New Sweden

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New Sweden (Template:Langx) 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.

Settlements were established on both sides of the Delaware River. Fort Christina, located in what is now Wilmington, Delaware, was the first settlement, named after Christina, Queen of Sweden. The settlers were Swedes, Finns, and a number of Dutch. New Sweden was conquered by the Dutch Republic in 1655 and incorporated into the Dutch colony of New Netherland.

History

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By the middle of the 17th century, Sweden had reached its greatest territorial extent, encompassing Finland and Estonia, as well as parts of present-day Russia, Poland, Germany, Norway and Latvia. It was one of the great powers of Europe during the stormaktstiden ("Age of Greatness" or "Great Power Period").<ref>Jan Glete, The Swedish fiscal-military state and its navy, 1521–1721 Template:Webarchive.</ref> At the same time, other European nations were establishing colonies in the New World and building successful trading empires. Sweden sought to expand its own influence by creating a tobacco plantation and fur-trading colony, aiming to bypass French, English and Dutch merchants.<ref name="Ward">Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Thompson2013">Template:Cite book</ref> The company sponsored 11 expeditions in 14 separate voyages to Delaware between 1638 and 1655; two were lost.<ref name="Johnson">Template:Cite book</ref>

The first Swedish expedition to America sailed from the port of Gothenburg in late 1637, organized and overseen by Clas Larsson Fleming, a Swedish admiral from Finland. Blommaert assisted the fitting-out and appointed Peter Minuit (the former Governor of New Netherland) to lead the expedition. The expedition sailed into Delaware Bay aboard the Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel; territory that was claimed by the Dutch. They passed Cape May and Cape Henlopen in late March 1638<ref name="Delaware">McCormick, p. 12; Munroe, Colonial Delaware, p. 16.</ref> and anchored on March 29 at a rocky point on the Minquas Kill that is known today as Swedes' Landing. They built a fort at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek which they named Fort Christina after their Queen.<ref name="NYATLAS">Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref name="Shorto">Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref name="Jennings">Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref name="Shorto" />

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.<ref name="Jennings" />

Conquest of New Sweden

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File:Nieuw Nederland and Nya Sverige.svg
The relative locations of New Netherland (in magenta) and New Sweden (in lavender) in North America with modern state boundaries shown

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).<ref name="Ward" /> 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.<ref name="Gehring">Template:Cite book</ref>

In the summer of 1655, Stuyvesant sailed from New Amsterdam 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.<ref name="Ward" /> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This lasted until the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664 at the beginning of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The conquest began on August 29, 1664, with the capture of New Amsterdam and ended with the capture of Fort Casimir in October.<ref>Munroe, History of Delaware, pp. 30–31</ref>

In 1669, New Sweden was under English 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 English to return New Sweden to Swedish rule.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The rebellion, known as the Revolt of the Long Swede due to Jacobsson's height, failed. Jacobsson was sold into indentured servitude in Barbados and the families that had supported him were fined for their participation in the revolt.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Hoarkill, New Amstel, and Upland

File:Nothnagle Log House.JPG
The C. A. Nothnagle Log House in Gibbstown, New Jersey, built in 1638 in New Sweden, is the oldest house in New Jersey.

On September 12, 1673, following the Dutch recapture of the Delaware region from the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Governor Anthony Colve's council erected three territorial courts—Hoarkill, New Amstel, and Upland—whose jurisdictions correspond to the modern counties of Sussex, New Castle and the extinct Upland (later partitioned between Pennsylvania and Delaware).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref name="PARRY">Parry, Clive, ed. Consolidated Treaty Series.; Vol. 13, p. 136; Dobbs Ferry, New York, Oceana Publications, 1969–1981.</ref> 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.<ref name="DOCSOFNEWYORK NOV 1674">Template:Cite book</ref> This declaration was followed by a declaration that renamed New Amstel as New Castle. The other counties retained their Dutch names.<ref name="DOCSOFNEWYORK NOV 1674"/>

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.<ref name="DOCSOFNEWYORK SEPT 1676">Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name="DOCSOFNEWYORK 1680">Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1682, 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref name="PENNSYLVANIA 1682">Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd series, Vol. 5: pp. 739–744.</ref>

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.<ref>Kalm (1772), p. 345</ref>

Significance and legacy

File:Wilmington founding stamp.JPG
A U.S. Postal stamp commemorating the founding of Wilmington, Delaware, once part of New Sweden (1938)
File:Old swedes.jpg
Old Swedes Church, built in the era of New Sweden, in Swedesburg, Pennsylvania

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,<ref>Barton, A Folk Divided, 5–7.</ref> 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.

Traces of New Sweden persist in the lower Delaware valley, including Holy Trinity Church in Wilmington, Delaware, Gloria Dei Church and St. James Kingsessing Church in Philadelphia, Trinity Episcopal Church in Swedesboro, New Jersey, and Christ Church in Swedesburg, Pennsylvania. All of those churches are commonly known as "Old Swedes' Church".<ref>Project Canterbury. Swedish Folk within Our Church (Thomas Burgess. New York: Foreign-Born Americans Division, Episcopal Diocese of New York. National Council, 1929) http://anglicanhistory.org/lutherania/swedish_folk Template:Webarchive</ref> The town of Kristina (now Christiana, Delaware), named after the Swedish queen Kristina, is one of the few settlements in the area retaining a Swedish name, and the town of Uppland survives as Upland, Pennsylvania. Swedesford Road is still found in Chester and Montgomery Counties, Pennsylvania, although Swedesford has long since become Norristown. Swedeland, Pennsylvania, is part of Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County. The American Swedish Historical Museum in South Philadelphia houses many exhibits, documents, and artifacts from the New Sweden colony.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref>Henry C. Pitz, The Brandywine Tradition, Weathervane Books, 1968. pp. 4–5.</ref><ref>Mary Trotter Kion, "New Sweden: The First Colony in Delaware". July 23, 2006; accessed 2010.03.10.</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Oldest – Log House in North America – Superlatives on Template:Webarchive. Waymarking.com. Retrieved on July 23, 2013.</ref> Cabin floor plans, such as the dogtrot can be traced to Finnish colonists in New Sweden, as can split-rail fences.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Finnish influence

The settlers came from all over the Swedish realm and many of them were Finnish-speaking. The proportion of Finns in New Sweden grew especially towards the end of the period of colonization.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Finns composed 22 percent of the population during Swedish rule, and rose to about 50 percent after the colony came under Dutch rule.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A contingent of 140 Finns arrived in 1664, and the ship Mercurius brought another 106 settlers in 1665, 92 of whom were listed as Finns. Their early presence is reflected in place names near the Delaware River such as Finland (Marcus Hook), Torne, Lapland, Finns Point, Mullica Hill, and Mullica River.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Many of the Finnish inhabitants of New Sweden did not come directly from Finland, but from the Finnskogen ("Finn forests") of central Sweden. These communities had formed in the late 1500s and early 1600s, when tens of thousands of Savo Finns migrated from Finland to sparsely populated forested regions, especially Värmland and neighboring provinces.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Their migration was encouraged during the reigns of Charles IX and Gustavus Adolphus. These Forest Finns practiced slash-and-burn agriculture,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a method also used by the local Indigenous Lenape Indians along the Delaware River.<ref>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"</ref> By 1630s this practice had become a source of friction with Swedish authorities, who accused the Finns of destroying valuable timber resources.<ref name="u039">Template:Cite book</ref>

In the early 1640s the Swedish Crown considered relocating some of the Forest Finns to New Sweden. In 1640 several Finns who had been sentenced for unlawful slash-and-burn farming in Värmland petitioned to be sent to the colony. By 1643 provincial governors received orders to capture and send such forest-destroying Finns to Delaware. A small number of petty criminals from Finland were also sent to the colony, but forced migration never became extensive. By the late 1640s, Forest Finns had grown enthusiastic about opportunities in New Sweden, and hundreds of volunteers petitioned for permission to emigrate.<ref name="u039" />

Finnish language did not persist in Delaware, unlike Swedish, which was used in the church and remained in use until the 18th century.<ref name="u039" />

Forts

File:Nya Sverige.svg
Map of New Sweden, c. 1638; modern-day state boundaries are also shown.
File:Campanius Catechism in Lenape.jpg
Little Catechism of Martin Luther translated into local Native American languages by Swede Johannes Campanius (from 1696).

Permanent settlements

Rivers and creeks

See also

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References

Citations

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General and cited references

  • 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 Template:ISBN
  • Template:Cite book
  • Johnson, Amandus (1927) The Swedes on the Delaware. Philadelphia: International Printing Company
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  • Munroe, John A. (1977) Colonial Delaware. Wilmington, Delaware: Delaware Heritage Press
  • Shorto, Russell (2004) The Island at the Center of the World. New York: Doubleday Template:ISBN
  • Weslager, C. A. (1990) A Man and his Ship, Peter Minuet and the Kalmar Nyckel. Wilmington, Delaware: Kalmar Nyckel Foundation Template:ISBN
  • Weslager, C. A. (1988) New Sweden on the Delaware 1638–1655. Wilmington, Delaware: Middle Atlantic Press Template:ISBN
  • Weslager, C. A. (1987) The Swedes and Dutch at New Castle. Wilmington, Delaware: Middle Atlantic Press Template:ISBN

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

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