Regarding Nephites crossing through Panama as Some Theorists Claim – Part III

Continued from the previous post, regarding why Lehi never landed just south of Panama, and why the Land of Promise was not on both sides of the Darién Gap.
    As the previous two posts have shown, the idea of placing the Land of Promise in northern South America (Colombia) and northward into Central America is a fallacy that is difficult to understand since that places the infamous Darién Gap in the middle of that Land of Promise.

The proposal by several theorists is that the almost impassable Darién Gap lies between the Land Southward and the Land Northward, which would cause numerous Nephites and their families to cross through this area in the settlement of the north, which settlement was “from the sea south to the sea north ,from the sea west to the sea east”

 

While for the most part, this Darién Gap is almost impassable, especially by the normal populace, there have been an occasional successful attempt. In the previous post, we discussed the achievement of some adventurers to cross the Darién Gap in either vehicles or on foot; however, it should be noted that the one thing just about all these treks and vehicular crossings of the Gap have had in common was a complete back-up system of phones, radios, maps, and for the most part, modern supplies and conditions. In the time of the Nephites, during the last millennium BC, there were no back-up systems, vehicles, support groups, military and rescue capabilities with helicopters and speed boats ready to lend a hand. There were no world-travelers and adventurers with multiple experiences to make such a trek.

The Scottish settlement of Caledonia along the Gulf of the Darién Gap built in 1698

As an example of the severe difficulties of men, women and children within the Darién Gap, in the late 1690s, the kingdom of Scotland, in an attempt to become a world trading nation, tried to establish a colony called Caledonia on the Isthmus of Panama along the Gulf of Darién. The aim was for this family-oriented colony to provide an overland route that connected the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. At the time, Scotland's economy was relatively small, its range of exports very limited and it was in a weak position in relation to England, its powerful neighbor (with which it was in personal, but not yet political, union).
    A series of domestic conflicts, including the 1639-1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms (England, Ireland and Scotland) over religious and civil issues, and the ensuing unrest between 1670-1690, followed by the economic slump created by French protectionism, and changes in the Scottish cattle trade, followed by four years of failed harvests, had exhausted Scotland’s people and diminished their resources, deteriorating their economic position which led to calls for a political or customs union with England.
    However, the stronger feeling among Scots was that the country should become a great mercantile and colonial power like England. In this era of economic rivalry in Europe, Scotland was incapable of protecting itself from the effects of English competition and legislation. Thus, 20% of the money circulating in Scotland was put into the Scotland Darién Company and the New Edinburg Settlement of the original 1200-member Caledonia colony, along the Panamanian coast and the Darién Gap. However, despite its extreme importance to the future of the entire country, Caledonia failed—in battling the Darién Gap, more than 2,000 Scottish colonists perished from malaria and starvation in the last decade of the 17th century.
    The eventual failure of Caledonia left the entire Scottish Lowlands in substantial financial ruin and was an important factor in weakening their resistance to the Act of Union completed in 1707.

Caledonia controlled much of the south Panama Gulf coast during the time the settlement existed

The land where the Darién colony was built, in the modern province of Guna Yala—an autonomous region and province in northeast Panama with a lengthy Caribbean coastline completely governed by the indigenous Guna people—it was also the place in 1854 where numerous explorers died from disease and exposure on a U.S. Navy survey expedition, stopping plans for a grand canal project through the isthmus. The area then and now is still virtually uninhabitable.
    In this survey it was learned that the Darién or eastern end of Panama is deeply indented on its Pacific side by San Miguel Bay, a broad drowned river, which is the outlet of the ‘Savana from the north and the Tuyra from the east. The latter river has a very long branch from the north, nearly parallel to the Savana, called the Chucunaque. At high tide salt water goes so far inland that from tide water on the rivers to tide water in Caledonia Bay in the Atlantic is not over 30 miles; at low tide, this area is a mucky, muddy swamp in a larger marsh area—extremely difficult to cross.
    While the list in the previous post of those who successfully crossed the Gap, there are hundreds of stories of those who did not make it—some merely failed and walked away from the attempt, and others lost their lives, many unheard from even to their deaths. It is not considered “the World’s Most Dangerous Jungle” without reason.
    Of the adventurers who have set out to drive every hemisphere, like the Paris-to-New-York racers, Aloha Wanderwell, Elspeth Beard, the honeymooners in the 1962 Toyopet RK45, and Ben Carlin, did not even attempt South America, let along the Darién Gap. Others, including the Richardson Pan-American Highway Expedition of 1940-1941, Heidi Hetzer, Dirk and Trudy Retger, the Bodeswells, the Van Ordens, Frank and Helen Schreider, Clarenore Stinnes, and the Zapp family did not attempt crossing the Gap, but ferried their way around the Gap by boat.

The point is, when someone decides that, after looking at a map, a certain location would fit their personal views, and then creates a model for the Land of Promise and writes articles and books, about it to promote their claims, they have no idea how silly and erroneous are their works to those who have been to the locations and know of the difficulties and downright impossibilities of such claims. As to the Darién Gap claims of this almost impassable jungle and swamp being right in the middle of their Land of Promise map, the authors have little or absolutely no understanding of the area.
    That is because, aside from a lack of roads, bridges, or any sort of infrastructure, the Darién Gap has always been and still remains largely uncharted, thanks to dense and rapid-growing jungle that swallows up any paths hacked through it in a matter of days, frequent rainy seasons that unpredictably flood the dense jungle, malaria-carrying mosquitos, poisonous frogs, boa constrictors, caiman (crocodilian), predatory wild animals and deadly vipers. No one in their right mind would consider this area a populated land where the Nephite Nation flourished.
    The problem is, such fallacious and flagrantly improbable settings by theorists for Land of Promise locations do nothing for the Book of Mormon, the Church, or the effort of factual historians and scholars to determine through scriptural study and historical knowledge the meanings of Mormon’s descriptions of the land, and the pointers Nephi, Jacob and Moroni have given us.