| Conquest of New Sweden 1655 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Map of New Sweden, c. 1650 by Amandus Johnson | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Dutch Republic |  Sweden | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Peter Stuyvesant | Johan Risingh  | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 7 ships 317 soldiers | |||||||||
In September 1655, Dutch soldiers from New Netherland under the command of Peter Stuyvesant conquered the Delaware River colony of New Sweden. Under the terms of surrender the Swedish settlements were incorporated into the Dutch colony.
New Sweden was a Swedish colony founded by Peter Minuit in 1638 along the Delaware River. The colony, centered on Fort Christina, thrived for a number of years under the administration of Johan Printz, attracting Swedish and Finnish settlers who engaged in farming and fur trading with the Lenape and Susquehannock. The Dutch, however, also claimed the area, having established the colony of New Netherland in 1624 along the Hudson River. Their presence on the Delaware River, however, was many years limited to Fort Nassau on the east side of the river opposite the mouth of the Schuylkill River. [1]
Tension between the Dutch and Swedes in North America escalated in the late 1640s. The Dutch West India Company, which governed New Netherland, saw New Sweden as a threat to its trade dominance and territorial ambitions in the region. The Dutch West India Company was particularly concerned about the trade in furs conducted by the Swedes with the Lenape and Susquehannock which had the potential to undermine the Dutch trade with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). The Swedes, however, were often hampered by a shortage of trade goods caused by the infrequent arrival of supply ships from Sweden. [2]
In June 1651, the Director-General of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, marched overland with 120 soldiers to Fort Nassau while several armed ships sailed from New Amsterdam to the Delaware River. Stuyvesant took no direct action against the Swedes, but ordered Fort Nassau dismantled and a new fort constructed on the west side of the river a few miles south of Fort Christina. [2] Upon his arrival in New Sweden in May 1654, newly appointed Governor Johan Risingh, seized Fort Casimir from the Dutch and renamed it Fort Trefaldighet (Trinity). In response the Dutch West India Company ordered Stuyvesant to "drive" the Swedes from the river. [3]
Preparations for the invasion of New Sweden began in New Amsterdam in August 1655. Although Stuyvesant attempted to keep news of the planned assault from reaching New Sweden, the Lenape soon informed Risingh of the Dutch plans. Risingh ordered Fort Trinity and Fort Christian strengthened. [4]
On August 26, 1655, Stuyvesant and an expedition consisting of seven ships and 317 soldiers departed New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant landed his soldiers on the west side of the Delaware between Fort Trefaldighet and Fort Christina on August 31. A contingent of 50 soldiers was dispatched to block the road between the two forts, cutting off communication between them. Faced with the overwhelming Dutch force, Lieutenant Sven Skute, the Swedish commander of Fort Trefaldighet, surrendered the next day. [5] The common soldiers were brought aboard the Dutch ships and sent to New Amsterdam a few days later, while the officers were held under guard at the fort. [4]
Risingh dispatched Hendrick von Elswick, the Swedish factor at Fort Christina, to meet with Stuyvesant and discover his intentions. When Stuyvesant told him that his goal was the conquest of New Sweden, Elswick replied in Latin: "Hodie mihi, cras tibi" (Today me, tomorrow you). Elswick's retort would prove prophetic when nine years later Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to the English. [5]
The Dutch proceeded upriver to Fort Christina which they invested on September 5. During the siege, farms in the vicinity of the fort were plundered and burned. [2] In a letter to Stuyvesant several weeks later, Risingh wrote:
The women were, sometimes with violence, torn from their houses; buildings dismantled and hauled away; oxen, cows, pigs and other animals slaughtered daily in large numbers; even the horses were not spared but wantonly shot. [6]
The garrison of Fort Christina was vastly outnumbered, and suffered from poor morale and a lack of gunpowder. Risingh capitulated without firing a shot on September 15, 1655. [4]
Under the terms of the surrender, those colonists who wished to return to Sweden were permitted to do so, while those that wished to remain had to swear allegiance to the Dutch. Risingh, Elswick and 35 others departed New Sweden in early October. [4]
At dawn on the same day that Risingh surrendered, several hundred Lenape occupied New Amsterdam in what is known as the Peach War. After the Lenape were attacked as they prepared to depart that evening, they retaliated by raiding Pavonia and Staten Island, killing 40 and taking 100 mostly women and children captive. [7]
When Stuyvesant's soldiers learned about the attacks, they retaliated against the Swedish colonists, accusing them of inciting the Lenape. [5] In his letter Risingh wrote "your people have ravaged us as if they were in the country of their archenemy." [6]
The Swedish supply ship, Mercurius, carrying over 100 colonists and much needed supplies sailed into Delaware Bay in April 1656, unaware that New Sweden had been conquered. Although the Dutch ordered the ship to proceed to New Amsterdam, the colonists and supplies were surreptitiously offloaded at New Gothenburg. [5]
The Swedish government protested the annexation of New Sweden but did not attempt to regain the colony. [8] New Sweden was incorporated into New Netherland and reorganized into three districts: New Amstel (present-day New Castle, Delaware), Hoornkill (present-day Lewes, Delaware), and Christina (present-day Wilmington, Delaware). [4] In 1664, the British seized control of New Netherland, however, the Swedes in the Delaware River region maintained their distinct Swedish identify well into the eighteenth century. [8]
New Sweden was a colony of the Swedish Empire along the lower reaches of the Delaware River between 1638 and 1655 in present-day Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in the United States. Established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a great power, New Sweden formed part of the Swedish efforts to colonize the Americas.
New Netherland was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic located on the east coast of what is now the United States of America. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to Cape Cod. Settlements were established in what became the states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
Fort Christina was the first Swedish settlement in North America and the principal settlement of the New Sweden colony. Built in 1638 and named after Queen Christina of Sweden, it was located approximately 1 mi (1.6 km) east of the present-day downtown Wilmington, Delaware, at the confluence of the Brandywine River and the Christina River, approximately 2 mi (3 km) upstream from the mouth of the Christina on the Delaware River.
The Delaware Colony, officially known as the three "Lower Counties on the Delaware", was a semiautonomous region of the proprietary Province of Pennsylvania and a de facto British colony in North America. Although not royally sanctioned, Delaware consisted of the three counties on the west bank of the Delaware River Bay. In the early 17th century, the area was inhabited by Lenape and possibly Assateague Native American Indian tribes. The first European settlers were Swedes, who established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina in present-day Wilmington, Delaware, in 1638. The Dutch captured the colony in 1655 and annexed it to New Netherland to the north. Great Britain subsequently took control of it from the Dutch in 1664. In 1682, William Penn, the Quaker proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania to the north leased the three lower counties on the Delaware River from James, the Duke of York, who went on to become King James II.
Johan Classon Risingh was the last governor of the Swedish colony of New Sweden.
The Peach War, sometimes called the Peach Tree War, was a one-day occupation of New Amsterdam on September 15, 1655, by several hundred Munsee, followed by raids on Staten Island and Pavonia. 40 colonists were killed and over 100, mostly women and children, were taken captive.
Fort Nya Elfsborg was a fortification and settlement established as a part of New Sweden. Built in 1643 and named after the Älvsborg Fortress off Gothenburg, Fort Nya Elfsborg was located on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, between present day Salem and Alloway Creek.
The history of Delaware as a political entity dates back to the early colonization of North America by European settlers. Delaware is made up of three counties established in 1638, before the time of William Penn. Each county had its own settlement history. The state's early colonists tended to identify more closely with their county than Delaware as a whole. Large parts of southern and western Delaware were thought to have been in Maryland until 1767. The state has existed in the wide economic and political circle of the nearby Pennsylvanian city of Philadelphia.
The Block House is a historic building located off Naamans Road in Claymont, Delaware. The Block House is believed to be the only structure remaining of original settlement on Naamans Creek.
European colonization of New Jersey started soon after the 1609 exploration of its coast and bays by Henry Hudson. Dutch and Swedish colonists settled parts of the present-day state as New Netherland and New Sweden.
Fort Casimir or Fort Trinity was a Dutch fort in the seventeenth-century colony of New Netherland. It was located on a no-longer existing barrier island at the end of Chestnut Street in what is now New Castle, Delaware.
Fort Nassau was a factorij in New Netherland between 1624–1651 located at the mouth of Big Timber Creek at its confluence with the Delaware River. It was the first known permanent European-built structure in what would become the state of New Jersey. The creek name is a derived from the Dutch language Timmer Kill as recorded by David Pietersen de Vries in his memoirs of his journey of 1630–1633. The Delaware Valley and its bay was called the "South River" ; the "North River" of the colony was the Hudson River. The factorij was established for the fur trade, mostly in beaver pelts, with the indigenous populations of Susquehannock, who spoke an Iroquoian language, and the Lenape, whose language was of the Algonquian family. They also wanted to retain a physical claim to the territory.
Fort Beversreede was a Dutch-built palisaded factorij located near the confluence of the Schuylkill River and the Delaware River. It was an outpost of the colony of New Netherland, which was centered on its capital, New Amsterdam (Manhattan), on the North River.
New Netherlanders were residents of New Netherland, the seventeenth-century colonial outpost of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America, centered on the Hudson River and New York Bay, and in the Delaware Valley.
New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the 17th century colony of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America. The claimed territory included southern Cape Cod to parts of the Delmarva Peninsula. Settled areas are now part of the Mid-Atlantic states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Its capital, New Amsterdam, was located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan on Upper New York Bay.
Olof Persson Stille (1610–1684) was a pioneer settler of New Sweden, a colony along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in North America claimed by Sweden from 1638 to 1655. Stille served as the first chief justice of the Upland Court, the governing body of the New Sweden colony following Dutch West India Company annexation from Swedish colonial rule.
Great Minquas Path was a 17th-century trade route that ran through southeastern Pennsylvania from the Susquehanna River, near Conestoga, to the Schuylkill River, opposite Philadelphia. The 80-mile (130 km) east-west trail was the primary route for fur trading with the Minquas people. Dutch, Swedish and English settlers fought one another for control of it.
The conquest of New Netherland occurred in 1664 as an English expedition led by Richard Nicolls that arrived in New York Harbor effected a peaceful capture of New Amsterdam, Fort Amsterdam and the Articles of Surrender of New Netherland were agreed. The conquest was mostly peaceful in the rest of the colony as well, except for some fighting in New Amstel.
Hans Månsson (1612–1691) was a Swedish soldier and a convicted criminal who was sent to New Sweden along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now the United States in 1641. After serving six years on a tobacco plantation, he was freed and became a respected leader in Dutch New Netherland, serving as a spokesman for the settlers, and as commanding officer of the militia at Wicaco. He purchased land and was one of the first European settlers in what is now New Jersey.
The Capture of Fort Casimir was a confrontation between a Swedish force of 1 sloop and 20–30 armed soldiers under Johan Risingh against the Dutch controlled Fort Casimir under Sergeant Gerrit Bicker and a garrison of 10–12 men on May 31 1654, it ended with a Swedish victory and the fort was captured by Johan Risingh.