Fort Christina 1638
Fort Christina was established on March 29, 1638, along the banks of the Christina River near present-day Wilmington, Delaware, making it the founding settlement of New Sweden — the first permanent European colony in the Delaware Valley region. The fort represented the beginning of Swedish colonial presence in North America and stood as the focal point of New Sweden's political, commercial, and military activity for nearly two decades before passing into Dutch control.
Background and the New Sweden Colony
The establishment of Fort Christina occurred within a broader European competition for territorial and commercial influence in the eastern reaches of North America. By the early seventeenth century, the Dutch, English, and Swedish crowns each recognized the strategic value of the Delaware River corridor, which offered access to inland trade networks and fertile land along its shores.
Sweden, in 1638, encompassed not only its Scandinavian mainland territory but also Finland, and when the first expedition set sail for the New World, Finnish settlers were among those who came ashore alongside their Swedish counterparts.[1] This detail is often overlooked in popular accounts of the colony, yet the Finnish presence was a genuine and documented component of New Sweden from its very outset.
The expedition that would plant Fort Christina was led by Peter Minuit, a figure already familiar with colonial ventures in the New World. Minuit had previously served the Dutch West India Company before entering Swedish service. Under the flag of Sweden, he commanded vessels that carried settlers, soldiers, and trade goods across the Atlantic with the aim of establishing a durable foothold on the Delaware shore.
Founding and Construction
The settlers arrived and came ashore at what is now Fort Christina Park, near Wilmington, on March 29, 1638.[2] The site chosen for the fort lay on the Delaware side of the river, positioned at a location that offered both defensive advantages and ready access to the fur trade with local Indigenous peoples.
Peter Minuit oversaw the construction of Fort Christina, which served as the focal point of New Sweden's operations in North America.[3] The fort was erected on land that had been formally purchased from the local Indigenous population, a transaction that distinguished the Swedish approach from some other colonial enterprises of the era.[4] The colonists negotiated with Indigenous leaders, and Minuit personally initiated trade relations with five Indian chiefs shortly after landfall, establishing a commercial and diplomatic framework that would sustain the colony in its early years.[5]
The fort was named in honor of Queen Christina, the young Swedish monarch who was the reigning sovereign at the time of the colony's founding. The name carried both symbolic and diplomatic weight, anchoring the settlement's identity firmly within the Swedish crown's imperial ambitions.
Fort Christina occupied a position at the confluence of the Brandywine Creek and the Christina River in what is today the city of Wilmington, Delaware.[6] This geographic placement was deliberate: the meeting of two waterways provided both a natural defensive barrier and a logistical advantage for moving goods and people between the interior and the coast.
The Colony Expands
In the years following 1638, the New Sweden colony extended its presence beyond the immediate vicinity of Fort Christina. Settlers also moved into the area of Pennsville, on the opposite shore across Delaware Bay, and over time pushed further up the Delaware River to establish additional communities.[7] This pattern of gradual expansion reflected the colony's ambitions to secure as much of the river corridor as possible, creating a buffer against rival European powers.
Fort Christina anchored these dispersed settlements as the administrative and military center of New Sweden. Successive governors took charge of the colony after Minuit's departure, each grappling with the challenge of maintaining Swedish authority along the Delaware in the face of growing Dutch hostility.[8]
In 1641, additional fortifications were constructed to help defend and extend the colony's reach. Fort Mecoponacka was among those erected in the years following Fort Christina's founding, demonstrating that the Swedes intended a sustained and layered defensive posture in the region.[9]
Relations with Indigenous Peoples
A defining feature of the Swedish colonial approach at Fort Christina was the emphasis on formal land purchase and trade relationships with local Indigenous nations. From the moment Minuit and his expedition landed in 1638, they sought to establish commercial ties with Indigenous leaders rather than relying solely on force or unilateral occupation.[10] The land on which the fort was built was formally acquired through negotiated purchase, a process that conferred a degree of legitimacy on the settlement in the eyes of its founders and that differentiated New Sweden's early record from some of the more coercive practices documented elsewhere in colonial North America.[11]
The fur trade formed the economic backbone of this relationship, with Fort Christina serving as the hub through which Indigenous-harvested furs moved into the Swedish commercial network and European goods flowed back to Indigenous communities.
Dutch Antagonism and the Fall of New Sweden
From the beginning, New Sweden's existence on the Delaware was contested by the Dutch West India Company and the broader Dutch colonial enterprise centered at New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. The Dutch regarded the Swedish presence along the Delaware as an encroachment on territory they claimed as their own, and relations between the two colonial powers were persistently hostile.[12]
This antagonism built steadily over the years following 1638, with periodic confrontations over trading rights, territorial boundaries, and the construction of rival fortifications. Swedish governors worked to maintain the colony's position, but New Sweden was consistently under-resourced compared to the Dutch colonial infrastructure and received inconsistent support from the Swedish crown.
The culmination of Dutch pressure came in 1655, when New Sweden fell to Dutch forces. Following the Dutch takeover, Fort Christina was renamed Fort Altena, signaling the end of the Swedish colonial chapter on the Delaware.[13] The transition marked the close of seventeen years of Swedish colonial activity in the region, though the cultural and demographic legacy of the Swedish and Finnish settlers persisted long after the fort changed hands.
Legacy and Commemoration
Fort Christina's significance to Delaware's history has been recognized through preservation and public commemoration. The site of the original landing and fort is today preserved as Fort Christina Park, located near Wilmington, Delaware, where visitors can access historical markers and monuments connected to the 1638 founding.[14]
The 350th anniversary of the founding was marked in 1988 with commemorative stamps issued jointly, reflecting the transatlantic significance of the 1638 settlement and the enduring connection between Sweden and the state of Delaware.[15] The joint nature of the commemoration underscored that the legacy of Fort Christina is shared across national and cultural boundaries, belonging not only to Delaware's state history but also to the broader narrative of Swedish emigration and Atlantic world colonization.
The town of Christiana, Delaware, which developed in the vicinity of the original fort site, carries the name forward as a geographic reminder of the 1638 settlement and the queen in whose honor the fort was named.[16]
Fort Christina stands at the beginning of Delaware's recorded colonial history. The events of March 29, 1638 — the landing of Swedish and Finnish settlers, the formal purchase of land from Indigenous peoples, the construction of a fortified trading post, and the establishment of commercial relations with local communities — set in motion a sequence of events that shaped the cultural, legal, and geographic character of the Delaware region for generations. Though New Sweden as a political entity lasted fewer than two decades before Dutch forces ended it, the imprint of that original colonial venture remained visible in place names, settlement patterns, and historical memory long after Fort Altena replaced Fort Christina on the official maps of the Delaware Valley.
See Also
References
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