Warrior Kings of Sweden

by Gary Dean Peterson

  Printz did his best to keep his charges alive. He cut trade with the Indians and the raising of tobacco, concentrating on grains and livestock feed. What pelts he did accumulate were traded to the Virginians for food and supplies. Even so, there was starvation in years when crops were poor. His rule became more harsh and more autocratic. He even executed Anders Jönsson, a leader of an opposition group, for treason. More colonists left New Sweden to settle in Maryland. The colony dwindled to a population of less than one hundred men, women and children.

  Meanwhile, Printz’s aggressive expansion of settlements into new areas alarmed Dutch officials in Amsterdam, the faction of the Dutch West India Company overseeing New Netherlands. As the Dutch Delaware fur trade was cut into more and more by the Swedes, the directors began pressing Kief for action. But the governor-general was completely occupied holding the New England colonies at bay and keeping the Indian situation under control. As long as Printz did not threaten Fort Nassau, he did what he could to maintain good relations with the Swedes. In retaliation for Indian raids in the Hudson Valley, Kief ordered reprisals against Indian villages in the area. Women and children were massacred in a wanton orgy of burning and pillaging. This was unacceptable to the Amsterdam directors. Kief was recalled. On his return voyage his ship wrecked and he drowned.

  The new governor-general was the famous Peter Stuyvesant. He arrived at New Amsterdam with his wife on May 11, 1647. Only 36, he had already served the West India Company with distinction in Brazil and the Caribbean, losing his right foot from a Spanish cannonball during a siege on the island of Saint Martin. A silver decorated peg leg slowed him down not at all. He was fiery, energetic, intelligent, and like Printz, deeply religious. As supervisor of New Netherlands, he also retained governorship of the Dutch Caribbean possessions, Curacao, Buenaire and Aruba. Among his instructions from the Amsterdam directors were orders to curtail Swedish interference with the Dutch Delaware fur trade.

  Before he left, Kief had sent a new commandant to Fort Nassau, Andries Hudde. The two had started a project to persuade Dutch colonists from New Amsterdam to move and settle in the Schuylkill area in what is now a suburb of Philadelphia. Hudde recognized, as the English had earlier, that this was the key to dominating the Minqua fur trade. To entice settlers, Kief afforded land ownership and the right to trade privately for furs. A few entrepreneurs moved to the Schuylkill, laid out farms and began an aggressive trade with the Indians. They outhustled the Dutch at Fort Nassau and the Swedes, both of whom maintained the company monopoly on fur trading. When Stuyvesant arrived he continued the effort to settle the Schuylkill, even constructing a blockhouse on its east bank naming it Fort Beversreede (Beaver Road).

  Printz was furious at this intrusion into Swedish territory, but he didn’t have a force large enough to oust the interlopers. All he could do was launch surprise raids against the newcomers to harass them. The Swedes knew the area intimately and could range throughout the forests without being detected. They tore down fences, and even the stockade around Fort Beversreede. Hudde could do little to prevent the harassment and gradually the Dutch settlers became disenchanted with their prospects at the new site.

  The settlement tactic wasn’t working. Stuyvesant studied the situation and devised a new solution. He organized a force of 120 men, an army in this part of the world, perhaps 10 percent of the total population of New Netherlands. He marched this force overland to Fort Nassau while sending a fleet of eleven ships from New Amsterdam to Fort Nassau. Fort Elfsborg, established to block unwanted traffic passing up the Delaware, did not fire a shot in response to this awesome display of military power. The five or six soldiers at the fort merely watched as the ships passed by, firing cannon for show.

  Stuyvesant had demonstrated his military superiority and could now do what he liked on the Delaware. He did not attack or molest the Swedes directly, but merely moved the location of the Dutch fort on the river. Printz had effectively emasculated Fort Nassau by locating forts and blockhouses in strategic locations along the river, but Stuyvesant was an experienced military officer and had spotted a weakness in the Swedish defenses.

  Six miles below Fort Christina was an earthen promontory that jutted out into the river. It was called Santhoeck meaning “Sand Point,” and was located where New Castle is today. Like The Rock, it rose vertically out of the deep water in the river so that ships could dock and unload without the need for small ferry boats. Stuyvesant bought Santhoeck and the surrounding area from the Lenapes, land already sold to the Swedes. He put his army and navy to work constructing a new citadel which he named Fort Casimir. The move was a stroke of genius. A high area located out in the river with a natural wharf, it was the strategic point on the lower Delaware. Artillery here would command the river. Fort Elfsborg was rendered impotent. Fort Christina and Fort New Gothenburg could be cut off at Dutch discretion.

  Fort Nassau was dismantled. Cannon, supplies, company traders and soldiers were moved to the new stronghold. Even Fort Beeversreede was torn down and the Dutch settlers along the Schuylkill moved to Santhoeck where Stuyvesant envisioned a Dutch enclave developing on the order of New Amsterdam. Work on the fort began in mid–July 1651 and structures were near completion by month’s end. Stuyvesant left sufficient soldiers in the garrison to discourage any mischief from the Swedes. To make sure he stationed two of the armed vassals at the wharf. Printz had been outmaneuvered.

  Outflanked defensively, supplies long since exhausted, colonist numbers declining due to disease and desertions, Printz was at the point of desperation. Finally, in October 1655 he left New Sweden with his wife, four of his daughters and 25 soldiers and settlers including Hendrick Huygen. The party traveled to New Amsterdam where Printz arranged passage to Amsterdam on a Dutch vessel. Lieutenant Papegoja was left in charge of the colony. His wife, Armegot, Printz’s eldest daughter, also stayed. The governor’s plan was to raise a new expedition to America bringing trade goods, supplies, and settlers.

  Fortunately, for the colony, Stuyvesant did not follow up his advantage on the Delaware. He was being pressed more and more by an ever expanding New England colony made doubly dangerous by a new war between England and the Netherlands. He had to strengthen his defenses at New Amsterdam and along the Hudson, even recalling some of the troops he’d left at Fort Casimir. All warships were pressed into service to guard the waters around the North River. The settlement at Santhoeck never developed the way Stuyvesant planned. So the question of control of the South River remained unsettled and both factions languished in neglect from their sponsors.

  Renewed interest in the settlements along the Delaware came first in Sweden. Management of the New Sweden Company was entrusted to the Commercial College, a branch of the government similar to the U.S. Department of Commerce. It was headed by Eric Oxenstierna, son of the chancellor. He took an interest in the American colony and appointed Johan Rising, secretary of the college, as commander of an expedition to the Delaware. The Örn (Eagle), a 40 gun warship captured from Denmark, was fitted out and loaded with supplies and 350 passengers. This time law-breakers were forbidden from taking part. The formerly booming economy in Sweden had subsided and there were far more would-be colonists than there were accommodations. An epidemic in eastern Sweden prompted additional families to leave.

  An overcrowded ship sailed from Gothenburg on February 2, 1654, with Rising in charge. He was an economist and recognized authority on commerce, trade and agriculture having studied in several European countries. He was to be assistant to Printz whose departure was unknown in Sweden. Before leaving he was knighted by the queen and given the right to a tract of land in the colony, only the second time private property had been allotted by the company.

  While Printz was sailing to Amsterdam, the Örn battled its way across the Atlantic through storms and a plague that broke out aboard ship. More than one hundred people died and were buried at sea. On May 20 the exhausted crew and passengers pulled into Delaware Bay. They anchored opposite Fort Elfsborg, which
they found to be deserted and in ruins. Neglect and mosquitoes had driven the last of the soldiers from their posts and the structure had crumbled. Nearby Fort Casimir had fared little better.

  The commandant, Sergeant Gerrit Bieker, had only nine Dutch soldiers to man the thirteen cannon intended to control river passage. With a fort fallen into disrepair and without powder for cannon or musket his position was extremely weak. He sent a boat with five Dutchmen out to the warship flying the Swedish colors.

  On board Rising received the delegation warmly and learned that Fort Christina and Fort Gothenburg on Tinicum Island were still in Swedish hands. The next day was Trinity Sunday. After church services aboard ship Rising moved the Örn to the Santhoeck wharf and fired his cannon. There was no answer from the fort. He sent Captain Sven Skute, his military commander, and Lieutenant Ekias Gyllengren ashore with twenty musketeers to call on Sergeant Bieker. An exchange of messages began between Bieker and Rising that culminated in the surrender of the fort by day’s end. The flag of the Netherlands was lowered and replaced by the Swedish colors in a bloodless coup.

  The twenty or so Dutch families that lived in and around the fort were unmolested, but were required to pledge their loyalty to the Swedish crown as were Bieker, Hudde and the soldiers at the fort. Six of the soldiers chose to leave for New Amsterdam.

  The fort was renamed Fort Tefldighet (Fort Trinity) in honor of the day. Rising left Lieutenant Gyllengren in command with the twenty musketeers while he sailed upriver to Fort Christina where the passengers disembarked. They were taken into the homes of the remaining colonists, who were overjoyed at having the new arrivals with supplies and news from home. The colony’s population jumped from less than one hundred to over three hundred. However, the plague that had dogged the passengers and crew quickly spread to the colony, then to the Lenapes where entire families were wiped out, increasing the animosity between the two cultures.

  Rising established a provisional government with himself as director, Captain Skute as military commander and Johan Papegoja as vice director. Andreis Huddle was hired to assist Rising in making maps and arranging affairs with the Indians. Captain Skute, assisted by 21-year-old Peter Lindeström, who had studied mathematics and the science of fortifications at Uppsala University, began repairing and remodeling Fort Trinity. The Dutch around the fort were pressed into contributing fourteen days of labor to this work, which caused discontent. The Reverend Peter Hiört, a passenger on the Örn, was assigned as the Lutheran pastor at Fort Trinity where there was no Dutch Reformed minister. This, combined with the imposition of the Swedish legal system, made the Dutch settlers uncomfortable and one by one the families left for New Amsterdam. Their homes were quickly occupied by the new Swedish arrivals until by June 1655 all the Dutch had left Santhoeck.

  Rising was an economist by training and recognized the need to unleash the power of free enterprise. He granted the colonists the right to trade with the Indians and other Europeans for furs. They were also allowed to purchase their own land from the New Sweden Company or from the Indians. The land use had never been a problem for the colonists, but this new right was greeted with enthusiasm. The freedom to trade in furs led to a boom in this industry, cutting further into the Dutch fur business as the Swedes extended their activity beyond the Lenapes and Minquas into Mohawk territory, formerly the preserve of the Dutch at Fort Orange (Albany).

  Rising moved the capital of the colony from Tinicum Island back to Fort Christina. He laid out his own tract of land north of Brandywine and Skillpaddskylen creeks and here he built his own two story mansion. Armegot Printz Papegoja moved back to Printzhoff with her children when her husband returned to Sweden. She would reign as the unofficial queen of the colony until her death. Though food was short because of the new arrivals and Rising had to buy supplies from the Lenapes, Virginians and New Englanders of Connecticut, he was optimistic. The supply ship Gyllene Haj (Golden Shark), which was to have sailed with the Örn but had been delayed, was expected any day. Where the Örn had brought the bulk of the colonists, the Gyllene Haj was loaded with food, tools, clothing and trade goods which would supply New Sweden through the coming winter.

  In June 1655 Jacob Swensson returned from the Susquehanna country with four Minquas chiefs who offered land along the river as a gift. In return they wanted trading posts, blacksmiths and gunsmiths settled in this more westerly extension of New Sweden. This would also provide the Swedes with direct access to Minquas furs, further undercutting the Dutch and English. The colony’s future seemed assured. Then the first of a series of devastating events occurred.

  In September Rising learned from merchants in Hartford that the much anticipated Gyllene Haj had put in at New Amsterdam on its way to the Delaware. Stuyvesant, furious at Rising’s capture of Fort Casimir, had taken the ship. The cargo was sold off and the passengers put ashore on Manhattan Island. The ship was put into service with the Dutch company. Only five people managed to find their way overland to New Sweden: Nerick Van Elswidk, the ship’s captain, Lieutenant Sven Höök and another soldier, a servant and a clerk. The colony would begin the winter on the verge of starvation.

  Next, Rising learned that in July 1654 England and the Netherlands had ended their war, meaning that Stuyvesant could turn his attention from defending New Netherlands from New Englanders to his Swedish problem on the Delaware. Even worse, he was told that Queen Christina had abdicated in favor of her cousin Karl X and that Sweden was deeply involved in a war with Poland, diverting resources and focus from the struggling colony. Finally, he discovered that Stuyvesant was mounting an expedition to invade the Delaware. He assumed, wrongly, that the object of the Dutch action was the retaking of Fort Trinity (Fort Casimir). But with Sweden now preoccupied by a European war and the Netherlands free of such encumbrances, the director-general had bigger plans.

  Stuyvesant had been in communication with the Amsterdam group in control of New Netherlands for the Dutch West India Company. His instructions were to remove the Swedish colony as a threat to the company’s territory and impediment to the fur trade. Such a wide ranging threat had not occurred to Rising.

  The New Sweden director was concerned with defending Fort Trinity and to that end he transferred most of his soldiers from Fort Christina to Fort Trinity along with 150 pounds of gunpowder, muskets, swords and pikes. Captain Sven Skute was placed in command with Lieutenant Gyllengren, Ensign Peter Wendell and Peter Lindeström as officers. Supplies of rye, brandy and beer were laid in. Fort Christina was left with a small garrison under Van Elswick with Lieutenant Höök second in command. After a winter of starvation, the little colony had recovered sufficiently to mount a significant defense. What Rising was not prepared for was the scope and size of the impending invasion.

  Stuyvesant assembled a fleet of seven ships, a front line battleship (the Wagh) and six lesser armed ships. The Wagh carried 32 guns and was the largest ship owned by the city of Amsterdam. The other craft carried at least four cannon each. On board were 317 soldiers, a total attack force of about 400 men, more troops than the total population of New Sweden.

  At the end of August 1655 the armada entered Delaware Bay and approached Fort Trinity. Skute’s orders were to dispatch a boat to meet the ships and inquire as to Stuyvesant’s intentions. If the Dutch were determined to be hostile, he was to prevent their passage even to the point of firing on them. But for some unknown reason Skute did neither, letting the Dutch ships pass by the fort unchallenged. This lack of action sealed the fate of the Swedish colony.

  Lieutenant Lindström later accused Skute of treason for not resisting the Dutch advance up the river. Lieutenant Gyllengren likewise held the commandant responsible for not mounting some kind of a defense.

  Stuyvesant passed the fort, then put into shore and had his men begin to construct a fortified beachhead. Troops were landed, effectively cutting off communication between Fort Trinity and Rising at Fort Christina. Skute first sent an emissary to Stuyvesant, then met with the West Indies director-g
eneral in person. In the end the Swedish commander surrendered the fort without firing a shot.

  Stuyvesant took control of the fort, restoring the name Fort Casimir, and ran up the Dutch colors. He put the officers under house arrest and forced the thirty Swedish soldiers aboard one of his vessels as prisoners of war. They were transported to New Amsterdam. In a single stroke he had wiped out the corps of the Swedish military power in America.

  Rising was furious when he learned of the bloodless fall of Fort Trinity. Yet he was still of the mistaken notion that recovery of the fort was the extent of Stuyvesant’s objective. The Swedish director sent van Elswick to Fort Casimir to open negotiations with the Dutch as to terms and boundaries to be observed. But the Swedish delegate was informed that Stuyvesant’s mission was nothing less than the complete conquest of New Sweden.

  Upon the return of van Elswick, Rising put his men to work night and day in strengthening Fort Christina for the expected assault. Stuyvesant did not disappoint. Having secured Fort Casimir he sailed his flotilla upriver to Rising’s headquarters. The Wagh and a smaller vessel blocked the mouth of the Minquas Kill. The Dutch now controlled the Delaware River. Stuyvesant landed his troops and began constructing siege works encircling the fort. Powder and guns were brought ashore to reinforce the breastworks and bombard the fort when hostilities opened.

  Finally, the Dutch began looting and destroying Swedish property. Cattle and horses were shot. Houses were robbed and a few settlements were burned to the ground. Stores of grain and goods were carried off or destroyed. Even Printzhoff, where Armegot Papegoja had gathered women colonists and families in an attempt to protect them, was invaded and plundered. These unfortunate excesses would leave a lasting animosity for the Dutch among the Swedes.