Swedish American Genealogist Volume 12 Number 2 Article 1 6-1-1992 Full Issue Vol. 12 No. 2 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag Part of the Genealogy Commons, and the Scandinavian Studies Commons Recommended Citation (1992) "Full Issue Vol. 12 No. 2," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 12 : No. 2 , Article 1. Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol12/iss2/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center at Augustana Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swedish American Genealogist by an authorized editor of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. (ISSN 0275-9314) Swedish American Genealo ist A journal devoted to Swedish American biography, genealogy and personal history CONTENTS The Colonists of New Sweden 1638-1655: Their Geographical and Social Background 49 Swedish Glassworkers as Emigrants 6 7 The Swedish Episcopal Churches of Woodhull and Moline, IL 1890-1907 80 Genealogical Queries 9 1 Ahnentafe ln 95 Vol. XII June 1992 No. 2 Copyright © 1992 (ISSN 0275- 9314 Swedish A111erirnn Genealogist Swenson Swedish I111111igration Research Center Augustana College Rock Island. IL 61201 Tel. (309) 794 7204. Publisher: Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center Editor: Nils Willia111 Olsson, Ph.D.. F.A.S.G .. P.0.Box 2l86, Winter Park,FL 32790 'fol. (407) 647 4292 Contributing Editors: Peter Stebbins Craig, J.D., F.A.S.G .. Wa shing\on. DC Ja111es E. Erickson. Ph.D .. Edina. MN Editorial Committee: Dag Blanck. Uppsala, Sweden Glen E. Brolander, Rock ls)and. [L Carl-Erik Johansson, Salt Lake City, UP Col. Erik 1l1urell. Stockhol111, Sweden Elisabeth T horsell, Jiirfiilla. Sweden Dr. Erik Wiken. uppsala. Sweden ,, Contributions are welco111e, but the journal and its editors assume no responsibility for errors of fact or views expressed, nor for the accuracy of the material presented or books reviewed. Queries are printed free of charge to subscribers o,1ly. Subscriptions arc $20.00 per annum and nm for the calendar year. Single copies are $6.00 each. Questions dealing with 111embership, back issues. mailing, advertising and other fina,rnial matters should be referred to Swenson Swedish l1111111gration Research Center, Rock Island. Questions dealini; with editorial 111alll>r. queries, 111anuscripts. ahnentafeln, etc. should be n:.fel'l'cd to the editor in Winter Park. In Sweden the subscriptitln price is 150.00 Swedish kronor per year for surface cle1Jve1y, 200.00 krnnor for air delive,y. In Scandinavia the subscription fee 111ay be deposited in a postgiro account No. 260 10-9. Swedi�·h A111erican Geneall>iisr. Box 15222. 161 ]5 Brnmma. SWEDEN. Salt Lake City Genealogical Tour 25 Oct. - 1 Nov. 1992 As announced in the M,u-ch issue of SAG. the annual Genealogical Stucly Tour at the Family History C nter in Salt ake City. sponsored by SAG. will take place 25 Oct. - l Nov I 992. Space has been reserved at the Howard Johnson Hotel, just around the corner from the Family History Center. Last year's tour was a great success and judging by the early response it looks as we shall have just as great a tour this year. Please fill out the enclosed apphcation blank and mail it to P.O. Box 2186. Winter Park. FL 32790 as soon as possible. Join other genealogical enthusiasts looking for their Swedish roots at this incomparable center. Places are limited so act early so as n0t to be disappointed. The Colonists of New Sweden 1638-1656:Their Geographical and Social Background Sten Carlsson* In 1897 Amandus Johnson was matriculated at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. He had been born in Ungasjo Parish in Smfiland in 1877 and had arrived in America in 1880 with his grandparents. His mother, single at the time, had emigrated in 1879. The father was unknown. Later, Amandus was told that his father was a deceased nobleman, who belonged to a family (probably Bonde) that had been active in Swedish politics when the colony of New Sweden was founded in 1638. Thus, Amandus Johnson, a poor young man, felt a connectionto Sweden's era as a great power. At Gustavus Adolphus College he heard a lecture by the famous Swedish American journalist, Johan Alfred Enander, about New Sweden. It seems that Enander's lecture became the starting point for Amandus Johnson's interest in history of the colony and his research of that topic.1 After research in both Swedish and American archives, he published in 1911 his magnum opus: The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, 1638-1664. Amandus Johnson's research is still the basis of all work on the history of New Sweden. But, we cannot be totally easy with his results. He was a man of his time and rather stubborn and self-conscious. He was an ardent Swedish American patriot, very eager to teach his contemporaries about Sweden's glorious past in America, what he called "Swedish Contributions to American Freedom." He regarded the Swedes as pioneers in many different fields and even gave them a prominent place in the struggle against slavery. These tendencies were more apparent in his later books. His New Sweden history of 1911 remained his most important work. His Swedish American patriotism reached its peak in 1921 with the small book Swedish Contributions to American Life 1638-1921. * Dr. Sten Carlsson, now deceased, was Professor of History at the University of Uppsala. This lecture was delivered 3 March 1988 at the conference "New Sweden in America" held at the University of Delaware, Newark, DE. It is p1inted here with the kind pern1ission of Prof. Carlsson's widow, Kerstin Carlsson of Uppsala. 49 Swedish American Genealogist Amandus Johnson, like many of his contemporaries, wrote in a rather descriptive, chronological way, without attempting to analyze different structures. He did not show any real interest in the question that has engaged me: the i l geographical and social background of the New Sweden colonists, the topic of this ' pape1: While my research is based upon Amandus Johnson's account, it has been completed with many sources unknown to him. Colonial enterprise was a part of Sweden's attempt to become a world power. One of its early high points was the 1629 armistice with Poland, when Livonia (the northern portion of Latvia) with its commercial center Riga was incorporated into the Swedish monarchy. At the same time, Sweden was given control for six years over some Prussian ports, thus providing the Swedish Crown with customs income equalling about 30 percent of its national revenue. When the armistice expired in 1635, Sweden's position had been weakened by the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632 as well as setbacks in the Thirty Years War, so that the ports had been relinquished. For Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna this was a great disappointment. Sweden, as he so dramatically pointed out, had lost half of its power, and it became important to get other sources of income. The virgin \'\ territories of the banks-of the Delaware in North America seemed full of promise because of the possibilities offered by the trade in beaver skins and tobacco.2 The enterprise was orginally carried out with the cooperation of experienced Dutch merchants, but soon the colony became a purely Swedish undertaking, although the personnel on the ships remained mainly Dutch, and to some degree German. Because Atlantic passages were fraught with hardship, the government had difficulty recruiting colonists. Some soldiers were ordered to go, and convicts who volunteered to go to the colony had their sentences commuted to a certain number of years, often six. Adultery, game poaching and destruction of forests were typical crimes for which this alternative was offered. Finns who had emigrated to Vannland from Savolaks and Karelia close to the Russian border, and who had aroused the displeasure of the authorities and the mine owners because of their bum-beating agricultural practices, were encouraged to emigrate to "the \' precious and fertile" colony. 3 From 1637 until 1655, twelve expeditions, carefully described by Amandus Johnson, were sent from Sweden to New Sweden. Only seven of them had any importance for the recruitment of colonists. I am omitting the third expedition, which was a totally Dutch enterprise, the seventh and eighth expeditions which brought very few colonists and the eleventh expedition which was seized in New Amsterdam.• But I will say something about the ninth expedition, which was shipwrecked before the arrival, but which has some importance for my topic. ' 50 The Colonists of New Sweden The first expedition, that of Kalmar Nyckel and Fa.gel Grip, left Stockholm in August 1637 and Goteborg in November of the same year, reaching the Delaware in March 1638. Amandus Johnson knew nothing about this journey.5 However, in 1903, a document was published in The VirginiaHistorical Magazine that throws some light upon the first Swedish meeting with the New World. On 8 May 1638 the British Treasurer of Vrrginia, Jerome Hawley, reported to the British Secretary of State, Sir Francis Windebande, that a "Dutch" ship had arrived with a commission fromthe young Queen of Sweden, signed by eight of "the Chief Lords of Sweden," to have free trade in tobacco to carry to Sweden, which was denied them. The ship remained ten days and went with another ship to the Delaware Bay and planned to start a tobacco plantation. Hawley thought that the ships should be removed and other ships prevented from settling upon His Majesty's territories.6 Clearly, the Swedish presence in North America was never popular among the earlier colonial powers.