New Sweden: The US's Long-Lost Secret Colony That Shaped America
New Sweden: the US's long-lost 'secret' colony
Standing atop Philadelphia's City Hall, I discovered that the birthplace of America was once a covert Swedish outpost. From 1638 to 1655, New Sweden operated as a secret colony to outmaneuver the Dutch, introducing the iconic log cabin and fostering unique relationships with Native tribes. Despite lasting only 17 years, this forgotten chapter left an enduring mark on the nation's culture and identity.
Unlike every other European colony in the US, New Sweden maintained relatively peaceful relationships with its Native neighbours.
- anyonecancode
I first learned about New Sweden several years ago from reading The Barbarous Years[0]. Now I always think about it whenever I drive south toward Maryland and DC when I cross the Delaware and see signs for towns like Swedesboro (NJ) and various Cristiana/Christiana place names in DE.
[0]https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-barbarous-years-the-peoplin...
- Electricniko
New Sweden also gave America one of the first attempted colonial rebellions against English rule.
- carlosjobim
The book "Swedes on the Delaware" (or "The Swedes in America") is a comprehensive history of this colony:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77652.epub3.images
The interesting part of the book to me was that the Swedes and the native American Indians negotiated as equals for the land purchase, it wasn't by means of violence or deceit. In the end they depended on the purchase of food from the natives during a bad harvest.
Amazing that modern Delawareans have built a beautiful replica of the Kalmar Nyckel ship, considering how little impact the Swedish colony had on American history.
All in all, Swedish and Dutch colonists, although enemies, treated each other very much as gentlemen. Taking a fort meant showing up with the larger force and the other surrendering. Forts changed hands several times, which isn't mentioned in the BBC article.
- 5555624
> But chances are, almost none of those coming realises that the US's political and ideological birthplace was once part of a little-known Swedish colony known as Nya Sverige (New Sweden).
Or they think Virginia has a strong claim to be "the US's political and ideological birthplace." The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was from Virginia. The "Father of the Constitution," James Madison, was from Virginia. George Washington was from Virginia.
It's not like only one European country had colonies in the pre-United States.
- oljwo398ogrj
The ship having the Finnish flag is just a bit anachronistic methinks. Finland would have been under Swedish rule back then (and Swedish, which used to be a language of the elite, is still an official language albeit spoken by a ~5% minority nowadays). The Finnish flag didn't become a thing until much, much later. Even the nationalist Fennoman movement was started by Swedes.
Did you know that Finns weren't always considered white? If you do a bit of Wikipedia spelunking, you'll find e.g. an old German map that paints Finland yellow for 'mongoloid'. Weird, eh? Somewhat recently the Swedes returned some Finnish skulls that were stolen and studied by so-called racial 'scientists'. Also, Finns were apparently called 'China Swedes' in the States.
Another fun fact for those interested: Finnish is a Uralic language, related to neither Swedish nor Russian. In fact, the Uralic languages are a family separate from Indo-European languages.