ALEX DOCNJ F 137 i THE SWEDES AND FINNS .394 1989 ? IN EARLY NEW JERSEY c.2 In 1988 the people of the United States, Sweden, and Finland celebrated the 350th anniversary of the founding of the New Sweden colony on the banks of the Delaware River. The Swedish colony included parts of the present states of Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. New Sweden did not last very long as an independent outpost of Sweden: first settled in 1638, the Dutch took it over in 1655. Only nine years later, in 1664, the Dutch lost control of the area to the English. After 1776, when the Americans declared their in- dependence from England, the lands once includ- ed in New Sweden became part of the Clnited States. Though New Sweden survived as a separate colony for only seventeen years, the Swedes and the Finns who inhabited the colony remained as residents of the Delaware River valley under Dutch, English, and American rule. The Swedish presence and the Swedish influence persisted long after New Sweden came to an end. Descendants of the original settlers still live in the area today. This booklet tells the story of the New Sweden col- ony and of the Swedish-Finnish settlers who settl- ed on the east bank of the Delaware River in what became, under English rule, New Jersey. This is the story of little-known people and their way of life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Swedes and Finns—along with the Dutch, English, Germans, Scots, and others—made New Jersey into a multi-ethnic colony. They began the process of bringing together people of many dif- ferent nationality groups in a state whose citizens Christina (1626-89) was Sweden's queen between 1632 and today represent over one hundred different ethnic 1654. communities. The Origins of New Sweden New Sweden had its beginnings across the Atlantic Ocean on the continent of Europe. In the early seventeenth century people in several European Countries wanted to establish colonies in the New World that Christopher Columbus discovered in 1492. Spain, the nation that sponsored Columbus' voyage, was the first European country to establish a colony in the Americas. The Spanish settled in South and Central America, and had outposts of settlement as far north as California and Florida. Portugal followed the Spanish example by establishing a colony in Brazil. England, France, Holland, and Sweden also created colonies in the New World during the seventeenth century. The leaders and people of these countries saw the New World as a way to wealth. European explorers returned home from America with observations and samples of such New World treasures as precious metals, furs, and timber. The Europeans established colonies in the Americas to obtain these valuable resources. By 1638, when the New Sweden colony began, the English, French, and Dutch had small colonies of their own in North America. New Sweden originated as an idea in the minds of a group of Dutchmen who were familiar with the Dutch colony of New Netherland in what is now New York and New Jersey. Peter Minuit, one of these Dutchmen, had been governor of New Netherland. Minuit and the others, aware that the land contained resources enough to make them ALEX. LIB. nUTGERS 1607-1620: English 1609-1624: Dutch settle Virginia JAN 2 6 1990 explore and settle and Massachusetts hew Netherland N.,1. wealthy, too, looked to Sweden to support their forests, the Finns' woodland background proved pursuit of gain in the New World. very useful and helpful to the Swedish colony. In 1637 the Swedish government authorized the creation of a New Sweden Company. Organized by Dutch and Swedish businessmen, the company WOODCUTTING proposed to plant a colony on the banks of the Delaware River, an area claimed by the Dutch but Thomas Paschall, who lived near Scandinavian then largely unoccupied by any European people. settlers in Pennsylvania, commented in 1683 on The company hoped to make a profit from obtain- the Swedes' and Finns' skill at working with ing furs by trade with the Indian inhabitants there wood: and from tobacco grown by Swedish and Finnish settlers sent there for that purpose. At that time "As for the Swedes, they use but little Iron in Building , the Europeans valued furs as material for clothing for they will build, and hardly use any other tool but an Ax; They will cut down a Tree, and cut him off when and they used tobacco when smoking their pipes. down, sooner than two men can saw him, and rend him into planks or what they please; only with an Ax and Wooden wedges [hammered into the wood to split it]." When the Swedes first arrived in the Delaware River valley in 1638 the Lenape Indians inhabited both sides of the river. On the west side, farther in- land along the Susquehanna River, also lived the Susquehannock Indians. Both groups of native Americans lived by hunting, fishing, gathering, and farming. These Indians greatly outnumbered Beaver Tobacco Plant the colonists of New Sweden, but the Swedes lived The Swedes and Other Europeans in peace with the native inhabitants. The Dutch had a much different experience with their Indian neighbors: the Indians destroyed a Dutch settle- At the time of the arrival of the Swedes the Dutch ment on Delaware Bay (in the present state of already obtained furs from the Indians along the Delaware) earlier in the 1630s. The Dutch also had Hudson River to the north. To the south, the trouble with the Indians in their settlements in English grew tobacco in the colonies of Virginia what is today New York and northern New Jersey. and Maryland on Chesapeake Bay. New Sweden's The Indians on the Delaware and Susquehanna leaders hoped that they would benefit from com- rivers did not see the small Swedish colony as a bining these two activities. According to the plan, threat; so the Swedes and the Indians usually lived the New Sweden Company's owners would become together in peace. rich and Sweden would join the other nations of Europe as a colonial power in the New World. The Swedes bought the land on which they settled from the Indian residents and maintained trade The Swedish dream, however, did not last for long. relations with them to obtain furs. The first ships More powerful Dutch and English neighbors in the carrying Swedish colonists arrived in New Sweden New World gained control of the fur trade with the in March 1638. The Swedes' first set- Indians. Not enough Swedes came to the New tlement—named Fort Christina after Sweden's Sweden colony to grow tobacco in profitable quan- Queen Christina—was at today's Wilmington, tities. The mother country did not provide regular or adequate support to its colonists on the Delaware. To the other European colonial nations, the Swedish presence was a nuisance. So the Dutch conquered New Sweden in 1655. New World colonization must be seen as part of the competition between the various nations of Europe. The fortunes of the parent states in Europe determined the fate of the New World col- onies. Just as the Dutch took New Sweden, in 1664 the English conquered the Dutch colony of New Netherland. One hundred years later the English became the dominant European power in North America when they took over the French lands in Canada. Even though control of the land passed from one nation to another, the colonists of the several nations stayed on. The result in North America was a land of many different people. The New Sweden Colony By the early seventeenth century Sweden emerged as a major power on the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. The Finns—the people of modern Finland—came under the control of Sweden. When the Swedes colonized their New World colony, the colonists included Finns as well as Swedes. The Finns, a people of the forest, lived in woodlands and skillfully worked with wood for many centuries. Fin- nish pioneers brought the log cabin to America. In Peter Linderstrom visited Mew Sweden and made this drawing the Delaware River valley, a place of extensive of an Indian family, ca. 1655. 1632: Christina, at 1637: Swedish age 6, becomes queen government charters of Sweden New Sweden Company Delaware. Ships continued to bring more Swedish and Finnish colonists to the Delaware River in the FORT ELFSBORG following years. Swedish settlement spread from Fort Christina to other locations in Delaware. Pen- The Dutchman Adrian van der Donck described nsylvania, and eventually Mew Jersey. Most of the the purpose of Fort Elfsborg in the following Swedish and Finnish settlers in Mew Jersey, passage: however, did not come there until after the Mew Sweden colony fell to the Dutch and the English. "The Swedish governor.. has built a fort called Elsin- borg [a variation of the name Elfsborg; there is an An official list of the land belonging to the New Elsinboro Township in Salem County today]. There he Sweden Company in 1653, just two years before holds a high hand over each and all, even over the vessels of our Trading Company [the Dutch West India the colony came to an end, noted the absence of Company which controlled the Dutch colony of New Swedish-Finnish settlement in New Jersey: "On Netherland], and all those who sail up into the South the east bank of the Delaware from Cape Henlopen River, compelling them to strike their flags, without [a mistake; the writer probably meant Cape May] to exception. He sends two men on board to inquire Fort Elfsborg [near present Salem, New Jersey] where they come from." uninhabited land and from Fort Elfsborg to the Verkerte Kill at Ermewamex .