[f5ve]

In the 1690's the Scottish invested an enormous sum of money and human capital to settle this region. The goal was to build and profit from an overland route to ferry cargo from the Pacific to the Atlantic, similar to the Panama Canal today.

Due to disease, less-than-accommodating natives, and geopolitical climate, the scheme failed miserably. Many argue the crippling financial effect on Scotland was a key factor in the 1707 Acts of Union which merged Scotland and England.

[dfawcus]

There was more to the Scottish colony in Darien failing than just that, the English state had a hand in it, and an incentive to ensure it failed.

As to the post failure financial effect, that was mainly on a bunch of rich folks. Scotland per-se was not in any financial distress after the failure of the scheme, as it was private individuals, not the state which had invested.

Have a read of this piece, which covers a lot of the history around the failure of the Darien Scheme.

https://wingsoverscotland.com/weekend-essay-skintland-britna...

[m-i-l]

> "As to the post failure financial effect, that was mainly on a bunch of rich folks."

Although trickle-down economics is largely discredited when it comes to wealth, I suspect the same isn't the case when it comes to debt. For example, one of the causes of the Highland Clearances (which began around a generation after the Darien Scheme) was landlord debt[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances#Landlord_d...

[3dbrows]

I’m not sure it was mainly rich folks who suffered. Many small scale investors also lost money. So severe were the losses that something like 25% of private wealth in Scotland was destroyed.

Some argue we are still feeling the effects of this today. It certainly didn’t help with social attitudes towards being miserly with money (which we very much are).

[jakderrida]

>I’m not sure it was mainly rich folks who suffered. I've read it was 1/3rd of their annual GDP.

>Some argue we are still feeling the effects of this today. Of course you are. Think of it this way. The reason they poured everything into it and kept pouring more into it wasn't just to increase personal wealth of investors. It was a unique opportunity to poll vault towards becoming a major European empire. While they knew it was a massive endeavor, the rewards would be incalculable. For them to control the most important manmade waterway to global trade 3 times as long as the US has would be a success story that we'd be reminded about in every grade school class but Golf and Gaelic.

[Affric]

A little diversion into the tiers of people you’d hear about constantly in primary school. S+ from P3 onwards, S from P6 onwards, A tier are more those that you’d be told invented the modern world

S+ tier: Alexander Graham Bell, John Logie Baird, Rabbie Burns.

S tier: James Watt, Alexander Fleming, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

A tier: David Hume, Adam Smith, James Dunlop

[3dbrows]

Yep. Rotten luck with the malaria and blockades, eh.

[jrmg]

I enjoyed this book about it:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18271029-the-darien-disa....

It was written in the late 60s, but it looks like it's been republished more than a few times since then:

https://www.alibris.com/booksearch?mtype=B&keyword=%93Darien...

[CodeNest]

Yes, very good book.

[hermitcrab]

There is a useful overview at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme

[lelandfe]

Thousands of people died during the construction of the Panama Canal as well. The Path Between the Seas is a good book covering it.

As I recall, food was “refrigerated” by the workers in nested, open pots submerged in water. …which happened to be an excellent breeding place for mosquitoes. Malaria and yellow fever would kill or cripple every worker present, and the country du jour had to keep shipping more in. Bleak stuff.

France saw like 20,000 workers die alone. Rainforests really are not a great place to live, lol

[DonaldFisk]

> less-than-accommodating natives,

The Guna (a.k.a. Kuna) natives were actually helpful, providing food to the colonists, who formed an alliance with them against the Spanish, who were hostile to both Kuna and Scots.

[dukeyukey]

Man, they really picked the worst possible place to settle. There aren't many places that are still neat-inhospitable to modern humans, but this is one of them.