Native America-White Relations—Swedish Colonial

Tribes affected: Asseteque, Lenni Lenape, Mingo, Nanticoke

Significance: Swedish colonial ventures to the Delaware River valley during the seventeenth century had a lasting impact on the American Indians who inhabited the region, particularly the Lenni Lenape and the Mingo; Swedish occupation, although relatively peaceful, caused the Indians’ removal from the area

Contact between American Indians and Europeans in North America during the seventeenth century embodied a wide range of experiences. One component often overlooked is the Swedish venture into the Middle Atlantic region. Although their official occupation was relatively brief—1638 to 1655—they had a lasting impact on the area and the American Indians that they encountered. Their officials set the stage for later English negotiations with the Native Americans of the area, and their colonists contributed to the ethnic diversity of the region. The Swedes and their Dutch allies concentrated their colonial ventures in the region south of the Susquehanna River and north of the Potomac. These endeavors stretched from 1638 through the middle of the century and established the pattern of colonial contact in the area.

Prehistoric Background

Prior to European contact in the late 1630’s, the Indians of the Delaware Valley represented two major linguistic and ethnographic groups. The first, the Lenni Lenape, were Algonquian speakers and were closely related to the Asseteque and the Nanticoke that surrounded them. This group, whom the English later referred to as the Delaware, were subdivided into three contingents: the Munsi, the Unami, and the Unalachtigo. According to the oral tradition of the Lenni Lenape, the Walam Olum, this tribe migrated into the region from the northwest to cross the Mississippi River and then east over the Appalachian Mountains. The other component consisted of Iroquoian speakers, the Mingo (or Minqua), who were loosely affiliated with the Iroquois Confederacy. The Mingo were later arrivals to the region and were an invasive force aligned with the powerful Iroquois tribes to the north and the west. Both groups were fairly typical of the Northeast Woodlands culture zone which they inhabited. They tended toward political decentralization, with the greatest emphasis placed on tribal integrity. Leadership generally resided with a chief or sachem. Economically these peoples depended on agriculture, supplemented by hunting and gathering. They also engaged in extensive trade networking.

Colonial Contact

Swedish colonial enterprise resulted from the monarchy’s interest and trade in the Netherlands during the early seventeenth century. Swedish settlement in the Delaware Valley during the 1630’s occurred as an extension of the already established Dutch interests in the New Netherlands to the north. In March, 1638, with the aid of the Dutch envoy, Peter Minuit, the Swedish negotiated with local natives for the land that became the Swedish settlement Christina (present-day Wilmington). These settlements then expanded to Passayung (Philadelphia) in the north and to Fort Casmir (New Castle). The Swedes, some three to four hundred strong, concentrated their settlement on the west side of the Delaware River and lived on individual farms in log houses of the sort they inhabited in Sweden. This association focused primarily on the trade of European manufactured goods for animal pelts obtained by American Indians and was conducted by representatives of the Swedish government. In the 1640’s the Swedish power and influence in the region reached its peak, and the relationships between the settlers and their native counterparts remained relatively peaceful. Officials suggested that the colonists learned from the Indians methods of adapting to their “primitive existences” in New Sweden. By 1650, when the Dutch attempted to reassert their control over the region, approximately one thousand Swedes and ethnic Finns resided under the protection of the Swedish crown in the Delaware Valley. During that decade, the interests of the Swedish monarchy and the Dutch traders in the region faded, and support for the venture declined. The colonists found themselves in increasingly marginal situations; their abilities to trade and to defend themselves waned.

Indian Relations

When the Swedes entered the region in 1638 they approached peoples, the Lenni Lenape and the Mingo, already at odds with each other. The Swedish presence exaggerated each group’s concerns about the access to land and the local balance of power. Initial negotiations treated the various tribes generically. Later Swedish discussions, however, resulted in a trade alliance that favored the Mingo, whom the Swedes described as “special friends.” According to Johan Rising, Swedish governor, by 1655 the situation in the colony had grown ominous, with the “Renappi [sic] threatening not only to kill our people in the land . . . but also to destroy even trade with the Minques [sic] and the other savage nations.” The trade with the Mingo persisted until Swedish trade goods ran out and the beaver trapped by the Indians disappeared. By the end of the 1660’s the official Dutch and Swedish presences in the region disappeared, and the English replaced them. The Lenni Lenape had begun a forced retreat to the west. The combination of encroachment on the land by the Swedes, the impact of European disease, and the predations of the hostile Mingo forced them from the valley. The Mingo survived the Swedish occupation but not that of the English who succeeded them.

Bibliography

Acrelius, Israel. A History of New Sweden, 1759. Reprint. Translated by William M. Reynolds. Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1874.

Cochran, Thomas C. Pennsylvania: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.

Munroe, John A. History of Delaware. 2d ed. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1984.

Sachese, Julius F. History of the German Role in the Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement of the New World. Reprint. Germany and America, 1450-1700. Edited by Don H. Tolzman. New York: Heritage Books, 1991.

Weslager, C. A. Delaware’s Buried Past: A Study of Archaeological Adventure. Rev. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1968.

Wuorinen, John H. The Finns on the Delaware, 1638-1655: An Essay in Colonial American History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1938.