More than turquoise waters and tiny palm-covered isles, this land is home to people who have lived for generations on some of the smallest inhabited islands in the world.
– Edwin Bernard Schmidt
You’re standing in a place unconquered by European settlers. To the north are the nation’s cities. South is a lawless, roadless and dangerous straight of rainforests and swamps whose unrelenting geography resisted two attempts at colonization.
Failed settlements
Along the narrow strip of land, a Spanish king laid out plans for the first permanent European city at the heart of an empire. What he couldn’t see in the primitive charts were the swamps and tropical diseases surrounding his new capital. Within two decades Spain abandoned the site. Then the region was burned by hostile locals and the jungle swallowed what remained.
Two centuries later, an independent Kingdom of Scotland gambled the nation’s future on the same patch of land. Desperate to reverse years of famine and economic decline, the Scottish government raised £400,000 sterling, a staggering sum amounting to 25% of the country’s capital. Dreaming of an empire built on new trade routes, landowners, merchants and ordinary citizens poured their life savings into the venture half a world away.
When the settlers arrived, they were devastatingly unprepared for life in the impenetrable jungle. Surrounded by disease-riddled swamps infested with malaria and yellow fever, the Scots lacked the agricultural skills for farming in the tropics. As their provisions rotted, the colonists died at a rate of ten per day. Within a few months, the remaining starving settlers fled. Unaware that the first group had gone, a second colony landed to face the same horrors.
Of the more than 2,500 settlers who set out from Scotland, 80% died within 18 months. When the project failed, the venture shattered the nation’s economy and ruined Scotland’s ruling class. Desperate to save the country from collapse, Parliament negotiated with England. Under the Acts of Union, Britain paid off Scotland’s national debt and compensated insolvent investors. In exchange, Scotland surrendered its sovereignty and joined England to create the United Kingdom.
Local resistance
When the Europeans showed up, a small group of indigenous inhabitants sought refuge in the remote coastline where five centuries later maps were still based on charts drawn by the first explorers. Migrating across the swamps, the people erected villages along the water. Then tribal leaders made the strategic decision to abandon the mainland and build towns on offshore islands while living off subsistence farms and the sea. For 400 years the group tried to insulate themselves from the outside world.
Early in the 20th century a new government established regional outposts to force cultural assimilation. Ancestral ceremonies were outlawed. Women were prohibited from wearing traditional clothing and many locals were jailed or beaten for refusing to adopt Western dress.
The tribe rose in rebellion. When the revolt succeeded, their land was the first officially recognized autonomous indigenous territory in the hemisphere, an act later codified in the country’s constitution. Today the region functions as a self-governed state within the nation whose native culture is protected, bound by laws from village chiefs.
In this remote area where people live on some of the world’s smallest inhabited islands, Reid & Robie ask, “Where are you now?”
For a chance to win, name the territory and country in the comments below. Also, since we switched settings to allow anyone to comment without creating a WordPress account, it means all responses now show as anonymous. Please include your name and email address so we can contact the winner. Don’t worry, we’ll be going back to the original setting soon, so to comment on our site you’ll need to be signed in to WordPress. Sorry, Mikey.
The answer to the last Where are you now? quiz was the Forbidden City in Beijing, China answered correctly by Elegant Sweetly.
Congratulations, and thanks for playing! We hope you learn a few fun facts about our planet and the people who inhabit it.