Most Americans are familiar with France, Spain, Holland and England’s colonial history in the United States, but lesser-known is New Sweden, a Swedish holding that once spanned parts of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The upstart settlement dates to the early 17th century, when the great powers of Europe were all scrambling to plant their flags in North America. In the midst of this frenzy of colonization, the Kingdom of Sweden looked to carve out a piece of the New World for itself. The result was one of the most peculiar overseas ventures of the Age of Discovery.
“New Sweden was the last of the European colonial empires to be founded in North America,” the historian Hildor Arnold Barton has written, “as well as the smallest, least populous, and shortest-lived.”
The colony never boasted more than a few hundred residents at any given time, and it only lasted for some 17 years before being conquered by the Dutch. Yet despite being a mere footnote to American colonization, New Sweden’s settlers made several contributions to history. Along with bringing Lutheran Christianity to the New World, they were also responsible for introducing that most iconic of early American buildings: the log cabin.
Plans for Sweden’s overseas territory first took shape in the 1630s, when a commercial outfit called the New Sweden Company was formed to exploit the tobacco and fur trade in North America. The task of leading its first expedition fell to Peter Minuit, a Dutch explorer who had previously won fame for purchasing the island of Manhattan for the Dutch West India Company.
With Minuit at the helm, the ships Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip set sail from Sweden in late 1637 with some 25 would-be colonists. By March 1638, the vessels had traveled up the Delaware River and dropped anchor near modern-day Wilmington, Delaware. As one of his first orders of business, Minuit gathered leaders of the local Lenape and Susquehannock tribes and arranged to purchase a swath of territory that now comprises parts of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Minuit took great care in selecting the location of Sweden’s first settlement in North America. Not only was it built in prime territory for trading with the natives, it was also situated in an area not yet occupied by other Europeans. When the fort was completed, the colonists hoisted the Swedish flag, fired celebratory cannon shots and christened it Fort Christina after the adolescent Queen of Sweden.