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New Sweden Company Research Paper

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In 1637, Swedish, Dutch and German shareholders created the New Sweden Company to trade for furs and tobacco in North America. In 1637, Swedish, Dutch and German shareholders created the New Sweden Company to trade for furs and tobacco in North America. In March 1638, their ships arrived at the Delaware Bay. From 1626 to 1631, Peter Minuit was the first governor of New Netherland, which was dutch colony on Manhattan Island. Peter Minuit built a fort at Wilmington Delaware, and they named it fort Christina after their queen.
The purposes of Fort Christina were to bring Christian religion into America, expand Swedish territory, gain trade advantages, and fort Christina was the first established European settlement in the Delaware valley. …show more content…

The supplies that the second Swedish expedition brought was soldiers, priest, Colonists, paraphenelia that could be traded with the Indians, and Peter Hollender Ridder the new Governor. Ridder was very important in the development of the colony. Ridder wanted to make the colony’s borders larger, even though they had a great deal of land for their minuscule population. Ridder met with the local Indian chiefs and bought a title to the land from the Schuylkill tributary to Trenton, New Jersey. Today, the purchases of Minuit and Ridder would make up one hundred and twenty miles of land on both banks of the Delaware River. In 1639, the Dutch had begun to question Swedish claims to the land on the Delaware River, but since they both had hardly any soldiers, neither side was able to make a definite move. From 1641 to 1642, they worked together to eliminate a group of sixty English men and women, who had come to establish England’s claim to the region. The first English settlers on the Delaware River were representatives of the English Delaware Company located in New Haven, Connecticut. They found that the area around the Delaware River had a very small population. They successfully purchased land from the …show more content…

Fort Casimir surrendered without a shot and was re-named Fort Trinity. In 1654, Peter Stuyvesant controlled the Dutch capital of New Amsterdam. After he arrived in New Sweden, he tried to oust the Dutch from the colony by seizing Fort Casimir. Fort Casimir surrendered without a shot and was re-named Fort Trinity. Peter Stuyvesant allowed the colonists to remain as a "Swedish Nation", be ruled by a court of their choice, be free to practice their religion, organize their own militia, keep their land, Continue to trade with the Indians. This independent "Swedish Nation" remained until 1681 when William Penn received his charter for Pennsylvania and the three lower counties. The Swedes did not begin to arrive in the United States in large quantities until the 19th century. Swedish immigration was highest between 1867 and 1914 because of poor local financial circumstances in Sweden, and the availability of inexpensive land in the American West. At the highest point of immigration in the 1880s, about 37,000 Swedes came to the United States annually. Most of the new settlers went to Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, California and Washington. These states have the largest numbers of Swedish Americans

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