The Darian Expedition

Welcome to a new Beehive series, “Readers Relate,” in which we hope to bring you a variety of examples of the type of research being done here in the MHS library by researchers who visit in person, and also by researchers who contact us from across the globe.

We developed a set of five questions for our researchers to respond to via email and will forward the questionnaire to researchers nominated by members of the MHS staff. If you are yourself a researcher and are interested in participating, please contact me at acook@masshist.org and I will be happy to forward the questionnaire to you.

Our first response comes from Julie Orr, a Colorado native who recently spent some time at the MHS on her way home from a year in residence at the University of Dundee, Scotland.

Can you briefly describe the research project that brought you to the Massachusetts Historical Society? 

The research seeks to expand the multinational historiography surrounding the attempt by the Company of Scotland to establish a colony on the isthmus of Panama in 1698-1700.

What specific material in our collections made coming to the MHS important to your research?

The Francis Russell Hart Collection contains his notes, transcriptions and translations of varied documents addressing the Spanish perspective of the Scottish initiative.

 While you were working here, was there something you examined that surprised you?

Hart´s material contained the first documentation of both torture of prisoners and the reaction of the general population of Spanish America to the Scottish incursion.

Is there a particular quote (or visual image) from the material that you consulted that stands out for you?

The visual image of masses being celebrated in response to the Scottish capitulation.

If you brought a visitor to the MHS and you had a chance to show them ONE item from our collections, what item would it be? 

Hart´s translation of the interrogation of the translator for the expedition, who was abandoned on Cuba.

Orr writes of her work, “Following a career with the U.S. Public Health Service in environmental health, I have returned an academic setting to further my education in history, specifically to examine and expand the story of the Darien Expedition and its impact not only in Europe but also in the Americas.”  We wish her good fortune with her project, and thank her for taking the time to answer our questions.