num_pages: 203
description: "In March 1638 the Swedish ships Kalmar Nyckel and Gripen sailed into the Delaware River to found the colony of New Sweden. Several expeditions followed, and a couple of hundred Swedes and Finns settled in the colony, becoming our first emigrants to America. It is their fate and rather grim existence which I wanted to portray in my book. The Atlantic voyages often lasted three months and were full of danger. The crews and equipment on board are described with the help of logbooks in the Swedish Military Record Office. One of the expeditions came to grief in the West Indies, and a long dramatic account of another was left by a participant. Those who made it to the colony grew tobacco for the company, but also farmed on their own. They had brought all the customs of their homeland, including its Lutheran religion. Building churches for their clergymen, they established a Swedish community in the wilderness.They got on well with the Indians, of whom they wrote in letters home. The colony's governor Johan Printz, called Big Belly by the Indians, is depicted in all his magnificence.Though the colony survived only seventeen years, most of the settlers stayed on, and clergymen were sent to them from home for a century. Numerous Swedish-American families originate from New Sweden."Alf Åberg
language: English
title: The people of New Sweden: Our colony on the Delaware River, 1638-1655
titlecomplete: The people of New Sweden: Our colony on the Delaware River, 1638-1655
genres: History
ratings_count: 2
publisher: NATUR OCH KULTUR