New Sweden

St. Lucy's Day- Old Swedes' Wilmington (Part 1)

Happy Birthday to his majesty Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden, who is 74 years old today. Bevare Gud vår kung!

On the city limits of Chester, Pennsylvania, the city council erected these signs welcoming visitors into town. Chester itself was given its name in 1682 by William Penn who named it after Chester, United Kingdom near his native township. However, it was previously a Swedish town named Upland, primarily dedicated to growing to***co. The date of 1644 on the sign is in reference to the founding of the town of Upland.

Sveaborg, now modern Swedesboro, New Jersey, was founded by the colonist of New Sweden in 1638. In town itself there are a few markers noting his colonial origins. In his trip to America in 1976, Swedish king Carl XVI Gustaf visited the town, the only reigning Swedish monarch to visit the United States.

Across the street from Fort Christina National Historic Landmark there is a large mural depicting the Swedes' encounter with the local Lenape peoples who inhabited the region. The Swedes stood apart from most of their European counterparts in their inaction with native tribes. During their tenure in the Americas, there was no armed conflict between the two, nor was their any outstanding tension as their relationship was heavily focused in on commerical trade.

It is not entirely clear at what moment Swedish identity along the Delaware ceased to be a distinctive presence. There is strong evidence to suggest that their cultural identity survived past the American Revolution, and remained somewhat intacted in the early 19th century in metropolitan areas. However, sometime thereafter it vanished and was assumed into the larger mixing pot of American homogeneity. Later Nordic peoples would come in the Americas, but the cultural continuity of the colonists of New Sweden appear to have dissolved long ago them, into the dominant Anglo-Saxon world they found themselves immersed in.

Sweden briefly enjoyed a colonial empire during the 17th century. While New Sweden was one of the more transient elements of this empire, the Swedes also conducted commercial business in the Caribbean and West Africa. The fortress-town of Carlborg was eventually taken over by the Danish and British, becoming modern Cape Coast Castle, Central, Ghana.

1938 triggered several commemorations in the Delaware Valley for the 300th anniversary of New Sweden. Among the townships and groups celebrating were American-Finns who were among the first European groups in come into the region and helped introduce one of the most famous emblems of American frontier life- the log cabin.

The City of Philadelphia attempted to celebrate the anniversary of the Swedes' landing in 1938 by reconstructing the block house that the Swedish colonial army would have built on the site of the city of Philadelphia. It stood in Fairmount Park for several years before being retired from public use.

While Christina, Queen of Sweden, is a name of minor familiarity in the Delaware valley, her later life is largely unknown. She was eventually forced to abdicate the crown following her conversion to Catholicism, where after she relocated to Rome and resided in the papal apartments. She was buried there many years later. Her inscription below reads: The body of Christina Alexandra, Queen of Goths, Swedes, and Vandals. Died April 19, 1689.

Swedeland, Pennsylvania is perhaps an obscure district within Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, resting within Upper Merion Township. It was founded along the Schuylkill River and the Matsunk creek, as a small traditional Swedish villages, composed of about 19 homes. A third generation settler from New Sweden Colony named Peter Yocum III (1678-1753) established Swedeland with the assistance of William Penn, who offered the Swedish and Finnish colonists land on what was then the frontier of his colony.

Periodically, there are historical recreations of the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina National Historic Landmark in Wilmington. Actors will don traditional Swedish garb and recount what life was like for those first colonists as they cut their way through the dense North American wilderness.