Last modified: 2021-08-25 by rob raeside
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image by Fred Drews, 05 August 2014
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I was in contact with the provincial authorities of Panama in
2003. Mm. Elisa of the Darien provincial government communicated
that the province has no official flag. If there's a unofficial
historic flag in use, it is unknown to the authorities.
Jaume Ollé, 15 September 2009
image by Fred Drews, 05 August 2014
image by Fred Drews, 05 August 2014
These flags are also used.
Fred Drews, 05 August 2014
.gif)
image by Fred Drews, 4 November 2018
image by Željko Heimer, 3 September 2003
Scottish East India Company
Scotland briefly had a disastrous colony on the Mosquito Coast of what is now Nicaragua. It
pretty nearly bankrupted the country and was one of the things
that precipitated union with England. Did this colony ever have
its own flag, or did it simply use the flag of Scotland or some
Scottish ensign?
James Dignan, 2 September 2003
There is a flag in FTTAAATW, p. 204 [smi75b], second row, first flag,
which was explained to me as the flag of the Scots adventure in
Central America. The flag is identified as "Pav:de la Compe
das Inde Oriente d'Eocssie."
Jim Ferrigan, 2 September 2003
Make that "Pavillon de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales
d'Ecosse" which translates as: "Scottish East India
Company". I have a feeling that refers to the East Indies
(Asia-Pacific), not the Caribbean.
Albert Kirsch, 2 September 2003
The flag looks like modern Kiribati
without the bird (of course, allow for the artistic differences).
Željko Heimer, 2 September 2003
The Scottish colony was at Darien (Panama) in 1699. Here is an
image of a flag from the
F.E. Hulme edition of Flags of the World which is similar to the
"Scottish East India Company" flag in FTTAAATW, p. 204
, second row. Described as the signal for 'engage the enemy' in
An Essay on Signals dated 1788.
David Prothero, 2 September 2003
That probably was the flag of the venture. As with many 17th
century colonial enterprises, the Scottish colony in Darien was
administered by a private company of investors, not the central
government. In this case the company was officially named the
Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. It was
founded in June 1695. I don't think there was any other Scottish
company called "The East India Company", and it was
very likely the above company would have been often referred to
by that name. The idea behind the Darien colony was for it to
serve as a transshipment point for goods from the Far East to
Europe, eliminating the detour of having to round Cape Horn.
Ned Smith, 2 September 2003
This flag is not mentioned in a book I read about the colony. The book
referred to the Amerindians flying the Saltire to curry favour with the
colonists. No mention is made of any other flag, national or company.
Alastair Dallas, 4 February 2017
An article is published in the
Revista
Credencial Historia (Credential History Magazine, sponsored by the "Banco de
La República" (Bank of the Republic, Colombia's Central Bank, which sponsors
several cultural and historical research projects): "Nueva Caledonia: una
colonia de escoceses en el Darién, fundada en 1698" (New Caledorna: a Scottish
colony in the Darien, established in 1698") By Gonzálo Hernández de Alba,
published in the magazine's 21st Edition (September 1991) (http://www.banrepcultural.org/node/32953).
In the article, they show William Paterson's personal coat of arms (http://www.banrepcultural.org/sites/default/files/lablaa/revistas/credencial/septiembre1991/images/3.jpg)
and also two front covers (http://www.banrepcultural.org/sites/default/files/lablaa/revistas/credencial/septiembre1991/images/4.jpg)
of published studies of Patterson's company, from left to right:
- "A history
of William Paterson and the Darien company " by James Samuel Barbour (1907)
(full text availbale online:
https://archive.org/details/historyofwilliam00barb)
- "The Disaster of
Darien" by Francis Russell Hart (1909) (full text available from 1929 Edition:
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000317889). The 1909 Edition features
the company's flag on the cover.
The same online article mentioned above
even features a graphic
rendition of the flag (http://www.banrepcultural.org/sites/default/files/lablaa/revistas/credencial/septiembre1991/images/6.jpg)
which is basically the same as the one above.
The Darien scheme (project)
was an effort carried out by "Scottish-born trader and financier William
Paterson had long promoted a plan for a colony on the Isthmus of Panama to be
used as a gateway between the Atlantic and Pacific – the same principle which,
much later, would lead to the construction of the Panama Canal. Paterson was
instrumental in getting the company off the ground in London. He had failed to
interest several European countries in his project but, in the aftermath of the
English reaction to the company, he was able to get a respectful hearing for his
ideas. The Scots' original aim of emulating the East India
Company by breaking into the lucrative trading areas of the Indies and
Africa was forgotten, and the highly ambitious Darien scheme was adopted by the
company."
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
Alastair mentions that
the company men only used the Scottish flag in the book he read. However, since
the company that carried out the effort, the Company of Scotland (full name:
Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, also called the Scottish
Darien Company) was established on 26 June 1695, and the first expedition was in
1698, it is more likely that the company flag was indeed used by the time they
set sail (July 17 from Leith, Edinburgh and it is most likely that they also
used the Scottish flag as well.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Scotland
The archives of
the company (http://heritagearchives.rbs.com/companies/list/company-of-scotland-trading-to-africa-and-the-indies.html)
are at the RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), since the Compnay was an overseas
trading company connected with the history of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Its
archives are inscribed on UNESCO’s UK Memory of the World Register ("a list of
individual documents and documentary collections of particular importance to the
United Kingdom; it is the national complement to UNESCO's international Memory
of the World programme, in recognition of their importance to our shared
cultural heritage", source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Memory_of_the_World_Register)
(source:
https://www.britishonlinearchives.co.uk/collection.php?cid=9781851171873).
There's also an online BBC article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_4180000/4180798.stm)
that states that due to the failure of these types of expeditions (which were
part of the Scottish attempts of colonization of the Americas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_colonization_of_the_Americas),
Scotland was forced, due to economic reasons, to be part of the United Kingdom,
as this article (http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Darien-Scheme/)
also states: "It has been argued that the Darien Scheme crippled the country's
economy to such an extent that it triggered the dissolution of the Scottish
Parliament and led to the 1707 Act of Union with England. Was this a mere
coincidence, or had the English withdrawal from the scheme been deliberately
engineered to ensure its failure?"
Esteban Rivera, 5 February 2017
There is an important difference, though: in these sources, upper blue stripe
is not delimited by two straight lines, but either by two wavy ones, or an upper
engrailed and a bottom invected one - I cannot tell precisely, although the
colored image seems to speak in favor of the second of these options. Also, the
three stripes all seem to be wider than currently shown above - the details
described here would actually require that in order to be recognizable.
Tomislav Todorovic, 6 February 2017
