In the late 17th century, times were tough in Scotland. The Stuarts, the Scots’ royal family, had been tossed off the throne of England for a second time, and the country had been excluded from the burgeoning English system of international trade regulated by the Navigation Acts. Even the climate was more miserable than usual: these were the worst years of northern Europe’s “little ice age.”
In an attempt to try to improve its economy and its international position, the Scottish government formed a trading company like the English had established in the East Indies and North America. Its purpose was to establish a colony and commercial center in Darien, on the Pacific coast of the isthmus of Panama. “The idea attracted immense enthusiasm among all classes in Scotland,” wrote T.O. Lloyd, “and led to disaster.” It was an economic disaster and a strategic failure. “[T]he Spanish first watched it carefully to see that it showed no sign of succeeding and eventually in 1700 they captured it.” The loss was “perhaps as much as half the floating capital of Scotland.”
At least for appearance’ sake, the Scots blamed the English for the collapse of their one and only attempt at independent colonization – that is, competing in an era of rapid globalization – but in fact, they took the lesson to heart. One of the terms of the 1707 Acts of Union with England was that the Darien investors would be repaid, but the more important, if informal, deal was that the Scots would become full partners in the British empire. “[T]he effect was to give eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scotsmen opportunities…that had previously been closed to them,” observed Lloyd. “And these opportunities were very considerable…at the time people saw [the empire] as the largest area of unrestricted trade in the world.” Many of these opportunities lay in America. The Colonies’ rapid growth in the 18th century owed much to enterprising Scots immigrants, who numbered among the most vociferous advocates of the prospects for empire in North America; Benjamin Franklin swiped a good part of his best imperial propaganda from Cadwallader Colden, a Scotsman born in Ireland who came to Philadelphia in 1710.
In sum, simply being a member in good standing of the British empire has made Scotland and Scots richer, freer, and safer than they were, would have been, or, quite possibly will be on their own. Since the English themselves no longer seem to be very British, neither Prime Minister David Cameron nor the hapless “Better Together” campaign have been bold enough to remind voters in Thursday referendum of Scotland’s previous and unfulfilling experiences of independence.
Likewise the American press is indulging itself in an exhilarating “Braveheart” moment, and quivers in hopes that the Catalans or Basques might be next. But just as the building of the British imperial union was foundation and precursor to an American one, so might the unraveling be a similar foreshadowing. Today Britain seems to harbor the desire to be anything but great – as, increasingly, does Barack Obama’s America.
