of Scotland,

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Speaker 1: which somewhat surprisingly Patterson actually helped organize anyway. I guess

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Speaker 1: he was good at starting banks, but I'm surprised that

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Speaker 1: he was allowed to manage this amount of money again.

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Speaker 1: But still many Scots held the English responsible because of

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Speaker 1: all those early roadblocks and the freezing out and all

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Speaker 1: of that. According to BBC History, some historians consider this

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Speaker 1: strong dislike to have been a factor in the eighteenth

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Speaker 1: century jack Bite rebellions. But there's still a few traces

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Speaker 1: of the Scottish settlement that are left today. There's a

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Speaker 1: spot of land called Scott's Point and small traces of

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Speaker 1: the settlement can be found at Caledonia Bay. They were

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Speaker 1: actually first discovered in nineteen seventy nine. I guess they

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Speaker 1: had been sort of reclaimed by the by nature. But um,

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Speaker 1: a few little points left here and there. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it's still really remote. Only a few air strips are

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Speaker 1: there to reach settlements in Darien. And a true measure

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Speaker 1: of this difficult terrain, the Pan American Highway that runs

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Speaker 1: from Alaska to Argentina only has one gap at Darien. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it makes it impossible to would drive a car

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Speaker 1: between the two continents. Um. So pretty pretty wild story

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Speaker 1: with Scotland and and their investment scheme here, and it

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Speaker 1: reminded me a lot of what comes About two hundred

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Speaker 1: years later, when the French tried to build a canal

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Speaker 1: at Panama. Again, there was sort of a subscription, public subscription,

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Speaker 1: a lot of national pride, and total disaster. In that case,

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people died trying to build the

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Speaker 1: canal in the climate, dying of yellow fever in malaria.

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Speaker 1: And UM, just kind of an interesting cyclical story. Almost

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Speaker 1: a good adventure, but an ill fated one, and a

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Speaker 1: bad packing good story, I should say, maybe a bad

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Speaker 1: packing list. Maybe a successful trip starts with a successfully

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Speaker 1: packed suitcase. Mantra you could live by us suppose? So

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Speaker 1: I think that brings us to Listener mail. So this

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Speaker 1: email is from Hannah and she wrote about our Unforgettable

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Speaker 1: Fires episode. UM. She wanted to share some trivia with

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Speaker 1: us about the Great Fire in San Francisco, and here's

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Speaker 1: what she had to say. It turns out that although

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Speaker 1: we are firmly an earthquake country here in the Bay Area,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o six, it was far more common for

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Speaker 1: people to have fire insurance than earthquake insurance. After the

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Speaker 1: disaster has led many to report earthquake damage as fire

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Speaker 1: damage so that they could get reimbursed. Today, we assume

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Speaker 1: that most of the damage was caused by the fire,

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Speaker 1: since the records seemed to say so, but it is

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Speaker 1: almost impossible to tell for sure since so many claims

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Speaker 1: were falsified by people trying to recover their lives in

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Speaker 1: the chaos following the quake. So I felt that was

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Speaker 1: a really interesting point and kind of a good reminder

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Speaker 1: of how even good records, which there are lots of

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Speaker 1: good records in the San Francisco fire, aren't reliable. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: thanks for sending that one in. And um, I guess

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Speaker 1: if you want to email us any more failed expedit

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Speaker 1: and podcasts ideas or just disastrous ones, it doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to be a total failure, and it doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: be an exhamation. I feel like everybody who writes and

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Speaker 1: apologizes for not having an idea that's an exhamation. I know.

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Speaker 1: We promise we're interested in other things besides buried bodies.

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Speaker 1: So if you have any good suggestions, please email us

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Speaker 1: at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com. We're

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Speaker 1: also on Twitter at Miston History, and we're on Facebook.

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Speaker 1: And if you want to learn a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about the area of the world we just talked about

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Speaker 1: We have an article called how the Panama Canal Works

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Speaker 1: on our website. You can look it up by searching

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Speaker 1: for Panama Canal on our homepage, which is at www

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Speaker 1: dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check

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Speaker 1: out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join

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Speaker 1: how stuf Work staff as we explore the most promising

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Speaker 1: and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House to Works iPhone

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Speaker 1: app has a rise. Download it today on iTunes. It

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Speaker 1: be be