1671 1/6 Ore Delaware Fur Trade, Sweden, King Carl XI Avesta Mint MAKE AN OFFER!

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New Sweden (Swedish: Nya Sverige, Finnish: Uusi Ruotsi, Latin: Nova Svecia) was a Swedish colony along the lower reaches of Delaware River in North America from 1638 to 1655 in the present-day American Mid-Atlantic states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Fort Christina, now in Wilmington, Delaware, was the first settlement. Along with Swedes and Finns, a number of the settlers were Dutch. New Sweden was conquered by the Dutch in 1655, during the Second Northern War, and incorporated into New Netherland. By the middle of the 17th century the Realm of Sweden had reached its greatest territorial extent and was one of the great powers of Europe. Sweden then included Finland and Estonia along with parts of modern Russia, Poland, Germany and Latvia, under King Gustavus Adolphus and later Christina, Queen of Sweden. The Swedes sought to expand their influence by creating an agricultural (tobacco) and fur-trading colony to bypass French and English merchants. The Swedish West India Company began with a mandate to establish colonies between Florida and Newfoundland for the purposes of trade, particularly concentrated in the Delaware River. Its chartered included Swedish, Dutch, and German stockholders and led by directors of the New Sweden Company, including Samuel Blommaert. The Company sponsored 11 expeditions made up of 14 separate voyages (two did not survive) to Delaware between 1638 and 1655. The first Swedish expedition to North America embarked from the port of Gothenburg in late 1637. It was organized and overseen by Clas Fleming, a Swedish Admiral from Finland. A Dutchman, Samuel Blommaert, assisted the fitting-out and appointed Peter Minuit (the former Governor of New Amsterdam) to lead the expedition. The members of the expedition, aboard the ships Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel, sailed into Delaware Bay, which lay within the territory claimed by the Dutch, passing Cape May and Cape Henlopen in late March 1638, and anchored at a rocky point on the Minquas Kill that is known today as Swedes' Landing on March 29, 1638. They built a fort on the present site of the city of Wilmington, which they named Fort Christina, after Queen Christina of Sweden. In the following years, 600 Swedes and Finns, the latter group mainly Forest Finns from central Sweden, and also a number of Dutchmen and Germans in Swedish service, settled in the area. Peter Minuit was to become the first governor of the newly established colony of New Sweden. Having been the Director of the Dutch West India Company, and the predecessor of then-Director William Kieft, Minuit knew the status of the lands on either side of the Delaware River at that time. He knew that the Dutch had established deeds for the lands east of the river (New Jersey), but not for the lands to the west (Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania). Minuit made good on his appointment by landing on the west bank of the river and gathered the sachems of the local Delaware tribe. Sachems of the Susquehannocks were also present. They held a conclave in his cabin on the Kalmar Nyckel, and he persuaded the sachems to sign deeds he had prepared for the purpose to solve any issue with the Dutch. The Swedes claimed the section of land purchased included the land on the west side of the South River from just below the Schuylkill, in other words, today's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and coastal Maryland. The Delaware sachem Mattahoon, who was one of the participants, later stated that only as much land as was contained within an area marked by "six trees" was purchased and that the rest of the land occupied by the Swedes was stolen. The historian H. Arnold Barton has suggested that the greatest significance of New Sweden was the strong and long-lasting interest in North America that the colony generated in Sweden. Major Swedish immigration to the United States did not occur until the late 19th century, however. From 1870 to 1910, over one million Swedes arrived, settling particularly in Minnesota and ther states of the Upper Midwest (see Swedish American).... read more

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