Boundaries of Belonging by April Lee Hatfield;

Author:April Lee Hatfield;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781512824025
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 2)
Published: 2022-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

Freedom draws such, and where there’s many found,

It is most certain, Riches will abound.

One hundred such, ten thousand do imploy,

Who find their Wealth increase, but know not Why

The author, who knew that the Company of Scotland’s plan focused on Darién, reiterated that unfettered commerce would provide ample employment and plenty for all.37

A 1696 promotional pamphlet likewise revealed both confidence in and wonder at the promises of global commerce: “there is such a Mystery in Trade, that Trade createth Trade, and one Trade createth another, and encreaseth another.”38 That was why Paterson saw the isthmus, along with Havana, where ships assembled before crossing the Atlantic for Europe, as the “doors of the seas and the keys of the universe.”39 The metaphors of door and key that he used were not original. But Paterson expanded on the imagery when he called Panama and Havana the keys not only to the oceans, the Indies, or the world, but even to the universe, emphasizing the cosmic power he saw in global trade. It could lift onto a new plane that part of humanity that could claim membership in the trading world.

Paterson believed the Scottish colony would make the world more just and humane as well as more wealthy. He argued that controlling the isthmus would allow the Scots to “give laws to both oceans, and to become the arbitrators of the commercial world.”40 The most straightforward interpretation of the impulse to “give laws” is that it signaled a desire to exert power, and indeed the goals seem consistent with contemporaneous imaginings that an absolute monarch might conquer the world. But in the context of Paterson’s essay, “to give” is also consistent with the bestowal of a gift. The economic hegemony afforded by a Darién-based colony would allow the company to rule the world peacefully, “without . . . contracting the guilt and blood of Alexander and Caesar.”41 Britons very much believed in the superiority of their own laws “to distribute Justice, and defend Liberty and Property,” as Roderick MacKenzie’s 1695 pamphlet had emphasized.42

Paterson’s fantasy of wealth without “guilt and blood” ignored the violence of the transatlantic slave trade that underpinned his plans.43 Company discussions of potential settlement locations repeatedly mention the desire to find a place that would allow them to sell enslaved Africans to various European colonists, including Spaniards.44 When he proposed global commerce as a cure for poverty, Paterson thus excluded African laborers from the beneficiaries. Rather, they figured in his equation as nearly invisible producers of trade goods (“the labouring man in America”), and as merchandise themselves.45 His views epitomized a British ability to envision colonization as universally beneficial because they presumed a “universe” that did not include people who were commodities rather than commodifiers.

The 1697 “Poem Upon the Undertaking of the Royal Company of Scotland” unapologetically linked the creation of wealth via free trade with the enslavement and forced labor of African captives:

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