New Sweden (1638-1655)
Our Swedish emigration stretch back to 1600. Then we have our different
colonies
over the world. Our first and only colony in the US was "New Sweden".
The Swedish colony was situated at both sides of the River and bay of
Delaware on
the east cost of the US, it also included areas that today are Delaware, New
Jersey
and Pennsylvania.
1626 - privileges for the South company
Year 1626 King Gustaf II Adolf issues privileges for a Swedish company,
(called South company
or the new Swedish company) who should be the only part in Sweden to own the
rights to
foreign trading and colonise in the rest of the world. But due to economic
and political
circumstances this big mission was prevented.
1635 Sweden lost important incomes from customs in Preussen and the General
Axel
Oxenstierna had to seek for new markets to compensate this. He hoped to get
money by
trading and colonisation of America. He contacted the Dutch Peter Minuit,
who since some time
ago already was the leader of the Dutch colony "New Amsterdam" at the Hudson
river (present
New York). Minuit offered to help the first Swedish-Dutch America
Expedition. This lead to
the foundation of the colony "New Sweden".
1638 - New Sweden is founded
In Spring of year 1637 a proposal was given to build a colony at the River
Delaware on the eastcoast
of the US. The first expedition consisted of two ships "Kalmare Nyckel" and
"Fågel Grip"
with the Swedish lieutenant Måns Nilsson Klin, 20 soldiers and also Dutch
crew and
merchandise from the Netherlands.
The ships left Goteborg harbour in the fall of 1637 and anchored at
the Delaware river in March 1638. They started negotiations with the Indian tribe Lenape and ended the first land buy in March 29 1638. The land contained the area on the right (west) riverbank from the Delaware river mouth (todays Bombay Hook) to the river Schuylkill (south of Philadelphia).
|
|
| Photo: the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation / kalmarnyckel.org |
One small fortress "Fort Kristina" was build for protection against the
Dutch colony,
who later on claimed the whole area. The Fort was named after the Swedish former
Queen.
Picture/Source: Travel route from Sweden to New Sweden - www.colonialswedes.org |
The Swedish colonists cooperated a lot with the Indians and during the
whole time
they had extremely peaceful relations and also an hectic exchange with
goods.
 New Netherlands / New Sweden
(1600)
It is hard to find any persons who joined the ships from Sweden going to New Netherlands and New Sweden. But here is a link to information about several ships that left Gothenburg during 1600s containing names of passengers and crew.
Free - it is not searchable but a very interesting link even if you don´t know if you have any realtives that took part in the colonisation.
More information:
Links to information about New Netherlands »
Links to ships leaving Goteborg for New Sweden » |
| Source: The Swedish History - Bonniers Lexikon |
|
