France began colonizing the Americas in the 16th century and continued into the following centuries as it established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France established colonies in much of eastern North America, on several Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.
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.
The Lesser Antilles is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea, forming part of the West Indies in Caribbean region of the Americas. They are distinguished from the larger islands of the Greater Antilles to the west. They form an arc which begins east of Puerto Rico at the archipelago of the Virgin Islands, swings southeast through the Leeward and Windward Islands towards South America, and turns westward through the Leeward Antilles along the Venezuelan coast.
The Leeward Islands are a group of islands situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean. Starting with the Virgin Islands east of Puerto Rico, they extend southeast to Guadeloupe and its dependencies. In English, the term Leeward Islands refers to the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. The more southerly part of this chain, starting with Dominica, is called the Windward Islands. Dominica was initially considered a part of the Leeward Islands but was transferred from the British Leeward Islands to the British Windward Islands in 1940.
The French West Indies or French Antilles are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean:
This is a list of possessions of Sweden held outside of Sweden proper during the early modern period.
The Swedish slave trade mainly occurred in the early history of Sweden when the trade of thralls was one of the pillars of the Norse economy. During the raids, the Vikings often captured and enslaved militarily weaker peoples they encountered, but took the most slaves in raids of the British Isles, and in Eastern Europe. This slave trade lasted from the 8th through the 11th centuries. Slavery itself was abolished in Sweden in 1335. A smaller trade of African slaves happened during the 17th and 18th centuries, around the time Swedish overseas colonies were established in North America and in Africa. Similarly to other European powers, slavery was banned in the motherland while being legal in the colonies. Consequently, slavery remained legal on the sole Swedish Caribbean colony of Saint Barthélemy from 1784 until 1847.
Danish overseas colonies and Dano-Norwegian colonies were the colonies that Denmark–Norway possessed from 1537 until 1953. At its apex, the colonies spanned four continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
The Curonian colonization of the Americas was performed by the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, which was the second-smallest state to colonise the Americas, after the Knights of Malta. It had a colony on the island of Tobago from 1654 to 1659 and intermittently from 1660 to 1689.
Curonian colonisation was the colonisation efforts of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, a vassal duchy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Small, but wealthy, the Duchy took a modest part in the European colonization settlement attempts of West Africa and the Caribbean.
A colonial empire is a state engaging in colonization, possibly establishing or maintaing colonies, infused with some form of coloniality and colonialism. Such states can expand contiguous as well as overseas. Colonial empires may set up colonies as settler colonies.
Gustavia is the main town and capital of the island of Saint Barthélemy. Originally called Le Carénage, it was renamed in honor of King Gustav III of Sweden.
Nordic colonialism is a subdivision within broader colonial studies that discusses the role of Nordic nations in achieving economic benefits from outside of their own cultural sphere. The field ranges from studying the Sámi in relation to the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish states, to activities of the Danish Colonial Empire and Swedish Empire in Africa, New Sweden, and on Caribbean islands such as St. Thomas and Saint-Barthélemy.
This is a timeline of the territorial evolution of the Caribbean and nearby areas of North, Central, and South America, listing each change to the internal and external borders of the various countries that make up the region.
The languages of the Caribbean reflect the region's diverse history and culture. There are six official languages spoken in the Caribbean:
Saint Barthélemy, officially the Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Barthélemy, also known as St. Barts (English) or St. Barth (French), is an overseas collectivity of France in the Caribbean. The island lies about 30 kilometres (19 mi) southeast of the island of Saint Martin; it is northeast of the Dutch islands of Saba and Sint Eustatius, as well as north of the independent country of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
The Dano-Dutch colonial conflict on the Gold Coast was a colonial conflict between the Danes and Dutch over the control of European fortifications on the Gold Coast. Denmark-Norway, assisted by England, defeated the Dutch in various places, although Michiel de Ruyter retaliated against the English by recapturing all forts but Cape Coast. This forced the Royal African Company into bankruptcy, an event which started the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
