The relative locations of New Netherland (in magenta) and New Sweden (in blue) in North America with modern state boundaries and postal abbreviations shown
By the middle of the 17th century, Sweden had reached its greatest territorial extent and was one of the great powers of Europe; it was the stormaktstiden ("age of greatness" or "great power period").[3] Sweden then included Finland and Estonia, along with parts of modern Russia, Poland, Germany, Norway and Latvia under King Gustavus Adolphus and later Queen Christina. Other European nations were establishing colonies in the New World and building successful trading empires at this time. The Swedes sought to expand their influence by creating their own tobacco plantation and fur-trading colony to circumvent French, English and Dutch merchants.[4]
The Swedish South Company (also known as the Company of New-Sweden) was founded in 1626 with a mandate to establish colonies between Florida and Newfoundland for the purposes of trade, particularly along the Delaware River. Its charter included Swedish, Dutch, and German stockholders. The directors of the company included Flemish/Dutch merchant Samuel Blommaert.[5][6] The company sponsored 11 expeditions in 14 separate voyages to Delaware between 1638 and 1655; two were lost.[7]
In the following years, the area was settled by roughly 600 Swedes and Finns, a number of Dutchmen, a few Germans, a Dane, and at least one Estonian.[10] Minuit served as the first governor of the colony of New Sweden. He had been the third Director of New Netherland, and he knew that the Dutch claimed the area surrounding the Delaware River and its bay. The Dutch West India Company, however, had withdrawn its settlers from the area in order to concentrate on the settlement on Manhattan Island, leaving Fort Nassau on the east side of the Delaware River as the only Dutch outpost on the Delaware River.[11]
Minuit landed on the west bank of the river and met with the sachems of the Lenape and Susquehannock. They held a conclave in Minuit's cabin on the Kalmar Nyckel, and he persuaded the Lenape to sign deeds which he had prepared to resolve any issue with the Dutch. The Swedes claimed that the purchase included land on both sides of the South (Delaware) River from the Schuylkill River down to Delaware Bay in what is now Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. Lenape sachem Mattahoon later claimed that the purchase only included as much land as was contained within an area marked by "six trees", and the rest of the land occupied by the Swedes was stolen.[12]
The Director of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, objected to the Swedish presence, but Minuit ignored him since he knew that the Dutch were militarily weak at the moment. Minuit completed Fort Christina, then sailed for Stockholm to bring a second group of settlers. He made a detour to the Caribbean to pick up a shipment of tobacco to sell in Europe in order to make the voyage profitable; however, he died on this voyage during a hurricane at St. Christopher in the Caribbean. The official duties of the governor of New Sweden were carried out by Captain Måns Nilsson Kling, until a new governor was selected and arrived from Sweden two years later.[11]
The colony expanded along the river under the leadership of Johan Björnsson Printz, governor from 1643 to 1653. They established Fort Nya Elfsborg on the east bank of the Delaware near what is now Salem, New Jersey, and Fort Nya Gothenborg on Tinicum Island. Printz built his manor house, The Printzhof, at Fort Nya Gothenborg, and the Swedish colony prospered for a time. New Sweden established a strong trading relationship with the Susquehannock and supported them in their war against Maryland colonists.[12]
In 1651, the Dutch West India Company abandoned Fort Nassau and established Fort Casimir on the west side of the Delaware River a few miles south of Fort Christina. In May 1654, soldiers from New Sweden led by Governor Johan Risingh captured Fort Casimir and renamed it Fort Trinity (Trefaldigheten in Swedish).[4] In November 1654, the directors of the Dutch West India Company ordered the Director-General of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, to "drive" the Swedes from the river.[13]
In the summer of 1655, Stuyvesant sailed to Delaware Bay with 7 ships and 317 soldiers and quickly retook Fort Casimir (Fort Trinity). Stuyvesant then proceeded to besiege Fort Christina which surrendered on September 15, 1655. During the siege, the Dutch plundered houses and killed livestock in the vicinity of the fort.[4] New Sweden was formally incorporated into New Netherland although the Swedish and Finnish settlers were allowed local autonomy. They retained their own militia, religion, court, and lands.[14] This lasted until the English conquest of New Netherland, launched on June 24, 1664. The Duke of York sold New Jersey to John Berkeley and George Carteret to become a proprietary colony, separate from the projected colony of New York. The invasion began on August 29, 1664, with the capture of New Amsterdam and ended with the capture of Fort Casimir in October. This took place at the beginning of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.[15]
In 1669, New Sweden was under British rule, but most of the population was still Swedish. A man named Marcus Jacobsson, posing as a member of the Königsmarck family, attempted to instigate a rebellion against the British to return New Sweden to Swedish rule.[16] The rebellion, known as the Revolt of the Long Swede due to Jacobsson's height, failed. Jacobsson was sold into slavery in the Caribbean and the families that had supported him were fined for their participation in the revolt.[17]
New Sweden continued to exist unofficially, and some immigration and expansion continued. The first settlement at Wicaco began with a Swedish log blockhouse located on Society Hill in Philadelphia in 1669. It was later used as a church until about 1700, when Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church of Philadelphia was built on the site.[18]
The start of the Third Anglo-Dutch War resulted in the Dutch recapture of New Netherland in August 1673. They restored the status which predated the English capture, and codified it in the establishment of three counties: Hoarkill County,[19]New Amstel County,[19] and Upland County, which was later partitioned between New Castle County, Delaware, and the Colony of Pennsylvania.[19] The three counties were created on September 12, 1673, the first two on the west shore of the Delaware River and the third on both sides of the river.[citation needed]
The Treaty of Westminster of 1674 ended the second period of Dutch control and required them to return all of New Netherland to the English on June 29, including the three counties which they created.[20] After taking stock, the English declared on November 11 that settlements on the west side of the Delaware River and Delaware Bay were to be dependent on the Province of New York, including the three Counties.[21] This declaration was followed by a declaration that renamed New Amstel as New Castle. The other counties retained their Dutch names.[21]
The next step in the assimilation of New Sweden into New York was the extension of the Duke's laws into the region on September 22, 1676.[22] This was followed by the partition of some Upland Counties to conform to the borders of Pennsylvania and Delaware, with most of the Delaware portion going to New Castle County on November 12, 1678.[23] The remainder of Upland continued in place under the same name. On June 21, 1680, New Castle and Hoarkill Counties were partitioned to produce St. Jones County.[24]
On March 4, 1681, what had been the colony of New Sweden was formally partitioned into the colonies of Delaware and Pennsylvania. The border was established 12 miles north of New Castle, and the northern limit of Pennsylvania was set at 42 degrees north latitude. The eastern limit was the border with New Jersey at the Delaware River, while the western limit was undefined.[25] In June 1681, Upland ceased to exist as the result of the reorganization of the Colony of Pennsylvania, with the Upland government becoming the government of Chester County, Pennsylvania.[citation needed]
On August 24, 1682, the Duke of York transferred the western Delaware River region to William Penn, including Delaware, thus transferring Deale County and St. Jones County from New York to Delaware. St. Jones County was renamed Kent County, Deale County was renamed Sussex County, and New Castle County retained its name.[26]
Swedish explorer and botanist Pehr Kalm visited the descendants of the early Swedish immigrants to New Sweden in the mid-18th century and documented their experiences with the Native American Indians who resided in those parts, in a book entitled Travels into North America.[27]
Historian H. Arnold Barton has suggested that the greatest significance of New Sweden was the strong and lasting interest in America that the colony generated in Sweden,[28] although major Swedish immigration did not occur until the late 19th century. From 1870 to 1910, more than one million Swedes arrived in America, settling particularly in Minnesota and other states of the Upper Midwest.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of New Sweden to the development of the New World is the log house building technique. The colonists of New Sweden brought with them the log cabin, which became such an icon of the American frontier that it is commonly thought of as an American structure.[31][32] The C. A. Nothnagle Log House on Swedesboro-Paulsboro Road in Gibbstown, New Jersey, is one of the oldest surviving log houses in the United States.[33][34]
Finnish influence
The settlers came from all over the Swedish realm. The percentage of Finns in New Sweden grew especially towards the end of the period of colonization.[35] Finns composed 22 percent of the population during Swedish rule, and rose to about 50 percent after the colony came under Dutch rule.[36] A contingent of 140 Finns arrived in 1664. The ship Mercurius sailed to the colony in 1665, and 92 of the 106 passengers were listed as Finns. Memory of the early Finnish settlement lived on in place names near the Delaware River such as Finland (Marcus Hook), Torne, Lapland, Finns Point, Mullica Hill, and Mullica River.[37]
A portion of these Finns were known as Forest Finns, people of Finnish descent who had been living in the forest areas of Central Sweden. The Forest Finns had moved from Savonia in Eastern Finland to Dalarna, Bergslagen and other provinces in central Sweden during the late-16th to mid-17th century. Their relocation had started as part of an effort by Swedish King Gustav Vasa to expand agriculture to these uninhabited parts of the country.[citation needed] The Finns in Savonia traditionally farmed with a slash-and-burn method[38] which was also used by the local indigenous Lenape Indians.[39]
Fort Casimir (1654) – also known as Fort Trinity (in Swedish, Trefaldigheten), located at the end of Chestnut Street near Harmony & 2nd streets in New Castle, Delaware.[46]
Delaware River: "South River" (Södre Rivier; as opposed to the Hudson), "Swedish River" (Swenskes Rivier), "New Sweden River" (Nya Sweriges Rivier)[47]
New Castle County is the northernmost of the three counties of the U.S. state of Delaware. As of the 2020 census, the population was 570,719, making it the most populous county in Delaware, with nearly 60% of the state's population of 989,948. The county seat is Wilmington, which is also the state's most populous city. New Castle County is included in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is named after William Cavendish, 1st duke of Newcastle. New Castle County has the highest population and population density of any Delaware county, and it is the smallest county in the state by area. It has more people than the other two counties, Kent and Sussex, combined. It is also the most economically developed of the three.
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 Classon Risingh was the last governor of the Swedish colony of New Sweden.
Peter Hollander Ridder (1608–1692) was the governor of the Swedish colony of New Sweden from 1640 until 1643.
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.
Måns Andersson, was a pioneer in the Swedish colony of 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.
John Campanius, also known as Johan Campanius and Johannes Campanius, was a Swedish Lutheran priest assigned to the New Sweden colony.
Måns Nilsson Kling or Mauno Kling was the second governor of the 17th century colony of New Sweden, which he administrated from Fort Christina, now Wilmington, Delaware, United States.
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 in present-day Manhattan, New York City, on the North River, now the Hudson River.
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.
Laurentius Carels (1624–1688) was one of the first settlers of Delaware County, Pennsylvania and one of the first Swedish Lutheran clergyman in New Sweden. As was typical among Swedish ministers, he generally used a Latinized version of his name Laurentius Caroli Lockenius. He is listed in historical records under several different names, most commonly as Lars Carlsson Lock.
Great Minquas Path, or The Great Trail, 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.
Israel Helm was a colonist and soldier in New Sweden who became one of the first settlers in the area of Philadelphia, PA.
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.
1 2 Shorto, Russell (2004). The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America. New York, NY: Doubleday. ISBN978-0385503495.
↑ Gehring, Charles T. (1995). "Hodi Mihi, Cras Tibi: Swedish-Dutch Relations in the Delaware Valley". In Hoffecker, Carol E.; etal. (eds.). New Sweden in America. Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press. pp.69–85.
↑ "Upland Court". West Jersey History Project. Archived from the original on April 23, 2003. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
1 2 3 Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York. Vol.12. pp.507–508.
↑ Parry, Clive, ed. Consolidated Treaty Series.; Vol. 13, p. 136; Dobbs Ferry, New York, Oceana Publications, 1969–1981.
1 2 Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York. Vol.12. p.515.
↑ Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York. Vol.12. pp.561–563.
↑ Armstrong, Edward (1860). Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Volume 119; Record of the Court at Upland, in Pennsylvania, 1676 to 1681. Pennsylvania: Historical Society of Pennsylvania. p.198.
↑ Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York. Vol.12. pp.654, 664, 666–667.
↑ Armstrong, Edward (1860). Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Volume 119; Record of the Court at Upland, in Pennsylvania, 1676 to 1681. Pennsylvania: Historical Society of Pennsylvania. p.196.
↑ Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd series, Vol. 5: pp. 739–744.
↑ Spiegel, Taru. "The Finns in America". European Reading Room. Library of Congress. Archived from the original on September 18, 2021. Retrieved August 26, 2010.
↑ Robert S. Grumet, The Lenapes, Chelsea House Publishers: New York & Philadelphia, 1989, p. 18: "Lenapes... planted crops... in garden clearings hacked from the forest... Fallen trees and brush were gathered together or burned where they lay. Crops were then planted in the ash-enriched ground"
↑ Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware 1630–1707 (ed. Albert Cook Myers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1912) Archived June 26, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
↑ The Swedes and Finns in New Jersey (Federal Writers' Project of WPA. Bayonne, New Jersey: Jersey Printing Company, Inc. 1938)
↑ Kingsessing: Swedish Settlement to Urban Blight, Elizabeth D. Day, University Archives and Records Center. University of Pennsylvania, October 10, 2005) Archived June 16, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
↑ History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Henry Graham Ashmead. Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co. 1884 [usurped]
↑ "Site of Fort Casimir". Delaware Public Archives. State of Delaware. Archived from the original on August 21, 2010. Retrieved September 14, 2010.
↑ Howe, Henry; Barber, John W. (1844). "Salem County". Historical Collections of the State of New Jersey. New York: S. Tuttle. p.433. Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2015. In 1641, some English families, (probably emigrants from New Haven, Conn.,) embracing about 60 persons, settled on Ferken's creek (now Salem.) About this period, the Swedes bought of the Indians the whole district from Cape May to Raccoon creek; and, in order to unite these English with the Swedes, the Swedish governor, Printz, who arrived from Sweden the year after, (1642,) was to 'act kindly and faithfully toward them; and as these English expected soon, by further arrivals, to increase their numbers to several hundreds, and seemed also willing to be subjects of the Swedish government, he was to receive them under allegiance, though not without endeavoring to effect their removal.'
Barton, H. Arnold (1994). A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans, 1840–1940. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis
Benson, Adolph B. and Naboth Hedin, eds. (1938) Swedes in America, 1638–1938. The Swedish American Tercentenary Association. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press ISBN978-0-8383-0326-9
Weslager, C. A. (1990) A Man and his Ship, Peter Minuet and the Kalmar Nyckel. Wilmington, Delaware: Kalmar Nyckel Foundation ISBN0-9625563-1-9
Weslager, C. A. (1988) New Sweden on the Delaware 1638–1655. Wilmington, Delaware: Middle Atlantic Press ISBN0-912608-65-X
Weslager, C. A. (1987) The Swedes and Dutch at New Castle. Wilmington, Delaware: Middle Atlantic Press ISBN0-912608-50-1
Further reading
Jameson, J. Franklin (1887) Willem Usselinx: Founder of the Dutch and Swedish West India Companies. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Mickley, Joseph J. (1881) Some Account of William Usselinx and Peter Minuit: Two individuals who were instrumental in establishing the first permanent colony in Delaware. The Historical Society of Delaware.
Myers, Albert Cook, ed. (1912). Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey, and Delaware, 1630–1707. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Ward, Christopher (1930) Dutch and Swedes on the Delaware, 1609–1664. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
External links
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