Scotland and Prince Edward Island Have Something in Common

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

There’s been a lot of hoopla this year about both Scotland and Prince Edward Island, in the one case because of the referendum on independence, in the other, the commemoration of the 1864 Charlottetown Conference leading to the creation of Canada.

It’s instructive to note, though, that they both joined larger political entities not for positive reasons, but rather under duress.

An independent kingdom of Scotland was established in the ninth century, and despite periodic wars with England, retained its sovereignty throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century the Stuart dynasty began its three centuries of rule over the country.

The Stuart king James VI of Scotland inherited the throne of England in 1603, as James I, and the Stuart kings and queens ruled both independent kingdoms until the Acts of Union in 1707, which merged the two kingdoms into a new state, Great Britain.

The closing years of the 17th century saw a decline in Scotland’s economy. There was a slump in trade with the Baltic countries and France from 1689–1691, caused by French protectionism and changes in the Scottish cattle trade, followed by four years of failed harvests (1695, 1696 and 1698-1699), an era known as the “seven ill years.”

To try to turn things around, the Scottish Parliament in 1695 granted a charter to the “Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies.”

The new company, hoping to create a lucrative colony for Scotland, invested in the so-called Darien scheme, a plan to found “Caledonia,” a colony on the Isthmus of Panama, as a means of establishing trade with the Far East. Vast sums of money were raised to finance the project.

It turned out to be a disaster. Three small fleets with a total of 3,000 men set out for Panama in 1698. Poorly equipped, at the mercy of tropical storms and disease, under attack by the Spanish in nearby Colombia, and refused aid from English settlements in the Caribbean, the colonists abandoned their project in 1700. Only 1,000 survived and only one ship managed to return to Scotland.

Its failure left nobles, landowners, town councils and many ordinary Scots completely ruined. Voices began to be raised suggesting that union with England would enable Scotland to recover from the financial disaster through English assistance.

This indeed proved to be the case. A sum negotiated at 398,000 pounds was paid to Scotland by the English government under the terms of the 1707 merger, and 58.6 per cent of the money was allocated to the shareholders and creditors who had lost money in the Darien debacle.

Even more direct bribery was also said to be a factor, with many supporters of union receiving funds from English sources.

For many Scots, it was a sad occasion. Wrote Robert Burns: “We’re bought and sold for English Gold, Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.”

As every Islander knows, P.E.I. only became a Canadian province in 1873, six years following the establishment of Canada. Many Islanders had been opposed to Confederation, feeling the Island was doing quite well on its own.

Islanders were also disappointed that neither the Charlottetown nor Quebec Conferences of 1864 had dealt with the island’s “land question” – the fact that absentee landlords owned much of the colony’s farmland. It had led to Tenant League riots a year later.

In 1866, the island government passed a resolution declaring that no new terms would induce it to join Confederation.

In 1871, however, the colony began construction of a railway and soon found itself financially overextended. The ambitious railway-building plan had put the government into debt and created a banking crisis.

Two years later, the Canadian government negotiated for the island to join Canada. It agreed to take over the island’s extensive debt, consented to provide $800,000 towards a buy-out of the last of the colony’s absentee landlords, and promised to establish and maintain a year-round steamer service between the island and the mainland.

During the election of April 1873, island voters had the option of accepting Confederation or facing increased taxes. They decided to join Canada as a way out of their financial problems. Yet now the province cashes in on being the “Cradle of Confederation!”