Scottish Empire ?

I read somewhere once that Scotland tried to carve itself out some territory in Central America but it failed miserably. What would it take for these ventures to succeed and Scotland become a half decent power ?
 
The Darien Scheme? Doomed from the beginning, to have a successful empire you need to have them go back at least prior to Cromwellian Britain. Even then I don't think Scotland would ever be powerful enough to go head to head with the Spanish Empire without the help of other nations.
 
You could get a Scottish King on the throne of England, in order to obtain the necessary resources to run colonies... :p

The Act of Union in the U.K was actually precipitated by the Darrien scheme, which is those failed colonies you are discussing.
 
Its odd because historically Scotland was a great colonising nation but only within the British empire. Most tea plantations in Sri Lanka were run by Scots and even now they still all have Scottish names (Dundee plantations, McLeith etc.), Hong Kong also has a Dundee, about 20% of Canada and 10% of the American population are descend from Scottish immigrants, Nova Scotia has more Scottish Gaelic speakers than Scotland itself, Glasgow was a massive slave trading and tobacco city and Scottish steam engines and engineering is found all round the world (a group of Mongolian villages still use pumps and steam engines dating from a 1860s Glasgow works).

The problem is that Scotland can never be a coloniser when its going head to head with England, France and Spain, it could certainly never succeed in the 16th century. The English king benefited out of the failure of the Darien scheme as it resulted in the entirety of Scotland going bankrupt and set the nation down the line of becoming part of the British empire. Thats my 2 pence anyway.

EDIT: President Woodrow Wilson, "Every line of strength in American history is a line colored with Scottish blood."
 
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Scotland alone is just to weak to beat England, France, and Spain. They need a convenient personal union incapable of subsuming Scotland maybe my old favorite Scotland-Norway where Scotland has control of the colonies (like Castile running Spanish America).
 
The issue with early modern Scotland is the massive issue of poor government. You constantly had Kings dying in their prime during wars with England and a succession of child kings, who in turn would grow into their youth and promptly die, being succeeded by another child. This was essentially true from the time of James I to Mary, Queen of Scots (although she didn't die, she was still deposed and succeeded by her infant son, much as she succeeded her own father as an infant), although both James IV succeeded at fifteen, which wasn't as bad as some of the younger ones.

This constant strife gave the Scottish barons great freedom that by the time of Mary was rampant. Royal finances were also in terrible shape, with many royal lands having been leased off into noble hands. Mary's religion wasn't the only reason she was disliked -- it was also the fact that once she turned twenty one, she'd be able to reclaim the lands that had been leased out in her youth, and would definitely help bring the Scottish crown out of penury: in the time of Marie de Guise's Regency, the crown brought in about 40,000 Scottish pounds per annum, compared to the 229,000 pounds per annum that the English crown earned c. 1558-1559.

Antonia Fraser wrote that, "The total royal revenue in 1560 was around £40000 Scots or about £10000 sterling. Compared to this, ... state of the country dwelt vividly on the poverty of the Scottish monarchy, which it ascribed to the lack of a proper royal domain." While here sheds some light on English finances in the same period, page 24 which covers some info on the English finances in the early period of Elizabeth's reign. The book on a whole is very good for studying the finances of the crown in the early modern period.

Another Scottish issue would be the population. It's population in the period is quite small. England had a small population as well (compared to say, France and Spain), but the enclosure movement created a class of people deprived of land and pushed into the cities. I could see them managing to found a colony somewhere though, although it would have to be somewhere small. After all, Courland tried (and) failed in colonizing Tobago. If anything, Scotland might be more successful in mercantile colonization, such as trading posts, that sort of thing. Even in the early modern period Scottish trade was important; although it's main partner was England, it traded abroad, too. Surprisingly, Scots could be found in Poland as traders and even mercenaries, and had a quay to themselves in Krakow. This book has details on the Edinburgh merchant class and their trading abroad in the early modern period. Interesting stuff.

To effectively be able to colonize though, Scotland needs a stable government, peace with England, sounder finances, and above all, the will to explore options abroad.
 
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DrakeRlugia got some good ideas but also the Scots should have droped the idea of the Darien scheme (which essentially wanted to create a Panama canal a wee bit earlier than OTL) and focused on African and West Indian trade instead.

If your set on the Darien scheme stop the English East India Company from preventing Scottish merchants from raising funds in Amsterdam and the Hamburg, take goods you can actually trade rather than bibles and wigs (i'd suggest guns and booze), have the colony run by a governor rather than a committee that could get nothing done and have the English keep their promises of support rather than selling out.

If you can have some sort of Scottish-Norweign-Swedish union that would go a damned long way to helping as well. One possible POD thats explored every now and then is that Margret the Maid of Norway does not die crossing the North Sea.
 
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DrakeRlugia got some good ideas but also the Scots should have droped the idea of the Darien scheme (which essentially wanted to create a Panama canal a wee bit earlier than OTL) and focused on African and West Indian trade instead.

If your set on the Darien scheme stop the English East India Company from preventing Scottish merchants from raising funds in Amsterdam and the Hamburg, take goods you can actually trade rather than bibles and wigs (i'd suggest guns and booze), have the colony run by a governor rather than a committee that could get nothing done and have the English keep their promises of support rather than selling out.

If you can have some sort of Scottish-Norweign-Swedish union that would go a damned long way to helping as well. One possible POD thats explored every now and then is that Margret the Maid of Norway never dies.

I think Darien is rather doomed at any rate; even if they had proper goods to trade, a competent governor, and were able to effectively raise cash in foreign markets, I still think it'd be a bust. Panama is a breeding ground for malaria and other diseases and any settlers are going to be quickly decimated. Of course the same risk applies to colonies to the West Indies and Africa too, which is a risk one simply has to take. But that would be a better option than Darien, whose lands were already defacto part of Spain. Even if thrives, the Spanish will probably eventually find out and push them out.
 
I think Darien is rather doomed at any rate; even if they had proper goods to trade, a competent governor, and were able to effectively raise cash in foreign markets, I still think it'd be a bust. Panama is a breeding ground for malaria and other diseases and any settlers are going to be quickly decimated. Of course the same risk applies to colonies to the West Indies and Africa too, which is a risk one simply has to take. But that would be a better option than Darien, whose lands were already defacto part of Spain. Even if thrives, the Spanish will probably eventually find out and push them out.

If they wanted to go anywhere Canada was a far better idea. It gives them a good source of wood, pelts, and fishing grounds. All of which would be good for Scotland in the long run (the wood especially would help for a jumping off into bigger things, being able to afford cheaply expanding the navy would be important for their navy).
 
Have the Second Jacobite War succeed, Lord Murray apparently had the English so scared that George II fled London at one point but the city was not approached. It's a long shot but if Murray can take London and install Bonnie Prince Charles you get a Scottish-ruled British Empire.
 
You could get aScottish King on the throne of England, in order to obtain the necessary resources to run colonies... :p

The Act of Union in the U.K was actually precipitated by the Darrien scheme, which is those failed colonies you are discussing.

A Stuart monarch in England? Well I never!
 
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