Scotland’s lost colony that was burned to the ground
Created before the ill-fated Darien Scheme, a new town for Scots in South Carolina quickly faded from memory, writes Alison Campsie
The Scots who first landed on its shores more than 300 years ago described it in glowing terms as a “most healthy country” with rich soils, fine rivers and a pleasant sub-tropical climate. This stretch of the South Carolina coast was a long way from 17th century Scotland.
The reconnaissance trip to Port Royal in 1682 was to map out one of Scotland’s first overseas colony, with Stuarts Town created at least a decade before the ill-fated Darien Scheme on the isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s.
But, despite this early bold push of Scots imperialism, the project at Stuarts Town is barely remembered.
Burnt to the ground after just two years by Spanish privateers after the Scots linked up with a local indigenous tribe, it was abandoned before it barely took root.
Historian Peter N Moore has researched “Scotland’s lost colony” with his findings published in the latest edition of the Scottish Historical Review, published by Edinburgh University Press.
“Of all of Scotland’s imperial misadventures in the 17th century, none has been so easily forgotten as Stuarts Town,” he said.
As well as giving Scotland a much needed colonial port in the American market, Stuarts Town was intended to be a Presbyterian refuge populated by Covenanters who were facing increasing religious persecution in Scotland for their resistance to Charles II’S attempts to bring in a new liturgy.
The Carolina Company was set up to advance the creation of the colony, with its key figures, Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree and Sir George Campbell of Cessnock, deeply involved in Presbyterian resistance, Mr Moore wrote. Backed by the Duke of York , the company was granted permission to secure colonies in America that were exempt from English trade restrictions and would help build a new foreign trade for Scotland. Sites from New York to Suriname were looked with two finally selected – East New Jersey and South Carolina, Mr Moore wrote.
One thousand settlers were promised – “subscribers made up a dense network of family, friends and business associates with a common commitment to presbyterian independence from the Scottish episcopal church,” Mr Moore said.
Setting sail in 1684, the settlers made their home in the Port Royal borderlands squeezed between their English neighbours at Charlestown, the Spanish colonialists of northern Florida and the lands held by warring indigenous tribes.
“Like Scotland, Port Royal and its borderlands were chronically violent and unstable places that bred fear of displacement, enslavement and death, but unlike Scotland they lacked a centralised power, giving the Scots an opening to make their bid for empire,” Moore said.
Of particular interest to the Stuarts Town Scots were the indigenous population, who, according to accounts, lived in simplicity, worshipped the new moon and were viewed as possible easy converts to Christianity.
But Stuarts Town was not to last, with the colony razed to the ground by Spanish privateers in 1686, just two years after its founding.
The Scots had negotiated an alliance with the Yamassee, inheriting the Yamassees’ ongoing conflict with the Timucuans, who were under Spanish protection.
In March 1685, several Scots accompanied a Yamassee raiding party to Santa Catalina. Spanish retribution arrived in August 1686 when three galleys and 150 troops overran Scottish defences. Stuarts Town was plundered and burned. It was never rebuilt.
Mr Moore said: “Overshadowed by the Darien venture’s much more spectacular failure the following decade, Stuarts Town slipped from historical memory and for more than two centuries was neglected or dismissed by historians.”
He added: “Stuarts Town was forgotten almost as soon as it began.”