New Sweden was a colony of the Swedish Empire between 1638 and 1655 along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a great power, New Sweden formed part of the Swedish efforts to colonize the Americas.
Sweden established colonies in the Americas in the mid-17th century, including the colony of New Sweden (1638–1655) on the Delaware River in what is now Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, as well as two possessions in the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Fort Christina, also called Fort Altena, was the first Swedish settlement in North America and the principal settlement of the New Sweden colony. Built in 1638 and named after Christina, Queen 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.
West Jersey and East Jersey were two distinct parts of the Province of New Jersey. The political division existed for 28 years, between 1674 and 1702. Determination of an exact location for a border between West Jersey and East Jersey was often a matter of dispute.
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.
Johan Björnsson Printz was governor from 1643 until 1653 of the Swedish colony of New Sweden on the Delaware River in North America.
Swedes' Landing is the warehouse road found along the Minquas Kill in Wilmington, Delaware that is close to the Delaware River. This was the site where the initial Swedish landing took place and marks the spot where the New Sweden colony began. The first Swedish expedition to North America, under the command of Peter Minuit, embarked from the port of Gothenburg in late 1637. The members of the expedition, aboard the ships Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel, sailed into Delaware Bay, which lay within the territory claimed by the Dutch West India Company and anchored at a rocky point on Swedes' Landing on March 29, 1638. They built a fort on the site which they named Fort Christina after Queen Christina of Sweden. Today Swedes Landing Road is a short stretch from 4th Street to 7th Street and ends at a long two-story mural depicting the area from the time before the Swedes came through the modern Wilmington waterfront. At the far end of the mural is the entrance to Fort Christina National Historical Site, a part of the First State National Historical Park System.
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.
Måns Andersson, was a pioneer in the Swedish colony of New Sweden.
Holy Trinity Church, also known as Old Swedes, is a historic church at East 7th and Church Street in Wilmington, Delaware. It was consecrated on Trinity Sunday, June 4, 1699, by a predominantly Swedish congregation formerly of the colony of New Sweden. The church is among the few surviving public buildings that reflect the Swedish colonial effort. It remains open for tours and religious activities. The church was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and became part of First State National Historical Park in 2013.
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.
John Campanius, also known as Johan Campanius and Johannes Campanius, was a Swedish Lutheran priest assigned to the New Sweden colony.
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.
Sven Svensson (1636—1696) was a Justice and Legislator in Colonial Pennsylvania. He was born into a prominent family in the colony of New Sweden.
First State National Historical Park is a National Park Service unit which lies primarily in the state of Delaware but which extends partly into Pennsylvania in Chadds Ford. Initially created as First State National Monument by President Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act on March 25, 2013, the park was later redesignated as First State National Historical Park by Congress.
The Swedish Colonial Society is America's oldest organization dedicated to the study and preservation of New Sweden history. In addition to collecting and publishing research on Swedes and Finns in America, the Society maintains parks, monuments, and memorials of historic sites. A unique aspect of the group is its connection to Sweden's royal family and the Swedish government.
Israel Helm was a colonist and soldier in New Sweden who became one of the first settlers in the area of Philadelphia, PA.
John Hansson Steelman, also known as "Hance" Stillman, Stelman, Tilghman, or Tillmann (1655–1749), the eldest son of Hans Månsson and Ella Olofsdotter Stille. He was a fur trader and interpreter who traded with Shawnee, Susquehannock and Piscataway Indians in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Steelman made substantial donations to support the construction of the Holy Trinity Church Church, probably covering as much as a third of the building costs. He died in 1749 in Adams County, Pennsylvania at the age of 94.
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.
