Colony of New Sweden?

**Shadow8** · May 05, 2009, 02:39 PM

Founded in 1638 New Sweden was founded by the swedes it occupied a small area in what is modern day southern new jersey (though closer to Philadelphia PA) though the colony was taken by Peter Stuyvesant and claimed for New Netherlands in September 1655. So the question i'm putting out there is why has New Sweden more or less faded into the dusty tomes of history, unlike Jamestown, New Netherlands(New York) or New France?

**Orko** · May 05, 2009, 02:52 PM

Because it wasn't important if you look at north-American history. it was a small colony that was taken after a relatively short time, unlike the Dutch, English or French colonies. It also had no real effect on history.

**Tiberios** · May 05, 2009, 03:46 PM

As he said, it was never an important site. And it was lost quickly.

**gaius valerius** · May 05, 2009, 05:40 PM

Just like the Danish East India Company, somehow the Scandinavians weren't that lucky in their colonial entreprises.

**Tiberios** · May 06, 2009, 03:56 AM

Originally Posted by gaius valerius

Just like the Danish East India Company, somehow the Scandinavians weren't that lucky in their colonial entreprises.

No but Denmark-Norway fared better than Sweden. The US Virgin Islands were danish from1672, when the first of the three islands were accuired to 1917, Tranqubar in India was a danish fort and town from 1620 until 1845 when it was sold to Britain along with the other dabish settlements in Serampore and the Nicobars . Quite longer lived colonies than that of Sweden.

**Holger Danske** · May 05, 2009, 05:42 PM

Then again we never had the manpower or political luck to enforce anything beyond Scandinavia on a "permanent" basis.

**gaius valerius** · May 05, 2009, 05:43 PM

And the concurrence of those other naval based empires who were around a tad longer was pretty strong.

**Holger Danske** · May 05, 2009, 05:52 PM

Not to mention that for the majority of history Sweden and Denmark (Norway as just a pawn here really) literally fought for dominance of Scandinavia and for some brief periods Northern Europe... A damn shame that we let go of the US Virgin Islands

Well at least it lasted a lot longer than the Swedish venture

**Mar77** · May 05, 2009, 09:30 PM

The Swedes' time over here wasn't entirely useless however. They brought over the design of log cabins from Scandinavia, a design which would later be commonly used for cheap frontier construction when people started moving further out west in the 18th and 19th centuries.

**Tiberius Tosi** · May 05, 2009, 10:33 PM

Just look at what the remembered colonies did for North American History. Jamestown, first permanent English colony. New France, lots of French people still in Canada today. New Netherland, now New York City.

New Sweden, well it's just New Jersey basically, and first and foremost no one like or cares about New Jersey (sorry I had to), but mostly no huge Swedish impact was made on the people. Even the people of New Amsterdam left a huge impact on our culture in the short time they were here (like the log cabin[and no log cabins = no Abe Lincoln, there I said it the Dutch created Abe Lincoln], and I think the pancake?, oh and the Dutch Rudder and Double Dutch).