Due to disease, less-than-accommodating natives, and geopolitical climate, the scheme failed miserably. Many argue the crippling financial effect on Scotland was a key factor in the 1707 Acts of Union which merged Scotland and England.
As to the post failure financial effect, that was mainly on a bunch of rich folks. Scotland per-se was not in any financial distress after the failure of the scheme, as it was private individuals, not the state which had invested.
Have a read of this piece, which covers a lot of the history around the failure of the Darien Scheme.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/weekend-essay-skintland-britna...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18271029-the-darien-disa....
It was written in the late 60s, but it looks like it's been republished more than a few times since then:
https://www.alibris.com/booksearch?mtype=B&keyword=%93Darien...
Some argue we are still feeling the effects of this today. It certainly didn’t help with social attitudes towards being miserly with money (which we very much are).
>Some argue we are still feeling the effects of this today. Of course you are. Think of it this way. The reason they poured everything into it and kept pouring more into it wasn't just to increase personal wealth of investors. It was a unique opportunity to poll vault towards becoming a major European empire. While they knew it was a massive endeavor, the rewards would be incalculable. For them to control the most important manmade waterway to global trade 3 times as long as the US has would be a success story that we'd be reminded about in every grade school class but Golf and Gaelic.
S+ tier: Alexander Graham Bell, John Logie Baird, Rabbie Burns.
S tier: James Watt, Alexander Fleming, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
A tier: David Hume, Adam Smith, James Dunlop
Although trickle-down economics is largely discredited when it comes to wealth, I suspect the same isn't the case when it comes to debt. For example, one of the causes of the Highland Clearances (which began around a generation after the Darien Scheme) was landlord debt[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances#Landlord_d...
As I recall, food was “refrigerated” by the workers in nested, open pots submerged in water. …which happened to be an excellent breeding place for mosquitoes. Malaria and yellow fever would kill or cripple every worker present, and the country du jour had to keep shipping more in. Bleak stuff.
France saw like 20,000 workers die alone. Rainforests really are not a great place to live, lol
The Guna (a.k.a. Kuna) natives were actually helpful, providing food to the colonists, who formed an alliance with them against the Spanish, who were hostile to both Kuna and Scots.