| Title: | All about Scandinavia |
| Moderator: | TLE::SAVAGE |
| Created: | Wed Dec 11 1985 |
| Last Modified: | Tue Jun 03 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 603 |
| Total number of notes: | 4325 |
Whereas explorers from Norway, via Iceland, via Greenland came
to North America in the 10th and 11th centuries. Swedish contact
came much later. [Swedish vikings were busy laying the foundations
of the Russian state, remember.]
In 1638, two ships of the New Sweden Company arrived to found
Fort Christina at what is now Wilmington, Delaware, and to
claim the area of Delaware and eastern Pennsylvania as "New
Sweden."
The Swedish colony had good relations with the Indians, and
paved the way for their later acceptance of William Penn (whom
the Indians took to be the leader of another contingent of Swedes).
The colony was too small to survive on its own, and got too
little logistic support from home. When a larger Dutch force
imposed its will, Fort Christina, with only 368 men, women, and
children, capitulated without a fight in 1655.
Note: Further details on the Swedish presence in the Delaware
Valley can be found in Philadelphia's American Swedish Museum
[see Note 46 ].
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45.1 | Deportees among the first settlers | TLE::SAVAGE | Fri Apr 29 1994 14:09 | 30 | |
From: [email protected] (Anders Engwall) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: New Sweden (was: Provocative postage stamp?) Date: 28 Apr 1994 07:16:06 GMT Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden In article [email protected], [email protected] (Jarmo Ryyti) writes: >Yes and as a result of the Finnish migration the populaton of "New >Sweden" was about 2/3 Finns. The reason, the American fever started >in the Finn-Forests. Peter Englund's "Ofreds�r" deals partially with Nya Sverige. In it he mentions that there initially was great trouble finding willing colonists for the colony. The first solution was to deport criminals. As even that wasn't enough, the authorities also started deporting forest finns, as their practice of burning forest was considered harmful. After a while the deportations stopped, as there then were enough volunteers. It should also be pointed out that the population of the colony was *very* small, so the two thirds mentioned above aren't a lot in absolute numbers. --- Anders Engwall Email: [email protected] ELLEMTEL Utvecklings AB Voice: +46 8 727 3893 �lvsj�, Sweden Fax: +46 8 727 42 20 "Faktiskt �r definitionen ganska lyckad. Den �r extremt godtycklig." | |||||