THE disastrous Darien Scheme, a Scottish colony in Panama in the late 1690s whose failure nearly crashed Scotland’s economy, played a major role in bringing about the Act of Union in 1707.
As part of the United Kingdom, many more Scots settled in North America, particularly Canada and what later became the United States.
But Darien was not the only early Scottish attempt to colonize America. In the century before the Act of Union there were several other, often more prosperous, Scottish settlements in North America. By 1600 the Scots were already trading with early colonies in America, with a Dundee ship, the Gift of God, traveling between Portugal and Newfoundland.
READ MORE: The Darien programme: 330 years since the farce that shaped Scotland
Since England and Scotland shared a king, James VI and I, Scots also settled in English colonies in the early 17th century. The same king would help establish the first Scottish-led colony in America.
In 1621 he granted Sir William Alexander of Menstrie much of what is now Canada’s provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Alexander spent the following years recruiting volunteers and raising funds for his planned colony there, called Nova Scotia, Latin for Nova Scotia.
Under Charles I, Alexander (below) began selling lands there as baronies to would-be settlers. The region was also claimed by the French.
When war broke out between Britain and France in 1627, Alexander took the opportunity to conquer territories from the French colonies in the region. Small settlements of Scots and English were established and in 1629 Alexander led an expedition to Nova Scotia where he founded a fort and town called Fort Royal, now Annapolis Royal.
Another settlement was founded by Sir James Stewart of Killeith on Cape Breton Island. It was called Baleine and a fort was built to defend it. The colonists soon ambushed the French in Quebec and captured their stronghold. But a few months later, a French counterattack retook the colony and captured Baleine.
Britain and France made peace in 1629 and agreed that Cape Breton would be given to the French. Most of the Scottish settlers on the island returned to their homes, but some remained under French rule or traveled to the English colonies in New England.
The Nova Scotia colony lasted for another two years until Charles I agreed to cede that land to France as well. The last 46 colonists moved to England in 1632. This first Scottish colony ended not because of the settlers themselves, but as a victim of international diplomacy.
Alexander’s son William continued to be interested in the region. In 1635 he acquired a land grant that stretched from modern New Brunswick to Long Island. Some Scots even attained high office in the colonies. From 1664 to 1676 North Carolina had a Scottish governor, William Drummond.
Others came to the continent less willingly. During the War of the Three Kingdoms, many Scottish POWs were sent to America, including 1,000 to the English colonies of Northeast America. Scots later arrived as indentured servants or captives in the 17th century.
Others came as employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company, founded in 1670. This company dominated the fur trade in British Canada and America and employed many Scots. The company felt that Scots, especially those from Orkney, had the necessary disposition to cope with the cold climate in which it operated and recruited them heavily.
Another company, the Scottish Carolina Company, supported by many Glasgow merchants, founded Stuart’s Town near Charleston, South Carolina in 1684. But like Nova Scotia, the region was contested with another European power, Spain, and the colony was not protected by English authorities. In 1686 the settlement was taken by the Spanish and the settlers moved to Charleston.
Because of these two unsuccessful ventures in Nova Scotia and South Carolina, most Scots settled in English colonies at the time rather than founding their own. By 1700 Scots could be found in Boston, Charlestown, Philadelphia and New York.
Many, especially Glaswegians, engaged in tobacco smuggling. In 1701 some Scots even set up a factory in Newfoundland to help them smuggle tobacco into Scotland and the Netherlands.
Other Scots might find more legitimate careers in colonial administration, such as John Livingston, a minister from Ancrum in the Borders who became a fur trader in Albany, New York, before becoming Speaker of the New York Provincial Assembly.
The governor of New Jersey from 1692-7 and 1699-1703 was also a Scot, Andrew Hamilton, originally an Edinburgh merchant.
The most successful Scottish colony was one shared with English settlers, East New Jersey. From 1683 Scottish Quakers, mainly from Kincardineshire and Aberdeenshire, led by Robert Barclay of Urie, settled there in cooperation with English Quakers.
Within a few years, about 700 Scots joined the colony. A Scottish community continued to exist in the area after the Act of Union, with some 3000 Scottish settlers living in central Jersey in the mid 17th century.
But not all Scots settled in colonies administered by Britain. A few lived under the rule of rival countries. The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, later renamed New York after the British conquest, included some Scots.
Alexander Lindsay of Fife and his Aberdeenshire wife, Catherine Duncanson, settled in the colony after being recruited as colonists in Amsterdam in 1639. Lindsay later became a trader with Native Americans in the area.
On the Delaware, the short-lived Swedish colony of Nya Sverige, or New Sweden, also had a few Scots, including trader James Sandilands and his ship De Schotzen Duytsman, The Scottish Dutchman.
While the Darien colony is rightly known for its failures, it does not define the whole history of Scottish colonization. Instead, it marked the end of a century of much more widespread Scottish settlement in America than a single colony at the end of the 17th century.
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