New Sweden: the US's long-lost 'secret' colony

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260629-new-sweden-the-uss-long-lost-secret-colony

by bookofjoe • 14 days ago

167 76 14 days ago

This is stupid. And New York was new Amsterdam before the USA and a lot more people came through new Amsterdam (including my family) than whatnever new Sweden was. And the Netherlands was already a democracy before the USA's Declaration of Independence so they would have got ideas from that rather than whatever Sweden was. This is just reaching to write an article.

fakedang• 14 days ago

Uh, what's your gripe? The article clearly states that the colony was pivotal to American history for two reasons - 1.) For creating the log cabin and 2.) For being the only colony to not have been at war with the natives by choice.

The article even says why the colony suffered - lack of supplies and immigrants to the colony from Sweden. That even corroborates with your point.

And yes, imo those two reasons are pretty significant enough reason to remember that New Sweden existed.

macintux• 14 days ago

Or, just maybe, people are interested in knowing more about history? I certainly never knew there was a Swedish colony in the U.S., so I’m glad the article was written.

BigTTYGothGF2• 14 days ago

And the Netherlands was already a democracy before the USA's Declaration of Independence

They were a republic.

karlshea• 14 days ago

A republic is a democracy.

intrasight• 14 days ago

The Republic of Venice formed in 697

aaronbrethorst• 14 days ago

And New York was new Amsterdam before the USA and a lot more people came through new Amsterdam

Why they changed it, I can't say, people just liked it better that way.

eliasson• 13 days ago

Haha, clever!

16594470912• 14 days ago

And New York was new Amsterdam before the USA

The article does not dispute this, in fact it's a big part of the New Sweden history in the article. The same person is credited for being responsible for both

and a lot more people came through new Amsterdam (including my family) than whatnever new Sweden was

Again, Not in dispute. There are paragraphs about how it was a far-flung failed settlement that was taken twice, once by each Dutch and English -- but smooth way to throw in your families long US history coming in through such a a popular port as New Amsterdam. One of my ancestor lines came through some backcountry called Jamestown; def not a swank sounding place like modern-day NYC.

> "Despite its territorial expansion, New Sweden never became the profitable venture it was conceived to become because it was chronically under-populated and neglected. The colony never counted more than about 400 people" [...] "From 1638-1655, this forgotten Swedish settlement extended across the Delaware Valley, encompassing parts of modern-day New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. In addition to being the smallest, least-populated and shortest-lived European colony in the US, it was also the most clandestine."
so they would have got ideas from that rather than whatever Sweden was

Where does it even say anything about ideas for Declaration of Independence came from Sweden?

anyonecancode• 14 days ago

I first learned about New Sweden several years ago from reading The Barbarous Years[0]. Now I always think about it whenever I drive south toward Maryland and DC when I cross the Delaware and see signs for towns like Swedesboro (NJ) and various Cristiana/Christiana place names in DE.

[0]https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-barbarous-years-the-peoplin...

Electricniko• 14 days ago

New Sweden also gave America one of the first attempted colonial rebellions against English rule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_of_the_Long_Swede

reaperducer• 14 days ago

New Sweden: the US's long-lost 'secret' colony

I guess it's a secret to the Brits and the BBC. We learned about Swedish colonies in the Delaware Valley area in fifth grade history class.

So secret that it had its own U.S. postage stamp, as shown at the top of TFA.

There's lots of things that people learned in elementary school in the UK that I don't know about. That doesn't made them a secret.

timc3• 14 days ago

Its just a stupid headline isnt it, I am British born and knew about it but then again I also live in Sweden and like learning about history.

eesmith3• 14 days ago

The title refers to the secrecy related to its founding, not any present-day secrecy. From the text:

"It started as sort of secret colony," said Deborah-Jean Hoffman, a board member at the New Sweden Centre, which promotes the Delaware Valley's colonial history. "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."

zkmon• 14 days ago

What an irony - the once European colonies which depended on their motherlands to defend them in an alien land, now become a menace or estranged godfather to Europe.

alephnerd9• 14 days ago

At least 25% of us Americans have never had blood or ethnic ties with Europe.

African Americans make up around 15% of the US, Asian Americans around 7%, Arab Americans around 1.5%, and Native Americans around 2%.

That percentage is likely much higher when you factor Latino Americans - the plurality of whom either have indigenous or African ethnic origins. And some of America's richest and most politically powerful states like California and Texas have some of the lowest rates of European heritage in the nation.

This whole "America is European" mentality reeks of West European supremacy and fails to recognize how diverse America is. The only European ethnic groups who still have active blood and ethnic ties with the old country tend to be Central and Eastern Europeans or Irish Americans - large pluralities of whom were forced to leave the old country due to colonial reasons (the Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and British rule in Ireland was equally destructive as colonial rule outside Europe).

Alternatively, the only reason Western Europe didn't have a Park Chung Hee, Suharto, or Zia was because Europeans who were naturalized Americans like Brzeziński (Poland), Kissinger (Germany), and Albright (Czechoslovakia) ran policy during the Cold War era.

The modern equivalents of Brzeziński, Albright, and Kissinger are all either Heritage (ie. Pre-Civil War), Latino, Asian, or Arab American.

Why should European states be given privileges that Japan, South Korea, Phillipines, Taiwan, and others weren't extended until the last 30 years?

We are not a European ethnostate. We are America.

rapidaneurism• 14 days ago

I had the impression that (at least some of) those groups contain people of mixed ancestry including European ancestry.

Am I wrong? Is the child of a white person and a black person not considered black in the US? Is that not the case form the other groups too?

true_religion2• 14 days ago

To be fair, the US is arguably even more of a menace to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and even the descendent of native Americans who live in other countries (e.g. Mexico).

So the OPs point is internally consistent, even generalized past a mentality that 'reeks of West European supremacy'.

abcdxyz9992• 14 days ago

There is no real supremacy for western europeans since they built wealth by looting others. They didn't have to do that. Analogy would be some persons doing bank robbery, chain snatching, slavery etc instead of doing agriculture without slavery or working in a real ethical job which isn't cheating or looting or harming others to earn income or wealth.

r3trohack3r• 14 days ago

America is European

When I hear this, I think of the philosophy, system of laws, language, etc. in America - and not the percentages we get when we segregate the American population by their ancestors.

jltsiren4• 14 days ago

At least 25% of us Americans have never had blood or ethnic ties with Europe.
African Americans make up around 15% of the US, Asian Americans around 7%, Arab Americans around 1.5%, and Native Americans around 2%.

Those are cultural identities. The average African American has ~20% European ancestry. Latin Americans vary by country and region of origin, but on the average, they have more European than Native American ancestry.

carlosjobim3• 13 days ago

African Americans make up around 15%

Almost all African Americans have some European heritage by blood. If you go to Africa you will see some truly dark skinned people, who haven't any European ancestry. How can you not have noticed this in a world of global broadcasts?

eesmith3• 13 days ago

Do you not consider Roman Catholicism to be part of the European heritage? I sure do.

A lot of Latino Americans and indigenous people are Roman Catholics, so part of European heritage.

I don't understand why you mention "never had blood .. ties" when at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48842245 you reject the relevancy of blood ties. Wouldn't your argument make more sense as just "never had ethnic ties with Europe.

As a reminder, Obama, African-American son of a white woman, once visited Moneygall, where an Irish ancestor lived, and said "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas."

Lastly, I see you switched from "blood or ethic ties" to "heritage". Could you elaborate on what that means? Must I be Greek inherit some of the intellectual heritage of Ancient Greece? How is my claim to the traditional European liberal arts education heritage any stronger or weaker than that of W. E. B. Du Bois?

carlosjobim3• 13 days ago

Now? The last name of the man who conquered Europe through a crusade of enormous bloodshed was Eisenhower.

dreamcompiler3• 14 days ago

There are a number of lesser-known chunks of American history like this.

One of my favorites is that Santa Fe has been the capital city of Nuevo Mexico since 1610. Acoma, another city in modern-day New Mexico, is about 500 years older still.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoma_Pueblo

alephnerd9• 14 days ago

One of my favorites is that Santa Fe has been the capital city of Nuevo Mexico since 1610. Acoma, another city in modern-day New Mexico, is about 500 years older still

We were taught this in California in elementary school. Spanish colonial history actually tends to be taught at the same time or earlier than East Coast history in much of the American West (usually as "California" or "Texas" or "Colorado" history).

dreamcompiler3• 13 days ago

I grew up in Texas and took Texas history. I learned things like Texas being the only US state that was once an independent country and where the Six Flags came from (later the name of an amusement park empire that originated in Texas).

But they never taught us much about New Mexico.

zazazache• 14 days ago

I thought this was going to be about how Sweden’s claimed neutrality is a sham (even more so now that we joined NATO), but I guess it would have been vassal and not colony in the title if that were the case.

bananaflag• 14 days ago

The title is misleading because it is suggests it is about a colony of the US (like Phillipines), not a colony on territory which is now US.

21asdffdsa12• 14 days ago

I knew it- that architecture- those red houses with the wide windowframe.. that is swedish..

amelius• 14 days ago

I'm wondering why the Vikings didn't conquer the Americas long before.

AndrewAndrewsen2• 14 days ago

they did

arrowsmith2• 14 days ago

They briefly visited, they didn't "conquer"

inglor_cz• 14 days ago

Logistics was not on their side.

You can easily sail with a fleet of several hundred longships across smaller bodies of water like the North Sea and concentrate enough power to threaten existing kingdoms on the other side. This is a journey of ~ 3 days, and under optimal conditions, they could make it across in a day and a half.

Sending even a tenth of that force across the Northern Atlantic, with its different weather patterns, longer distances, icebergs and very few places to replenish your resources (Iceland yes, Greenland maybe - they lived fairly on the edge as it was, with not much of a food surplus), was not feasible. A few ships could do it, but a few ships means a few people, and in the Americas, which were settled by other people already, it meant that you were a somewhat weak guest to someone else's territory, and you could always be thrown out or made to leave.

colechristensen• 14 days ago

They didn't develop ships suitable for crossing the Atlantic.

You and a group of your buddies would get together while you were young, build boats, and go be pirates for a while until it was time to settle down somewhere.

There isn't a straightforward transition to the larger amount of organization and economy needed to build the larger more sophisticated ships to cross the Atlantic and land somewhere southerly enough to meaningfully colonize.

gradschool• 13 days ago

I blame it all on one guy. What if that plonker who broke ranks on the English side during the battle of Hastings after the English had successfully held the high ground against the French all day stayed in bed that morning, and William the Conqueror just had to bugger off back where he came from? The British Isles turn away from Europe and develop stronger ties with Scandinavian countries over the ensuing centuries. A kingdom of the north eventually extends to encompass Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, and the Iroquois confederation well before Columbus. With first contact happening at a time when neither side has any technological advantage, the relationship becomes more of an alliance than a colonization. I don't know how to extrapolate further except to imagine that the world looks very different.

wat100002• 13 days ago

The English didn't have the easiest time of it, despite substantially more advanced technology, much better resources backing up the whole enterprise, and a native population devastated by diseases brought earlier by the Spanish.

5555624• 14 days ago

But chances are, almost none of those coming realises that the US's political and ideological birthplace was once part of a little-known Swedish colony known as Nya Sverige (New Sweden).

Or they think Virginia has a strong claim to be "the US's political and ideological birthplace." The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was from Virginia. The "Father of the Constitution," James Madison, was from Virginia. George Washington was from Virginia.

It's not like only one European country had colonies in the pre-United States.

Brendinooo• 13 days ago

But chances are, almost none of those coming realises that [Philadelphia] was once part of a little-known Swedish colony known as Nya Sverige (New Sweden).

That's all it's trying to say in this sentence. It's not trying to say that the New Sweden colony was actually the US's political and ideological birthplace. (That's how you read it, right? I'm not sure how your last sentence makes sense otherwise; Philadelphia was a creation of the same European country as Virginia.)

carlosjobim3• 13 days ago

The book "Swedes on the Delaware" (or "The Swedes in America") is a comprehensive history of this colony:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77652.epub3.images

The interesting part of the book to me was that the Swedes and the native American Indians negotiated as equals for the land purchase, it wasn't by means of violence or deceit. In the end they depended on the purchase of food from the natives during a bad harvest.

Amazing that modern Delawareans have built a beautiful replica of the Kalmar Nyckel ship, considering how little impact the Swedish colony had on American history.

All in all, Swedish and Dutch colonists, although enemies, treated each other very much as gentlemen. Taking a fort meant showing up with the larger force and the other surrendering. Forts changed hands several times, which isn't mentioned in the BBC article.

flumes_whims_• 13 days ago

The article mentioned the "the 12-year-old Queen of Sweden" which is quite an interesting story of its own.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina,_Queen_of_Sweden

leviathant• 13 days ago

There is an Ikea in south Philadelphia not far from the Old Swedes Church, but they do not do anything to promote the Swedish history there, however brief.

The colors of the flag is Philadelphia pay homage to this Swedish heritage.

lofaszvanitt• 13 days ago

Looks like BBC is deliberately trolling the US... :DD

oljwo398ogrj• 13 days ago

The ship having the Finnish flag is just a bit anachronistic methinks. Finland would have been under Swedish rule back then (and Swedish, which used to be a language of the elite, is still an official language albeit spoken by a ~5% minority nowadays). The Finnish flag didn't become a thing until much, much later. Even the nationalist Fennoman movement was started by Swedes.

Did you know that Finns weren't always considered white? If you do a bit of Wikipedia spelunking, you'll find e.g. an old German map that paints Finland yellow for 'mongoloid'. Weird, eh? Somewhat recently the Swedes returned some Finnish skulls that were stolen and studied by so-called racial 'scientists'. Also, Finns were apparently called 'China Swedes' in the States.

Another fun fact for those interested: Finnish is a Uralic language, related to neither Swedish nor Russian. In fact, the Uralic languages are a family separate from Indo-European languages.

New Sweden: the US's long-lost 'secret' colony

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