The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 7, Issue 1, Winter 2018 | Page 10

establishing Swedish power abroad. 11 Investors contributed to the project, and
officials crafted a charter. In the meantime, Gustav had left for war in Germany.
He died in the battle of Lutzen in 1632 before he could formally sign the charter.
After Gustav’s death, his daughter, Kristina, ascended the throne, and like her
father, she supported the colonial project. Sweden’s government appointed
Usselinx the commissioner and chief director of the new Swedish South Company.
The Swedish and Dutch were to work together. 12 Under their agreement, the
Swedes would establish a colony in North America to generate income for the
empire.
Dutch merchants limited their cooperation with the Swedish government
to transporting settlers to North America. Sweden had the responsibility of
recruiting settlers and establishing the colony. Atlantic voyages were dangerous
and difficult, which made recruitment challenging. To have their sentences
lowered, Swedish criminals convicted of adultery and destruction of forests
volunteered. 13 Other settlers included soldiers, whom the government ordered to
go, and Finns. Finland was a part of the Swedish Empire. Finns along the Russian
border moved to Varmland in Sweden because they angered officials with their
burn-beating agricultural practices. Finnish farmers in Varmland burned an acre of
forest a year to increase food production. In the 1630s, the Swedish government
needed the forests for mining and foraging, so they started to regulate the practice.
Finns continuously acted against the policies, and the Swedish government had
them imprisoned or sent to New Sweden. 14 Throughout the colony’s existence,
Sweden recruited soldiers, criminals, and Finns to settle in New Sweden.
In 1638, the ships Key of Kalmar and the Bird Griffin set sail for North
America from Gothenburg. Swedish and Finnish settlers, weapons, provisions, and
gifts for the native population filled the ships’ holds. When they arrived, they
managed to purchase land from the Indians on the western side of the Delaware
River. Later that year, Peter Minuit, the colony’s first governor, built Fort Kristina
in a strategic location away from the Dutch New Netherlands settlement. The New
Netherlanders already competed with the English for resources, and now the
Swedes were another competitor for those same resources. They protested the
arrival of the new settlers, but they were not strong enough to defeat them. 15 Fierce
competition for valuable resources inevitably led to conflict between the Swedes,
Dutch, and English.
Under the first two governors, the colony endured, but it relied on the
English, Dutch, and the Indians for advice and supplies. The third governor was
Johan Printz, and he spent about a decade in office. During this time, ships arrived
from Sweden only three times. The first ship, the Black Cat, delivered ammunition
10