71 “New Caledonia 1698-1700: Scotland’s Twice-Lost Colony” Ignacio Gallup-Díaz, Bryn Mawr College “Lost Colonies” Conference, March 26-27, 2004 (Please do not cite, quote, or circulate without written permission from the author) This paper explores the manner in which the troubled relationship between Scotland and England played itself out in the arena of imperial expansion in the Americas. How did Scotland, a nation-state attempting to free itself from its problematic relationship with a mightier southern neighbor, act upon the colonial stage it had chosen in the Darién region of eastern Panamá? How did a nation-state that occupied the subject position in a colonial relationship itself perform as a colonizer? Informed by David Armitage’s persuasive description of the elements that differentiated the Scottish vision of empire from English expansionist thinking,1 the paper sets out to discover whether Scottish sailors, soldiers and settlers-- the individuals acting on the front lines of the nation’s expansionist effort-- interacted with the Darién’s Tule2 people in a manner that also distinguished them from their English competitors. 1. D. Armitage, “The Scottish Vision of Empire: Intellectual Origins of the Darién Venture,” in John Robertson, ed., A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the Union of 1707, (Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 97-121; see also his Ideological Origins of the British Empire, (Cambridge UP, 2000), pp. 158-162. 2. The San Blas Kuna Indians, the descendants of the early modern indigenous peoples of Panamá, use the word “Tule” to describe themselves, and this is the term that I shall use for the actors in this paper. (“Tule” is translated as “person” in the Kuna language.) The need to differentiate between the present-day San Blas Kuna and the agents in this paper is more than a semantic distinction. The early modern Indians of eastern Panamá and the present-day San Blas Kuna occupy different physical, political, and temporal places, since the Darién’s peoples have experienced considerable change since 1600. Confronted by epidemic illness and pressures from the encroaching Chocó people to their east, the inhabitants of the Darién migrated to the San Blas Islands of Panamá’s Atlantic coast during the second half of the nineteenth century. (A small number of Kuna still occupy the area around the Chucunaque River.) In addition to this geographical re-orientation, the San Blas Kuna experienced deep political change as well, attaining their autonomy from the Panamanian government in the early twentieth century following an armed struggle and the intervention of the United States. For the Kuna migration, and an explanantion of the group’s autonomy, see E. Nordenskiöld, An Historical and Ethnological Survey of the Cuna Indians, (Göteborgs: Comparative Ethnographical Studies, 10, Göteborgs Museum, 1938); and J. Howe, A People Who Would Not Kneel: Panamá, the United States, and the San Blas Kuna, (Smithsonian Institution, 1998). For a well illustrated collection of articles relating to San Blas Kuna life, art, and culture, see M.L. Salvador, (ed.), The Art of Being Kuna: Layers of Meaning Among the Kuna of Panamá, (UCLA Fowler Museum of Art, 1997). For studies of the ethnohistory of the Kuna and their ancestors, see M.W. Helms, Ancient Panama: Chiefs in Search of Power, (University of Texas Press, 1979), and the work of Reina Torres de Araúz: “Aspectos etno-ecologicos de los grupos humanos del este de Panamá,” in Actas del II Simposio Nacional de Antropología, Arquaeología, y Etnohistória de Panamá, (Universidad de Panamá [Centro de Investigaciones Antropológicas], 1971), pp. 291-311; “Datos etnohistóricos Cunas, segun documentos (1699-1799) [sic] de la colonia escosesa en Darién,” Ibid, pp. 93-111; “La história de Caledonia o la colonia escosesa en Darién: Analysis de un opusculo documental,” Actas del IV Simposio Nacional de Antropología, Arquaeología, y Etnohistória de Panamá, (INAC, 1973), pp. 497-507; “Etnohistória Cuna,” Revista Lotería (Panamá) no. 221 (1974): 53-79; and “Las culturas indígenas panameños en el momento de la conquista,” Hombre y Cultura 3 [2] (1977): 69-97. 72 The Scottish and English interactions with the Tule that are the subject of this paper followed decades of Spanish and pirate engagement with a cadre of local indigenous leaders. Consequently, the English-speaking colonial latecomers were destined to interact with indigenous men who possessed considerable experience in intercultural diplomacy. As the Scots would learn to their peril, the Tule Indians of the region had not yet been forced to accept European rules and practices, though they had been dealing with Europeans for some time. Whether the Anglophone newcomers realized it or not, they were stepping onto native ground when they arrived in the Darién, and they would have to learn how things were done if they were to succeed. The Tule were central actors in Scottish imperial activities, and this paper is a study of the brand of rainforest diplomacy in which the Scottish and other European negotiators engaged with Tule leaders in order to survive.3 Scottish Eyes on the Darién, and the English Reaction On June 26, 1695, the Scottish Parliament passed an act incorporating the Company Trading to Africa and the Indies. The Act named the twenty directors of the Company, a group split evenly between Scots and London merchants. Most contemporary observers assumed that Scottish attempts at international trade and settlement would focus on the edges of the East India Company’s sphere of operations in the East Indies.4 A few more perceptive observers, however, taking note of William Paterson’s name among the list of directors, would know exactly where the Scottish Company was bound to direct its efforts. Paterson had been one of the founders of the Bank of England in 1694, held a high reputation in City financial circles, and was instrumental in convincing the other directors of the 3. In his study of Iroquois diplomatic practices, W. N. Fenton coined the term forest diplomacy to describe the protocols of the treaty-making the Iroquois engaged in with other Indians and Europeans in the American Northeast; see his “Structure, Continuity, and Change in the Process of Iroquois Treaty Making,” in F. Jennings, ed., The History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Guide to the Treaties of the Six Nations and Their League (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1985), pp. 37–67; and Fenton, The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History of the Iroquois Confederacy, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998). I have slightly revised Fenton’s term for use in this context, inasmuch as I think it adequately describes what was occurring. For examinations of Tule-European interactions in early modern Panamá, see Gallup-Díaz, The Door of the Seas and Key to the Universe: Indian Politics and Imperial Rivalry in the Darién, 1640-1750, an electronic text, (Columbia University Press, 2001), available at http://www.gutenberg-e.org; Gallup-Díaz, “‘Haven't We Come To Kill the Spaniards?’ The Indian Upheaval in Eastern Panama, 1727-8,” Colonial Latin American Review, 10 (2001): 251-271; and Gallup-Díaz, “The Spanish Attempt To Tribalize the Darién, 1735-50,” Ethnohistory, 49 (2002): 281- 317. 4. For the involvement of London capital in the early planning of the Scottish Company, see Hiram Bingham: “The Early History of the Scots Darién Company,” Scottish Historical Review 3 (1906): 210–217, 316–326, and 437–448. 73 Company to focus their enterprise’s initial activities on the Americas. By the end of July 1696 Paterson had convinced the directors that rather than organize their trade along routes centering on the East Indies, the Isthmus of Darién was the best site to choose.5 Paterson’s vision of a pan-British company that would unite the skills and funds of English and Scottish merchants was not popular with the English Parliament. The House of Lords objected strenuously to the presence of English merchants on the list of directors of a Scottish enterprise that appeared to be so obviously “prejudicial to the Trade of this Kingdom.”6 On December 3, 1695, the upper house opened hearings into the matter, questioning the merchants named in the Act and taking evidence from English East India Company merchants. These last men, not surprisingly, condemned the Scottish enterprise as a nefarious front operation controlled by a group of London-based interlopers aiming to disrupt their monopoly. On December 12 the Lords drafted an angry address to the king and requested a conference with the House of Commons. Representatives from both houses subsequently presented a formal address to William III on December 17, informing him of the grave threat the incorporation of the Scottish East India Company posed to the realm. Offering a response in full accord with the temper of the address, the King tersely and acerbically stated in his reply that “I have been ill served in Scotland, but I hope some remedies may be found to prevent the inconveniences which may arise from this Act.”7 Taking this as their cue, English lawmakers immediately proceeded to enact several statutes preventing any financial or personal involvement by Englishmen in the Scottish endeavor.8 5. The directors’ minutes reported on July 23, 1696, that “The … Committee of Foreign Trade upon viewing and perusing of several manuscript-books, journals, reckonings, exact illuminated maps and other papers of discovery … produced by Mr. Paterson, as also upon hearing and examining several designs and schemes of trade and discovery by him proposed. Resolved … that some particular discoveries of the greatest moment to the designs of this company ought to be committed to writing and sealed by Mr. Paterson and not opened but by special order of the Court of Directors.” National Library of Scotland Darién MSS, item 13, “Minutes of the Committee of Foreign Trade” (23 July 1696).