1645-64: Swedish and Dutch Skrælige

Swedish Skrælige (Svenska Skrälig Öar): 1645-57

After the Peace of Brömsebro in 1645, Skrælige became a Swedish possession. Sweden already controlled land on the North American continent, an area known as Nya Sverige since 1638 (New Sweden - centered around present day Wilmington, DE, USA). Given the distance between Fort Christina and Skrælingborg, Skrælige was setup as its own self-governing colony, Skrälig Öar.

Once the appointed Swedish governor arrived, a couple of significant changes happened. First of all, the trade monopoly was loosened - while trade with Sweden (incl. New Sweden) was preferred, trade with New England and New Netherlands was now legal. This change did a lot to put the Swedish government in the people's good graces - the new government was finally doing something that benefitted Skrælige, and was not solely to the benefit of Sweden.

Second, a truce was made with the Abenaki. This was mostly a strategic decision on the part of Sweden: Skrælige was isolated from New Sweden, and was surrounded by other great powers. While the Abenaki were not a major threat, unnecessary aggression towards them would tie up military resources that might be needed elsewhere. The Abenaki were of course weary of the Skræligen government, but were glad to no longer be the focus of constant aggression.

Folkräkning of 1648

With Skrælige changing hands multiple times over the last century, the population of the small settlement was becoming a bit more diverse. Back when Skrælige was originally settled, the population was mainly Norse-speaking immigrants, with some integration with Abenaki people. In the 16th century there was some trade with the Spanish (Castilian) colonies to the south. This did lead to a couple of Spanish merchants settling in Skrælingborg for extended stints, but there was no significant demographic shift. This changed in the 17th century, with immigration now coming from Denmark (as well as Norway, which was ruled by the same monarch, and Iceland). With Swedish rule, Swedes and Finns (who were currently ruled by Sweden) immigrated as well. In addition, a small number of English people left the Puritan New England colonies to settle in Skrælige instead, but this was a fairly minor source of immigration.

The count also included 27 slaves. 145 of the Skræligens were recent immigrants from Sweden and Finland. The Danish and Old Skræligen* populations were substantially mixed by this point, with a Skræligen-speaking majority and a substantial Danish-speaking minority. (These refer to their native languages - there was a degree of mutual intelligibility, and many were bilingual.)

*Descended from pre-Isolation Skræligens

Massachusetts Bay Settlement of Northney

Dutch Invasion of Skrælige

Dutch Skrælige (Part of Nieuw Nederland): 1657-64

The Situation in Northney

While the truce between the Skræligens and the Abenaki continued during this time, there was no such truce with the Northney settlement. The English settlers up north attempted to expand across the channel onto Storreyn itself. This would have been a much more significant violation of Dutch land claims - they were willing to put up with an incursion onto a mostly uninhabited island, but reaching the main island would be difficult to ignore. However, by this point in time the Abenaki were armed with muskets, and English attempts to cross over were easily repelled.

The English Invasion

Throughout the 17th century there was a significant commercial and maritime rivalry between England and the Dutch Republic, which led to frequent conflict. Even when the two countries were at peace, their trade companies had their own warships and were in conflict. Among other grievances were the English Navigation Acts, which required all trade with English ports (including the colonies) to be done with English ships. The First Anglo-Dutch war broke out between the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Republic between 1652 and 54, and while England won the war, the commercial rivalry was entirely unresolved.

With this context, the English were agitating for another war, including capturing the Dutch trading outpost on Cabo Verde in late 1663. Subsequently King Charles II granted his brother James (later King James II) the land from the Delaware River to the Connecticut River - land which included New Netherland. In May of 1664 Colonel Nicolls set out from Portsmouth, England, and after enlisting the support of English militias on Long Island, arrived at New Amsterdam on the 4th of September. Nicolls had proposed a fairly lenient surrender agreement, including continuation of property rights and freedom of religion, in order to encourage a peaceful surrender. While Peter Stuyvesant was initially inclined to resist this, the burghers and his son met with him to force him to concede, and the Articles of Surrender of New Netherland were signed on the 6th of September.

The English sent troops up the Hudson River, and Fort Orange promptly surrendered on the 24th of September, to be renamed Fort Albany. Former New Sweden was captured in October, and then on the 24th of October a squadron of ships arrived outside Willemfort in Skrælige. Given the same terms as New Amsterdam, the Dutch garrison promptly surrendered, and Skrælige (apart from Northney) was to be part of the Province of New York.

Author's Notes

• The lines on the "European Colonisation Around Skrælige" map are... kind of made up? There's a few different sources I used (listed below).

  • One source was a map of towns in New England c. 1700 (i.e. from the future): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_England_Town_Lines_and_Borders_in_1700.png. I interpreted the presence of an incorporated town to mean it was probably actually controlled by the colony, and not just claimed. The outer borders of CT & MA are their modern ones - the border areas weren't really controlled by anyone anyway, and there were plenty of conflicting claims, even between English colonies.

  • For the MA/CT border, I went with the 1700 one - there was a 1642 MA survey line, but again there was no actual colonial control so it didn't seem right to make a definitive line of control.

  • NH/CT divide is based off of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ctcolony.png, and I drew my own lines around settlements on Long Island.

  • One slight error is that Stonington in the southeastern corner of CT was briefly controlled by Mass. Bay right around 1660, but I opted to just not include that since it switches back to CT so soon.

  • New Netherland & New Sweden use this map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nieuw_Nederland_and_Nya_Sverige.svg. Obviously those lines are rough estimates and are not borders in the modern sense.