New Sweden: The US's long-lost 'secret' colony

It was the smallest, least-populated and shortest-lived colony in the US. But despite being virtually unheard of today, it helped shape the nation's birth 250 years ago.

The 125-year-old elevator wheezed to a halt somewhere above Philadelphia's skyline. When the door creaked open, I was inside the clock tower of the US's tallest municipal building, gazing down at "The Birthplace of America" from a 500ft (152m) observation deck atop City Hall.

From my glass perch, I could make out City Tavern, where the Founding Fathers plotted the American Revolution. Just west, I spotted Carpenters' Hall, where the Colonies united against the British at the First Continental Congress. Nearby was Independence Hall, where the US Constitution was signed in 1787.

Squinting, I then followed a parade of red-white-and-blue American flags down Market Street, towards the Delaware River and New Jersey in the distance.

"So, everything I can see from up here was once part of… Sweden?" I asked our guide.

"I think so," he said, hesitantly. "Though you're the first visitor to ever ask about that."

Ask most Americans and they'll tell you that the United States started in Philadelphia on 4 July 1776 when the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. Fittingly, the city is the epicentre of the US's 250th anniversary celebrations this week, and as many as 1.5 million people are expected to descend on it for what will be the nation's largest Fourth of July festival.

But chances are, almost none of those coming realises that the US's political and ideological birthplace was once part of a little-known Swedish colony known as Nya Sverige (New Sweden). In fact, very few Americans (or Swedes) have any idea that there ever even was a Swedish colony in America.

This is the second in a four-part series highlighting the many ways the US was founded as it celebrates its 250th anniversary.

From 1638-1655, this forgotten Swedish settlement extended across the Delaware Valley, encompassing parts of modern-day New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. In addition to being the smallest, least-populated and shortest-lived European colony in the US, it was also the most clandestine.

"It started as sort of secret colony," said Deborah-Jean Hoffman, a board member at the New Sweden Centre, which promotes the Delaware Valley's colonial history. "The Swedes weren't flag-planting like the French or the Spanish. The idea was to create an under-the-radar colony where the Dutch wouldn't see them."

Despite lasting just 17 years, New Sweden would play a pivotal role in forging the nation's culture to come. New Swedish settlers introduced the most iconic of American frontier buildings: the log cabin. They also brought Lutheran Christianity to the New World, led one of the earliest civilian uprisings in the US colonies and left their mark on two future US cities.

And as I was discovering, there are still traces of this long-lost Swedish outpost scattered across the Delaware Valley – if you know where to look.

A covert colony built on revenge

By 1637, European powers had already carved up much of the US's Atlantic coast when Peter Minuit, the disgruntled former governor of the New Netherland colony, approached the Swedish Crown. Minuit had famously purchased the island of Manhattan for the Dutch and spent years scouting the Mid-Atlantic for a place to establish New Netherland. But after being abruptly dismissed in 1632, he sought revenge against his former employers.  

"To get back at the Dutch, Minuit went to Sweden and essentially said: you are the only major power in Europe without a colony and you're missing out on the beaver and tobacco trade. I know where you can start one," Hoffman said.

With map in hand, Minuit showed Swedish officials that in between England's claim to Virginia and New Netherland, there was a vast area unoccupied by Europeans. Minuit knew that even though the Dutch claimed the entire Delaware River, they had only actually purchased one side of it along their southern border from the Lenape. He also knew that they were far more concerned with defending New Amsterdam (modern-day Manhattan) than the Delaware Valley. 

So in December 1637, Minuit led two ships out of Gothenburg with 25 would-be settlers to covertly cut in on the Dutch's trade lucrative trade monopoly with the Native nations. After four months at sea, they quietly dropped anchor along a narrow, winding tributary of the Delaware River claimed by the Dutch in present-day Wilmington, hoping its secluded location wouldn't draw too much attention.

Both Wilmington and Philadelphia incorporate elements of the Swedish flag in their flags to honour their New Sweden origins.

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