August Nordenskiöld
Template:Short description Template:More citations needed August Nordenskiöld or Nordenskjöld (6 February 1754 in Sipoo, Finland – 10 December 1792 in Sierra Leone, Africa) was a Finnish-Swedish alchemist and Swedenborgian critic of slavery.
Nordenskiöld was the son of Template:Interlanguage link and Märta Nordenskiöld, born Ramsay, and brother of Swedish Admiral Template:Interlanguage link (1747–1842). He was educated at Turku before moving to Stockholm where he was influenced by Swedenborgianism.<ref name="CambHistPolTht">The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 764</ref> He was supported by the king of Sweden, Gustav III, in his efforts to find the Philosopher's Stone, in order to create gold.Template:Citation needed In 1782 he led Sweden's mining operations in Finland.Template:Citation needed He was also involved in an attempt, supported by Gustav III, to found an anti-slavery colony on the west coast of Africa.<ref name=CambHistPolTht/> Nordenskiöld died in a violent clash between locals in Sierra Leone, where he had moved.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
His nephew, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, was an Arctic explorer.
Works
- Försök til en chemisk och metallurgisk afhandling, Turku 1772
- Oneiromantien; eller konsten at tyda drömar. Förra delen, Stockholm 1783
- Oneiromantien; eller konsten at tyda drömar. Andra delen, Stockholm 1783
- An ADDRESS to the True MEMBERS of the NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH, London 1789
- Församlings formen uti det Nya Jerusalem, af August Nordenskjöld Jesu Christi ringaste tiänare, Kjöpenhamn 1790
- (with Carl Bernhard Wadström and others) Plan for a Free Community at Sierra Leone, 1792