The earliest mention of a canal across the isthmus of Central America dates back to 1534, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, suggested that a canal in Panama would ease the voyage for ships travelling to and from Ecuador and Peru. Given the strategic situation of Central America as a narrow land dividing two great oceans, other forms of trade links were attempted over the years. The ill-fated Darien scheme was an attempt launched by the Kingdom of Scotland in 1698 to set up an overland trade route, but was defeated by the generally inhospitable conditions, and abandoned in 1700. The Darién scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama. The 1690s also saw several years of widescale crop-failure, which brought famine and led to this period being christened as the "ill years." In attempts to expand, the Scots had earlier sent settlers to the English colony of New Jersey and had established an abortive colony at Stuart's Town in what is now South Carolina. The Company of Scotland soon became involved with the Darién scheme.
Agriculture proved difficult and the local Indian tribes, although friendly, were unwilling to buy the combs and other trinkets offered by the colonists. With the onset of summer the following year, the stifling atmosphere, added to other causes, caused a large number of deaths in the colony. The mortality rose eventually to ten a day, despite the care and assistance of the local Indians. Meanwhile, King William had instructed the English colonies in America not to supply the Scots' settlement, and inadequate provisions, combined with the unfamiliar hot and humid climate, soon caused fever to spread and many settlers died. In July 1699 the colony was abandoned. Only 300 survived and only one ship managed to return to Scotland. A desperate ship from the colony which called at the Jamaican city of Port Royal was refused assistance on the orders of the English government. The failure of the Darién scheme has been cited as one of the motivations for the 1707 Act of Union.
The Province of New Jersey was an English colony that existed within the boundaries of the current state of New Jersey prior to the American Revolution. The original boundaries of the province were slightly larger than the current state and extended into the present State of New York. The Dutch, from their colony of New Netherland, had interfered with the transatlantic trade from the British colonies in North America. The land of the province was part of the New Netherlands colony acquired from the Dutch by the British after being seized by Richard Nicolls in September 1664. The British justified the seizure by claiming that Englishman John Cabot had been the first to discover the place. After capturing the colony, Nicolls took the position as deputy-governor of New Amsterdam and the rest of New Netherland. Nicolls guaranteed property rights, laws of inheritance, and the enjoyment of religious freedom.
The English Government, however, was opposed to the idea, since it was at war with France and did not want to offend Spain, which claimed the territory as part of New Granada; as a result, the English investors were forced to withdraw. Returning to Edinburgh, the Company raised 400,000 pounds sterling in a few weeks. The first expedition of five ships (the Saint Andrew, Caledonia, Unicorn, Dolphin, and the Endeavour) set sail from Leith on July 14, 1698, with around 1,200 people on board. After calling at Madeira and the West Indies, the fleet made landfall off the coast of Darien on November 2. The settlers christened their new home "New Caledonia" There they cut a canal through the neck of land that divided one side of the harbour in Caledonia Bay from the ocean, and constructed Fort St Andrew, equipped with fifty cannon, on the peninsula behind the canal. On a mountain, at the opposite side of the harbour, they built a watchhouse. Close to the fort they began to erect the huts of the main settlement, New Edinburgh, and to clear land for growing yams and maize. Unfortunately, for the majority of the settlers who arrived at Darien, the expedition would prove to be a disastrous and tragic undertaking.
The British government gave the territory to James, Duke of York, as part of the Province of New York. Part of the New York province between the Hudson River and the Delaware River was then given by James to Sir George Carteret in exchange for settlement of a debt. The new province was named after the Island of Jersey, which was Carteret's ancestral home. The other section of New Jersey was sold to Lord Berkeley of Stratton, who was a close friend of the Duke. As a result, Carteret and Berkeley became the two English proprietors of New Jersey. As a result, New Jersey was divided into East Jersey and West Jersey. The exact border between West and East Jersey was often disputed, but now corresponds pretty much to the border dividing present day South and North Jersey. The border between the two sides reached the Atlantic Ocean to the north of Atlantic City. The border line was created by George Keith, and can still be seen in the county boundaries between Burlington and Ocean Counties, and between Hunterdon and Somerset Counties. The Keith line runs NNW from the southern part of Little Egg Harbor Township, passing just north of Tuckerton, and reaching upward to a point on the Delaware River which is just north of the Delaware Water Gap. Later, the 1676 Quintipartite Deed helped to lessen the disputes. More accurate surveys and maps were made to resolve property disputes. This resulted in the Thornton line, drawn around 1696, and the Lawrence line, drawn around 1743, which was adopted as the final line for legal purposes.
Darien is a city in McIntosh County, Georgia, United States. The population was 1,719 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seate of McIntosh County . It is the second oldest planned city in Georgia.
Fort King George (Georgia's oldest fort) was built in 1721, near what would become Darien. At the time it was the southern-most outpost of the British Empire in North America. The fort was abandoned in 1727 following attacks from the Spanish. The town of Darien (originally known as New Inverness) was founded in January 1736 by Scottish Highlanders recruited by James Oglethorpe to act as settler-soldiers protecting the frontiers of Georgia from the Spanish in Florida, the French in the Alabama basin and their Indian allies. On January 10, 1736, 177 emigrants, including women and children, arrived on board the Prince of Wales to establish Darien, which was named after the Darien Scheme, a former Scottish colony in Panama. Among the initial settlers was Lachlan McGillivray, the Indian trader, and Lachlan McIntosh, the revolutionary leader.
The Scots originated mainly from around Inverness and consisted of both Jacobite and Hanoverian supporting clans, the majority of whom spoke only Gaelic. When visited by Oglethorpe in February the settlers had already constructed "a battery of four pieces of cannon, built a guardhouse, a storehouse, a chapel, and several huts for particular people". They showed similar progress in the construction of military forts, by March the Scottish settlers had begun work on two forts, Fort St. Andrews on Cumberland Island, and Fort St. George on the St. Johns River 60 miles to the south of the territory claimed by the British government in the charter of the Georgia colony. Fort St. George was later abandoned after agreement with the Spanish in October 1736. In 1736 work was also begun on Fort Frederica, which is on St. Simons Island, a few miles south of Darien, between Darien and Cumberland Island. As the Scots were intended as a military force those settlers whose travel was paid for by the Trustees of the Colony were organized into two companies, the Highland Independent Company of Foot, an infantry force, and the Highland Rangers, a mounted force. By 1737 the constant military activity of the Darien colony was taking its toll and an additional forty-four Highland settlers arrived to expand the town.
Initially the Settlers economy was based on the cultivation of crops, however after the first yeare they experienced a succession of poor harvests and concentrated more on the rearing of cattle and the felling of timber for sale in nearby Savannah. In 1739 eighteeneof the most prominent members of the Darien colony signed the first petition against the introduction of slavery into Georgia. This was in response to pleas to Oglethorpe and the Trustees by inhabitants of Savannah to lift their prohibition on slavery. The Highlander's petition was successful and slavery was not introduced until ten years later in 1749.
A constant state of conflict continued with Spanish and Indian forces during this time, however did not grow beyond the level of occasional skirmishes until the onset of the War of Jenkins' Ear in October 1739. In November in response to the death of two Scots garrisoned on Amelia Island from an ambush by Spanish allied Indians the Darien settlers mobilized and together with forces from South Carolina captured the Spanish forts of Fort Picolata, Fort St. Francis de Pupo, Fort San Diego and Fort Mosa before attempting to lay siege to St. Augustine. The subsequent Battle of Fort Mosa resulted in the death or capture of fifty-one of the Darien settlers. After the battle a number of the settlers abandoned Darien for South Carolina and by 1741 another shipload of forty-three colonists had arrived. These colonists received land grants from the Trustees which specified that the land was to descend to the male or female descendants of the original recipients, in 'Tail General', this was a unique change as previously, with a few specific exceptions in Darien, all land grants in the American colonies had been granted in 'Tail Male', descending to the male children. This had caused great discontent among the Highland Settlers as it went against their traditional land holding and inheritance practices. In future the majority of Georgia land grants were made in 'Tail General'.