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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. A couple of weeks ago, when we were

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Speaker 1: talking about Joseph Pulitzer, we mentioned the very long history

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Speaker 1: of various shady dealings and scandals and problems connected to

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Speaker 1: the eventual building of the Panama Canal. Today's Saturday classic

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Speaker 1: is tangentially related to that theme. It's the Darien Disaster,

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Speaker 1: which was a failed Scottish attempt to establish a colony

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Speaker 1: on the Isthmus of Panama. So to clarify one point

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Speaker 1: that's made in the episode, the Darien region of Panama

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Speaker 1: has historically been one of the most densely forested parts

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Speaker 1: of the Isthmus. It's mountainous terrain can be really unforgiving,

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Speaker 1: and while it's often described as sparsely populated, it has

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Speaker 1: been home to multiple indigenous peoples for thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: especially around the region's river valleys. One of the multiple

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Speaker 1: reasons why there is still a gap in the Pan

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Speaker 1: American Highway in Darien is concerns by indigenous people's living

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Speaker 1: there about how a highway would impact their food sources

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Speaker 1: in their way of life. There's a moment in this

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Speaker 1: episode where it sort of sounds like theory in was

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Speaker 1: like almost uninhabited but that's going a little far from

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Speaker 1: how many people really did live there. This episode is

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Speaker 1: from previous hosts Sarah and de Bliema, and it came

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Speaker 1: out on July eleven. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed

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Speaker 1: in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm

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Speaker 1: Deblin a Chuck Reboarding. And I was thinking about it.

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Speaker 1: It's been a while since we've done a real disastrous

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Speaker 1: expedition podcast, hasn't it. Yeah, I think it's been since

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Speaker 1: the Dr Livingston episode, the last time I had to

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Speaker 1: do a fake voice, and even then there's a little

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Speaker 1: success in that mission. It seems like you never expect,

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Speaker 1: when you're packing your bags with truffles and cases of

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Speaker 1: shamp pain, that the trip is going to end with

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Speaker 1: your strange altering vehicle not being so altering after all

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Speaker 1: and stuck in the mud, or that maybe sharks will

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Speaker 1: eat your ponies, or that, in Stanley's case, crocodiles will

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Speaker 1: eat your donkey. Yeah, that's never any fun, but listener

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Speaker 1: Rich promised us highs and low similar to that when

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Speaker 1: he wrote in to suggest the Dairy Enn Expedition for

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Speaker 1: our next podcast, and it involves the seventeenth century Scottish

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Speaker 1: attempt to settle Panama, and it's always been somewhere in

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Speaker 1: I think our mental topic list. Yeah, definitely. I remember

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Speaker 1: reading about it briefly in Matthew Parker's book Panama Fever

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Speaker 1: a couple of years back now, while I was researching

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Speaker 1: an article on the Panama Canal. So yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: always been sort of hanging out in our in our

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Speaker 1: mental list for sure. Yeah. But Rich told us that

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Speaker 1: while he couldn't guarantee an exhimation, the dairy Enne expedition

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

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

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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 Darien story

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: definitely more than a disaster. For just the people who

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: get too involved into what happened in Panama, we're going

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Speaker 1: 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 colonies, but the ones who stayed behind needed some hope.

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Speaker 1: And with some peace with the French and the English

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: described him as part missionary, part buccaneer, if that gives

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Speaker 1: you a good idea of what kind of man he

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Speaker 1: was in his youth at least, but he had made

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Speaker 1: his fortune in business in England, and in six nine

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Speaker 1: four he had even helped start the Bank of England.

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Speaker 1: But his main operation at this point was promoting speculative

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Speaker 1: money making schemes, which sounds kind of promising and ominous

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Speaker 1: considering we've already told you this podcast doesn't exactly work

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Speaker 1: out for the people involved, right, So here's how it starts. Well,

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Speaker 1: Patterson's in London. He meets a sailor named Lionel Wafer

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Speaker 1: who tells him about a place called dairy En on

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Speaker 1: the eastern side of the Panamanian Isthmus. And it's supposedly

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Speaker 1: this wonderful paradise naturally. Yeah. And the true beauty of

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Speaker 1: the place, so as we'll find out, was not its

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Speaker 1: supposed bounty, but in its geography. Yeah. So, Europeans had

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Speaker 1: been enchanted by the narrow strip of land between North

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Speaker 1: and South America for a really long time, since they

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Speaker 1: first saw it in the hundreds fifteen o one in fact.

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Speaker 1: So dreams of some kind of overland route or maybe

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Speaker 1: even a canal eventually started in fifteen thirteen when Vasco

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Speaker 1: Nunez de Balboa made his march to the Pacific and

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Speaker 1: realized that he could see both the Atlantic Ocean and

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Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean from a peak at Darienne, and Patterson

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Speaker 1: was thinking along similar lines here. He was thinking, if

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Speaker 1: you established ports on both sides of the Isthmus, then

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Speaker 1: hauled goods overland, you'd be in control of this global

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Speaker 1: trade artery of Scotland, controlled Darienne, and a published a

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Speaker 1: colony there. It would consequently soon become fabulously wealthy from

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Speaker 1: all of the trade levies going through because ships loaded

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Speaker 1: down with Pacific goods would no longer have to go

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Speaker 1: all the way around South America around the Cape Horn,

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Speaker 1: which was not only a long and expensive trip, but

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Speaker 1: a dangerous one to you might just wreck your entire

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Speaker 1: ship and lose everything. So instead, he figured people would

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Speaker 1: be willing to pay a little bit to this Scottish

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Speaker 1: territory and take the shortcut through Darien. Patterson actually took

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Speaker 1: plans a step further and envisioned not just a highway

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Speaker 1: like outpost with financial ties to Scotland, but a melting

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Speaker 1: pot of all nationalities, races, and religions. He said that

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Speaker 1: whoever controlled the Cosmopolitan center would possess quote the gates

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Speaker 1: to the Pacific and the keys to the universe. Do

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Speaker 1: but open these doors and trade will increase and money

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Speaker 1: will be get money, all right. But the problem was,

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Speaker 1: while Patterson had been to the Caribbean and had traveled there,

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Speaker 1: he had never actually been to Panama, and the reports

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Speaker 1: coming back on the terrain and the climate especially weren't

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Speaker 1: exactly accurate. He was hearing about these nice low valleys,

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Speaker 1: the kind of the kind of terrain it's easy to

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Speaker 1: imagine just cutting a road through and hauling goods the

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Speaker 1: Dairyen region, and reality is really hot. It's humid, there's

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Speaker 1: dense rainforests, there are mangrove swamps, and they're low mountains,

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Speaker 1: so it's difficult and pretty much every way you can

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Speaker 1: think of. Yeah, and it is a paradise, but it's

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Speaker 1: a paradise of flora and fauna, you know, jaguars, awcelets

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Speaker 1: my favorite animal, your favorite animals showing up and dareen

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Speaker 1: and they're also giant aunt 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 Dairyen 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, does

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Speaker 1: repaired 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 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'd 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 earmark 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 been 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 they're 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 people for two years. It included food

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Speaker 1: like biscuits, beef, pork, prunes um. They brought along tobacco, pipes, cloth,

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Speaker 1: and tons of brandy and rum. But they also brought

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Speaker 1: along some pretty unnecessary items to it in nice Sarah, Yeah, wigs.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you would not think you'd need wigs for

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Speaker 1: moving to Panama, but they were expecting there was some

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Speaker 1: stylish living in their futures. And they also brought items

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Speaker 1: to trade with the local Indians, like heavy Scottish cloth

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Speaker 1: and mirrors and combs because they heard that the native

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Speaker 1: people had really long hair and and we're kind of

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Speaker 1: vain about it. And they even brought fifteen hundred English

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Speaker 1: language Bibles thinking they would be able to sell those.

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Speaker 1: So again, kind of a bad sign here if this

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Speaker 1: is your packing list. But on July twelfth they left

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Speaker 1: Scotland with all of those colonists on board, and people

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Speaker 1: were so desperate to go to join this mission, which

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Speaker 1: which was full and there weren't any spaces left that

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Speaker 1: still always had hidden themselves on the ships and had

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Speaker 1: to be expelled before they sailed off. It was a

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Speaker 1: real big to do. The whole city turned out. It

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Speaker 1: was the celebration for the country. People thought this was

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Speaker 1: gonna was gonna make Scotland, which is so wild because

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Speaker 1: they did not even know where they were going. No,

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Speaker 1: at the time, they didn't. With the exception of men

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Speaker 1: like Patterson, most of the people on board didn't know

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Speaker 1: the destination. Like they did not know where they were

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Speaker 1: sailing to. It was contained. The destination was contained in

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Speaker 1: a sealed packet and it wasn't opened until Madeira, and

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Speaker 1: at that point it was revealed to be a place

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Speaker 1: called Golden Island on the coast of Darienne. So even

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Speaker 1: then they have a name, but they're still not exactly

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Speaker 1: sure what to expect there. It's a three month voyage

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Speaker 1: to yeah, and it's kind of treacherous. I mean forty

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Speaker 1: three die en route, which was supposed to be fairly

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Speaker 1: typical unfortunately for a journey at this time. That's true.

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Speaker 1: And they landed November three at a spot they named

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Speaker 1: Caledonia Bay and it was fortunately but deceivingly the beginning

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Speaker 1: of a short dry season when they got there, so

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Speaker 1: things seemed okay at first. Patterson wrote, quote, our situation

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Speaker 1: isn't one of the best and most defensible harbors perhaps

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Speaker 1: in the world. The country is healthful, exceedingly fertile, and

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Speaker 1: the weather is temperate, So positive attitude right at the

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Speaker 1: get go. And the locals were nice to the Kuna

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Speaker 1: and the Choco were friendly and helpful, and they liked

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Speaker 1: to fly the Cross of St Andrew and their canoes too,

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Speaker 1: so they seemed on board with what was going on.

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Speaker 1: So they were getting along. But things started to go

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Speaker 1: bad pretty quickly. Their first choice of a building site

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Speaker 1: wasn't at all suitable. Paterson called it quote a mere morass,

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Speaker 1: neither fit to be fortified, nor planted, nor indeed for

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

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

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Speaker 1: experience the school master of Fools convinced our masters that

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

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Speaker 1: proper place for us. So at the fort site they

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: of that year, two d colonists were dead and the

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

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

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Speaker 1: and bad climate. Yeah, and to add to that situation,

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Speaker 1: food was scarce despite the large supplies they had bought

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Speaker 1: with them. It was rotting because of the damp, and

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Speaker 1: there just wasn't enough of it, and there was no

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Speaker 1: strong leadership and lots of infighting and basically they just

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Speaker 1: lost hope at that point, they lost their spirit. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: There's an account from a young gentleman who was on

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Speaker 1: the trip named Roger Oswald, and he described his experience

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Speaker 1: at Darien, living off of less than a pound of

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Speaker 1: moldy flower a week. And here's here's what he had

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Speaker 1: to say. It pretty much sums up all of the

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Speaker 1: points we just made. When boiled with a little water

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Speaker 1: without anything else, big maggots and worms must be skimmed

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Speaker 1: off the top. Yet, for all this short allowance, every

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Speaker 1: man let him never be so weak. Daily turned out

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Speaker 1: to work by daylight, whether with the hatchet or wheelbar, pick, ax,

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Speaker 1: shovel for hammer, or any other instrument the case required,

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Speaker 1: and so continued until twelve o'clock, and at two again,

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Speaker 1: and stayed till night, sometimes working all day up to

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Speaker 1: the headbands of the breeches in water at the trenches.

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Speaker 1: My shoulders have been so war with carrying burdens that

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Speaker 1: the skin has come off them and grew full of boils.

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Speaker 1: If a man were sick and obliged to stay within,

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Speaker 1: no victuals for him that day. Our counselors, all the

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Speaker 1: while lying at their ease, sometimes divided into factions, and

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Speaker 1: being swayed by particular interest, ruined the public. Our bodies

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Speaker 1: pined away and grew so masserated with such allowance that

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Speaker 1: we were like so many skeletons. So it wasn't quite

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

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Speaker 1: the Universe that Patterson thought it would be. And even

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Speaker 1: basic non overland trading was not going according to plan,

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Speaker 1: so they weren't able to make money either. For example,

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Speaker 1: and surprisingly the Indians did not want to buy lots

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Speaker 1: of Scottish claw or combs, and the English colonies in

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Speaker 1: the West Indies and in North America were actually forbidden

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Speaker 1: by London to communicate with the Scots, let alone trade

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Speaker 1: with them. So they were frozen out. Yeah, and only

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Speaker 1: a few traders in Boston and New York were willing

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Speaker 1: to trade food for cash. And obviously if you're trading

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Speaker 1: for cash, that's not a long term solution. So we

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Speaker 1: have to ask why did the English just come down

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Speaker 1: so hard on trade for this new company. The East

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Speaker 1: India thing was obviously still a sore point, but the

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Speaker 1: main issue here was maintaining diplomatic relations with Spain. Because yes,

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Speaker 1: in addition to overlooking the climate of Darien and its

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Speaker 1: mosquitoes and the difficult terrain, the expeditions promoters had just

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Speaker 1: completely 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 Dairyen, and they met with numerous disasters along

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

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Speaker 1: what they found there obviously was an abandoned colony. And

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Speaker 1: 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 eighth, sev 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 kind Tree,

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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 had 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. I know, I

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

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Speaker 1: that 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 Jackbite rebellions. But there's still a you traces of

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

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Speaker 1: of land called Scots Point, and small traces of the

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

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

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Speaker 1: been sort of reclaimed by the by nature, but a

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Speaker 1: few little points left here and there. Yeah, and it's

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Speaker 1: still really remote. Only a few air strips are there

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Scotland and in their investment scheme here, and it reminded

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Speaker 1: me a lot of what comes about two hundred years

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Speaker 1: later when the French tried to build a canal at Panama. Again,

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Speaker 1: there was sort of a subscription, public subscription, a lot

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Just kind of an interesting cyclical story, almost a good adventure,

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Speaker 1: but an ill faded one. Thanks so much for joining

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Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of

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Speaker 1: the archive, if you heard an email address or a

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Speaker 1: Facebook U r L or something similar over the course

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Speaker 1: of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current

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Speaker 1: email address is History Podcast at i heart radio dot com.

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Speaker 1: Our old health stuff works email address no longer works,

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Speaker 1: and you can find us all over social media at

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Speaker 1: missed in History and you can subscribe to our show

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Speaker 1: and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed

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Speaker 1: in History Class is a product shin of I heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart

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