The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 7, Issue 1, Winter 2018 | Page 16

Conclusion
Because of its short life, research surrounding New Sweden is scarce, but
this does not mean New Sweden was insignificant. The Swedish government
expected it to generate income and spread Swedish influence in North America.
However, Sweden lacked experience in the mercantile system. Nor did it have a
developed transport system to handle the demands. Its inexperience and lack of
support weakened the colony and made it vulnerable to competing settlements. The
colony itself may not have contributed much to colonial America, but the people
certainly did. Both the Dutch and English allowed the Swedes and Finns to remain
if they pledged their allegiance to Dutch, then English rule. Religious freedom
preserved the settlers’ heritage. Under English rule, they established themselves
and passed on techniques such as the hunter’s shanty and the zig-zag fences from
their homeland. These techniques spread throughout the American frontier. By
establishing a life in America, they also ensured future Americans could trace their
ancestry to the New Sweden colony.
Notes
1. Paul Douglas Lockhart, Sweden in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2004), 19-21.
2. Henrik Lunde, A Warrior Dynasty: The Rise and Decline of Sweden as a Military
Superpower (Oxford: Casemate Publishers, 2014), 31-37.
1992), 47.
3. Michael Roberts, Profiles in Power: Gustavus Adolphus, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge,
4. Eric Gustave Geijer, History of the Swedes (London: Whittaker and Co., 1845), 240.
5. Roberts, Profiles in Power: Gustavus Adolphus, 20.
6. Ibid., 114.
7. Brian Sandberg, War and Conflict in the Early Modern World: 1500-1700 (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2016), 34.
8. Jan Glete, Swedish Naval Administration 1521-1721: Resource Flows and Organizational
Capabilities (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2010), 545-550.
9. Roberts, Profiles in Power: Gustavus Adolphus, 108.
10. J Franklin Jameson, American Historical Association Vol. 2, no. 3: Willem Usselinx
(New York: GP Putnam’s Sons, 1887), 115.
11. J Franklin Jameson, Narratives of Early Pennsylvania West New Jersey, and Delaware
1630-1707 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912), 69.
12. Jameson, American Historical Association Vol. 2, no. 3: Willem Usselinx, 205.
16