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United States of America is believed to have started in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 when the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. From the City Tavern where the founding fathers plotted the American Revolution to the Carpenters' Halls where the colonies united against the British and even to Independence Hall where the US Constitution was signed in 1787, the city has all the mementoes of America's past.
This is why each year, it is the epicentre of the Fourth of July festivals where millions come together to celebrate the country.But what most Americans fail to realise is that this place was once a part of a little-known Swedish colony known as Nya Sverige (New Sweden), as per a BBC report. From 1638-1655, this forgotten Swedish settlement extended across the Delaware Valley encompassing present-day New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.
It was the smallest, least-populated, and shortest-lived European colony in the states."It started as sort of a secret colony. The Swedes weren't flag-planting like the French or the Spanish. The idea was to create an under-the-radar colony where the Dutch wouldn't see them," said Deboarh-Jean Hoffman, board member at the New Sweden Centre. While it only lasted for 17 years, it played a pivotal role in forging the nation and New Swedish settlers introduced one of the most iconic American frontier buildings, the log cabin.
They also brought Lutheran Christianity to the New World, led one of the earliest civilian uprisings in the US colonies and left their mark on two future US cities.
A call for business
In December of 1637, Minuit led two ships out of Gothenburg with 25 would-be settlers
By 1637, European powers had covered up much of the American Atlantic coast when Peter Minuit, an agitated former governor of the New Netherland colony approached the Swedish Crown. Minuit had famously purchased the island of Manhattan for the Dutch and spent years scouting the Mid-Atlantic for a place to establish New Netherland.
But after being abruptly dismissed in 1632, he sought revenge against his former employers.To get back at them, he went to Sweden and essentially said: "You are the only major power in Europe without a colony and you're missing out on the beaver and tobacco trade. I know where you can start one," as per Hoffman. With a map, he showed the Swedish officials that in between England's claim to Virginia and New Netherland, there was a vast area unoccupied by Europeans.
Minuit knew that even though the Dutch claimed the entire Delaware River, they had only actually purchased one side of it along their southern border from the Lenape.
He also knew that they were far more concerned with defending New Amsterdam (modern-day Manhattan) than the Delaware Valley.In December of 1637, Minuit led two ships out of Gothenburg with 25 would-be settlers to cut in on the Dutch's lucrative trade monopoly with the Native nations.
After four months at sea, they quietly dropped anchor along a narrow, winding tributary of the Delaware River claimed by the Dutch in present-day Wilmington, hoping its secluded location wouldn't draw too much attention. While the Dutch got to know immediately, Minuit knew they didn't have enough manpower to kick them out.In 1638, he purchased a 67-mile stretch of Delaware riverfront land from five Native American tribes and the settlers built a stronghold that they christened Fort Christina, after the 12-year-old Queen of Sweden.
It was the first permanent European settlement in the Delaware Valley, and the first permanent European structure in what would become the US's first state.
A Swedish nation
Just five months after he founded New Sweden, Minuit drowned in a Caribbean hurricane. Broke and hungry, the 25 settlers turned to their Indigenous neighbours for help. "Unlike the Dutch and English, the Swedes understood and respected the Native tribes. About 80% of the settlers were actually 'Forest Finns', because Finland was then part of Sweden, and they had a deep appreciation for living off the land," said Hoffman.The colony remained little more than a fledgling, far-flung outpost until 1643, when a 7ft-tall, 400-pound (2. 13cm, 181kg) mammoth of a man named Johan Printz was appointed governor. Nicknamed "Big Belly" by the Lenape, Printz had a commanding presence and set out to secure Sweden's foothold in the Americas. During the next decade, he built two more bastions along the Delaware River, expanded the colony from present-day Cecil County, Maryland to Trenton, New Jersey and established a new capital just south of Philadelphia on Tinicum Island.Despite its territorial expansion, New Sweden never became the commercial success it was deemed to be. The colony never counted more than about 400 people, and from 1648 to 1654, the Swedish Crown didn't send a single supply ship. Interest in emigrating was so low that the Swedish Empire resorted to sending petty criminals and military deserters as a form of punishment. In 1653, when one-quarter of the colony's male population signed a petition accusing Printz of abusing his powers, he declared it a "mutiny", but stepped down – marking one of the first successful political protests in US colonial history.By 1655, New Netherland's governor Peter Stuyvesant, had had enough of the Swedish and sent seven armed ships down the Delaware. The outnumbered Swedes surrendered without a shot, marking the end of Swedish sovereignty in the Americas. New Sweden was soon absorbed into New Netherland, but Stuyvesant allowed it to continue as a "Swedish Nation", and settlers were allowed to choose their own government, form their own militia and keep their land.
New Sweden in today's America
The Old Swedes' Church, built in 1698, is the first Lutheran church in the New World
The first three log cabins in America were built at Fort Christina Park in Wilmington, Delaware, where the Swedes' first fortress once stood. Their original landing spot, known as The Rocks is still present there. The Old Swedes' Church, built in 1698, is the first Lutheran church in the New World and the oldest in US still used for worship in its original state.For the while that it lasted, New Sweden was the only European colony in the US that never went to war against the native people.
Many of the area's Swedish descendants still attend the church's candlelit Sankta Lucia Christmastime celebration each year in December. Not just this, they also gather in traditional folkdrakter costumers for Midsommarfest eating the smörgåstårta sandwich cakes and lingonberry sherbert."You know, it was a descendent of New Sweden [John Morton] who cast the deciding vote here in Pennsylvania to support the Declaration of Independence and separate from Britain," said Tracey Beck, the executive director of American Swedish Historical Museum to the BBC.Today, much of this history lies buried in the land and community itself, escaping minds and books. But New Sweden was vital in the past for America to have stood in the present.
