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Swedish Press N Y A
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www.SwedishPress.com
New Sweden in America
E S T . 1 9 2 9
July/August 2020 Vol 91:06 $5.95
06 2020
Kalmar Nyckel The Swedish Colonial Society Swedish Folktales Mimbly
or about a century, roughly 1610-1710, Sweden was one of the Great European Powers. At the peak Sweden’s borders included practically everything around the Baltic Sea, and the nation had alliances with a number of other countries exerting influence far south into Europe. For over thirty years large Swedish armies roamed around Europe fighting for the Protestant cause, but it was also a period of economic as well as cultural progress. There were Swedish universities in Åbo in Finland, Greifswald in Pomerania, Tartu in Estonia and there was talk about having a second Swedish capital in Riga in Latvia. It was an era when Europe dominated most of the world. Countries such as England and The Netherlands had colonies around the world as did France, Germany, and Spain. In the middle of all this, a disgruntled Dutchman in a small colony in North America fell out with the owners, the Dutch West India Company (WIC), and left his position as Governor. His name was Pieter Minuit, the year was 1632 and the name of that colony was New Netherland centered on the island of Manahatta at the mouth of the North (now Hudson) River.
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New Sweden, the Empire’s First Colony By Leif Lundquist
This map shows how the area that would one day become Delaware changed hands over time, being settled first as part of New Sweden, then as part of Dutch New Netherland, and finally coming under English control in 1664. Although Delaware’s present-day boundaries are shown for reference, these were not established until the mid-18th century. Map by National Geographic Society
Sweden and Holland generally had an excellent relationship, and a lot of trade went on between the two countries. The Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus and his council encouraged Dutch traders, entrepreneurs, and specialists to come to Sweden and participate in the economic development. With the
King’s blessing a Dutch enclave of businessmen was established in Gothenburg, Sweden’s main harbor on the west coast. International trade was the realm of a few large companies, privately owned but with royal privileges granting them monopolies for markets and products. Of course, the heads of
state, government ministers, high ranking administrators, influential nobility, and private investors were all part of the same group of people. The state was dependent on private money and the investors were dependent on the state, so they worked hand-inhand for the benefit of all concerned. But there was competition between different national companies and key persons moved from one to the other for all usual reasons: money, rivalry, personal gain, power struggles, etc. The story about New Sweden must start somewhere, and we begin with Willem Usselinx, one of the founders of the WIC. He knew King Gustavus Adolphus, who was very interested in developing Swedish trade and influence in the world. Usselinx had become dissatisfied with his income from the WIC, and he suggested to the king that Sweden should establish a similar venture. Convinced, the king gave Usselinx permission to form Södre Companiet the South Company for trade with Asia, Africa, America and Magellanica (the as yet undiscovered southern continent). Nothing much became of the South Company, but a seed had been sown, the idea that Sweden should become a colonial power. Enter Samuel Blommaert, another person who
wanted out from WIC; also Peter Spiring , a Dutchman working for the Swedish government, and Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, the king’s closest advisor and one of Sweden’s richest men. Blommaert brought in Pieter Minuit, and Minuit prepared a memorie – today we would call it a business plan — which Spiring brought to Sweden in the summer of 1636 and showed to Oxenstierna. In January 1637 Blommaert, Spiring, and Minuit met in The Hague to finish an agreement about the New Sweden venture. Half of the capital, 12,000 florins would be invested by a Dutch consortium led by Blommaert and Minuit. In Sweden three men named Oxenstierna (High Lord Chancellor Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna, his brother High Lord Justiciar Gabriel Gustafsson Oxenstierna, and their cousin High Lord Treasurer Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstierna) together with Count Peter Spierinck Silfvercrona and Sweden’s Chief Admiral Clas Fleming stood for the other half. Despite many people being involved Blommaert managed to keep the plans secret. The Dutch in the WIC and in New Netherland would be completely taken by surprise. In November 1637 two ships, Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip, left Gothenburg bound for the South River. Pieter Minuit was the
Swedish settlers, under Peter Minuit, land at Paradise Point along Delaware Bay. The settlers arrive onshore and start to explore the land in groups, or sit to wait as more settlers arrive; two ships lay anchored in the distance.
expedition leader. By March 1638 they had crossed the Atlantic and navigated up the South River and into one of its tributaries, where they found a suitable landing place, a large rock at a fork in the river (now Christina Park in Wilmington, DE). The first order of business was to scout the area for any other Europeans. They didn’t find any and Minuit decided that they were free to negotiate with the Lenâpes, many of whom had gathered around the ships. He acquired the right to settle in the area, and the agreement was signed onboard Kalmar Nyckel on April 8, 1638 by the Lenâpe Chiefs Mattahorn, Mitatsemint, Eru Packen, Mahome and Chiton. The area was named Nya Sverige. They built a small fort named Christine Skans, and Minuit appointed Lieutenant Måns Kling as its commander. The two river branches at the fork were named Christineström (now Christina River) and Brännvinskilen (now Brandywine Creek).
In June, Minuit boarded Kalmar Nyckel to go back to Europe and report. He left Måns Kling with 23 soldiers and a long list of instructions. None of them knew that the New Sweden project was about to suffer its first serious setback. Peter Minuit died when an unexpected storm hit them at the Leeward Islands. Kalmar Nyckel itself weathered the storm and arrived in Amsterdam in October 1638. The investors were shaken but stuck to their plan and by 1641 the colonist population was about 150. Problems kept piling up. The company had yet to turn a profit and the Dutch government was putting pressure on investors to get out. New Sweden was also hostage of the relationships between the Netherlands, England and Sweden, and issues closer to home were more important. The Dutch investors finally withdrew and the New Sweden Company was dissolved. But the venture wasn’t dead yet. In 1641 Clas
Fleming took charge of the project, and more land was acquired (the closest modern term is “leased”) from the Lenâpes. The project was still alive and looked good. A very significant step was taken in 1642 when the Swedish government appointed Johan Björnsson Printz as New Sweden’s new governor. For ten years he worked energetically, diligently, and with authority to move the project forward. It was an uphill struggle. New Sweden was still not a profitable venture. Clas Fleming died in 1644, the same year Queen Christina ascended to the throne. Axel Oxenstierna was not getting any younger. Christina was beginning to impose her own will more and more, and she was not very interested in the far away outpost. The vital supply line between Sweden and New Sweden was thin to begin with; during the 17 year life of the colony only twelve expeditions were sent to the colony and some ships were lost at sea. By 1653, Johan Printz gave up. He returned to Sweden, and the final curtain for the first Swedish colony was about to be lowered. It would take another two years before the Swedes turned New Sweden over to New Netherland. In 1664 the Dutch in turn succumbed to the English and New Sweden became a part of the next chapter in American colonial history.
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Global
The Swedish Colonial Society – The Rev. Dr. Kim-Eric Williams – Honorary Governor, Archivist
Rev. Dr. Kim-Eric Williams. Courtesy: SCS
Dr Kim-Eric Williams is a leading American expert in deciphering and translating 17th and 18th Century Swedish script into modern English. As an historian of early America, he has published four books and over 35 articles and essays. His vast experience includes living abroad, both in first and third world countries. He served 26 years as a parish pastor active in fund raising, community building, planning, organizing, and public speaking. In the following he describes the activities of the Swedish Colonial Society (SCS) and his role within it. Please tell us about your background. I grew up in Chester County in Pennsylvania. One of my Swedish ancestors came to this area in 1641. I had always been interested in history but never got around to
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investigating this particular ancestor. I have lived in different places, and in 1996 I moved back to my original home town in Pennsylvania. My mother said: “Well, you know, we have Swedish ancestors,” and I said: “Really? Maybe I should look into that.” I heard about the Swedish Colonial Society. When I joined, I learned that they had a program of Forefather membership, and that you got a Forefather certificate if you could prove that you were the descendant of one of the New Sweden colonizers. I did a bit of genealogy research and discovered that I had at least three Swedish forefathers on my mother’s side. That got me interested in examining my Swedish background more closely. Tell us about the Swedish Colonial Society, its mission and its structure. It is the oldest Swedish organization in the United States. In 1909, twentyfour academics got together, many of whom were interested in genealogy. They were also interested in the history of New Sweden which had been completely forgotten, because people in Pennsylvania always began with William Penn. So the academics felt that this needed to be corrected. The Society has changed a lot over the years. In the beginning it consisted only of men. Now that has all changed. Instead of being just about Pennsylvania and Delaware Valley, we are now an international
organization with members in Sweden, Finland and other places. At least 85 – 90 percent of our members do not live in the New Sweden area; they live all over the United States. Many have done their genealogy research and want to know more about New Sweden. So we have changed from being a local society to being an international organization. We have about 800 members. Our Council of 25 delegates meets seven times a year. Our very active web presence has been developed over the past 20 years – see www.colonialswedes.net. We have a sister website in Sweden with its own publication record, and they are thinking of putting together a book right now. Leif Lundquist is the Swedish webmaster [see Lundquist’s articles on pp 12 and 18]. Why were all Swedish colonies relatively short-lived? Sweden was way over-extended. Its “greed” exceeded its reach. The country certainly didn’t have a surplus of people. In Germany, The Netherlands and England you had excess people who didn’t have enough land and not enough work. In some places, like England, religious persecution was rife. There were really no reasons for Swedes to leave their country in the 17th
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Putting Sweden on the Map Abroad
Swedes
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A Historical Cornerstone in America
century. In fact, the government had a terrible time getting anyone to leave. How do you think the image of Sweden is changing and developing in North America? It is changing a lot. We remember the stupid things that Dwight Eisenhower said about Sweden in 1960 [at a political rally, Eisenhower described Sweden as a country with high rates of alcoholism, suicide, and divorce, as well as lacking ambition]. People believed that stuff for a long time. The next thing was “Sweden the Middle Way,” which was a little more positive. The rightists in America of course always hated Sweden, while the leftists loved Sweden – which probably puts me in the leftist camp. But, paradoxically, with the advent of COVID-19, the rightists now suddenly love Sweden because the economy wasn’t shut down. What aspects of Swedish culture and life are you personally most passionate about promoting? I would say the Swedes’ concern for nature and the environment. Just the fact that the Swedes were able to build that incredible tunnel in the bedrock around Stockholm is phenomenal, and all that to keep the traffic out of the city.
Then there is the Allemansrätten (Freedom to Roam) which is the right mental attitude. The Earth is not to be plundered for one person’s riches; it is to be shared. All Western people should learn from that example. A lot of Sweden’s successes is because the country is small. It has a small, highly educated population and a lot of natural resources. Not every country has that. Are there any current or upcoming projects or events that you would like to highlight? I can tell you three or four things. The Swedish farmstead reconstruction at Governor Printz Park in Tinicum Township is a major project we are undertaking. A 9-volume project called “Colonial Records of Swedish Churches in Pennsylvania” has taken 25 years to accomplish and should be in print this coming October. When our genealogist Peter Craig died 10 years ago, we inherited his library in Washington DC. We now have it in electronic form, so
Naturalization certificate of the pastor of Gloria Dei, Andreas Rudman, signed by Willliam Penn in the year 1700. Courtesy SCS
that it will find wider use by scholars. It is the largest collection of New Sweden genealogy in the world. We also have a number of museum items which we have acquired over the years, but we never had a museum. One of the items was a life-size picture of Governor Printz. The King of Sweden’s painter went to Bottnaryd where he copied the original and gave it to the Society when it was formed in 1909. It was the first time that anyone in America had seen what this 400 lbs soldier from the Thirty Year’s War looked like. We also have the naturalization certificate of the pastor of Gloria Dei, Andreas Rudman, signed by Willliam Penn in the year 1700 when he was in Philadelphia. We have a model of an AmericaSweden monument that Carl Milles wanted to erect. He designed a 9-foot plaster monolith with all sorts of sculptures and ideas. We have been storing all these museum pieces at the Lutheran Seminary. Soon we will be taking them all out of storage and move them to a building right near Governor Printz Park. It is a historic building built in 1801 called The Lazaretto which was once the original quarantine station for the City of Philadelphia. The Tinicum Township has restored this big brick building as their county offices, and we will be putting all our museum items there so that the public will have access to see them. Interviewed by Peter Berlin
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Hemma hos
The Colorful Imagination of Children’s Book Illustrator Anna Lindsten
[Design]
By Kristi Robinson
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eek into Anna Lindsten’s Instagram and you’ll see a place of playfulness and joy. As an illustrator, graphic designer and surface pattern designer, Anna’s creative experience is a colorful array of international projects. She has done illustrations for magazines, fabric and package designs and, more recently, children’s book illustrations. Anna explained that illustrating children’s books was something she had wanted to
do for many years. Once her own children grew too old for picturebooks she continued to buy them for herself, amused by the stories and artistry. The opportunity to illustrate a children’s book came to her after she took an online course. Last year her illustrations became part of a book in the children’s nursery series Barnkammarboken, an anthology of songs and stories. Followed by her next bedtime story, God natt, min nalle, and her
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A map of Anna’s neighbourhood illustrated as a personal project
most recent book, Spetter Spat alles wordt nat, published in Dutch with its English counterpart, Pitter Patter goes the rain. The latter will find its way to shelves this fall. Many things like fashion, art, and even the forest, inspire the happy and bright mood of Anna’s illustrations. Subtle elements from her Swedish culture and upbringing also find their way into her work. She recounts how, as a child, she would help her journalist Mom with the layout for the children’s book section of the newspaper. She often incorporates details from her surroundings like the red barn, typical to the Swedish landscape.
A page from “Pitter Patter goes the rain” – the story of a girl and her dog who go on rainy day adventures
Anna sees the beginning of illustrating a book as the start of a new adventure. Her creative process begins when she reads the manuscript and her head fills with images, conceptualizing how the story could look. These concepts are scribbled down into notes, detailing ideas and color palettes. Anna then jumps into character development, the fun part, starting with the main character. She works out details like who they are, what they do, and what they wear. First she sketches the characters with pen and paper, and then she moves on to the storyboard that she tries to make varied and dynamic to be entertaining for the young reader.
One of Anna’s illustrations from “God Natt min nalle” – a soothing bedtime book.
When asked what is on the horizon, Anna shared she is currently creating illustrations for two more children’s books. She is also working on a fun kid-and-parent-friendly project for Sveriges Radio. You can see more of Anna’s illustrations and projects at instagram.com/ annalindsten/ and on her website at annalindsten.se. All images © Anna Lindsten
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Road to 2045
Road to 2045 What Arrhenius, Bolin and Thunberg have in Common By Jakob Lagercrantz
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here are many Swedes who have had an impact on global sustainability. I have chosen three, letting them be representatives of change. First, we go back some 120 years. Svante Arrhenius had struggled with his doctoral dissertation, probably because he was ahead of his time and his professors didn’t fully grasp what he was suggesting. He was interested in many different areas of research and saw innovative ways to combine science. In 1896 he wrote an article in a British magazine where he predicted a gradual warming of 5 – 6 degrees over the next 3000 years. He could show that human industrial activity was the reason. Arrhenius must be forgiven for his inaccurate timeline; he based his manual calculations on the world of the industrial revolution – we hadn’t discovered oil at that time. We now know development is faster, but taking this into account, his calculations were correct. In 1903 he became the first Swede to be rewarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. We then move to the late 1970’s. The meteorologist Bert Bohlin had
Svante Arrhenius. Source: Photogravure Meisenbach Riffarth & Co. Leipzig.
Bert Bolin. Photo: Gunnar Lundmark
already in 1975 presented a report to the Swedish Parliament suggesting that we need to curb the use of fossil fuels. He then took part in an American study in the 1980’s that issued a warning of the threat posed by fossil fuels. But he was concerned that there was a lack of international scientific bodies where global environmental issues, like climate, could be discussed. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options. Bert Bohlin was one of the founders and became the first chairman of the IPCC. His chairmanship covered the important first ten years of the IPCC and oversaw the politically difficult release of the first and second assessment reports of the IPCC in the 1990’s. The key phrase in the 2nd assessment report in 1996 was whether it would be allowed to state that human activity had an impact on climate change. The oil producing countries denied any linkage between human activity and the greenhouse effect. The compromise was the phrase: “The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on global climate.” Diplomatic, careful
words – much more so than Arrhenius exactly 100 years earlier. Over to today: we have Greta Thunberg – climate activist and a descendant of Svante Arrhenius. She is so much more than a “schoolgirl who started a global strike for the climate.” She combines the impatience of her generation with sound scientific arguments and an astute awareness of what needs to be said. Like her predecessors Arrhenius and Bolin, she builds her argument on science and combines it with impatience and strong moral outrage. She and her many thousand allies have managed to quickly join the debate. She has been invited to some of the most prestigious gatherings, and her message has been unwavering. It could be that her initiative, standing on the shoulders of dedicated scientists, will be what is needed to actually achieve a change.
Greta Thunberg. Photo: UNICEF Hellberg
Our fire services give the following advice if we discover a fire: Rädda, varna, larma, släck! Save who you can, warn people around you, sound the alarm and then try to put out the fire. We were warned by Arrhenius; Bohlin sounded the alarm, and Greta is calling for action. It is now up to us. The Swedish 2030-secretariat was formed to support the decarbonization of the transport sector in Sweden. The secretariat is independent from political parties and technical solutions.
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