Swedish overseas colonies
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Sweden controlled a number of colonies outside Europe between 1638 and 1878.
In the Americas, Sweden founded the colony of New Sweden (1638–1655) along the Delaware River, and briefly controlled Esequibo (1732–1739) and Tobago (1733). Sweden also governed the island of Saint Barthélemy for nearly a century (1784–1878). Sweden made Saint Barthélemy a free port and it served as a hub in the Atlantic slave trade. The island of Guadeloupe was a personal possession of King Charles XIV John from 1813 to 1814.
In West Africa, Sweden held several forts on the Swedish Gold Coast from 1650 to 1663. In South Asia, the Swedish East India Company founded a trading post at Porto Novo in 1733, but it was destroyed a month later by French and British forces.
Americas
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Sweden established colonies in the Americas in the mid-17th century, including the colony of New Sweden (1638–1655) on the Delaware River in what is now Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, as well as two possessions in the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries.
New Sweden
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The colony of New Sweden was founded in 1638 by the Swedish South Company, a consortium of Swedish, Dutch and German business interests.[1][2] Other European nations were establishing colonies in the New World and building successful trading empires at the same time, and Sweden also sought to expand its own influence by creating a tobacco plantation and fur-trading colony.[3] The colony was located along the Delaware River with settlements in modern Delaware (e.g., Wilmington), Pennsylvania (e.g., Philadelphia) and New Jersey (e.g., New Stockholm and Swedesboro) along locations where Swedish and Dutch traders had been visiting for decades.[4]
At the time (until 1809)