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New Sweden Project News
Click here to download brochure/registration form. The New Sweden Project is an educational and scholarly program that was founded by the Swedish Colonial Society, the American Swedish Historical Museum and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and has grown with the support of Trinity Episcopal (Old Swedes') Church, the New Sweden Centre and the Historical Society of Delaware. Contact: For Immediate Release: New Sweden and Native America: New Sweden and Native America, the Fourth Annual New Sweden History Conference, will take place on Saturday, November 20, at the Delaware Museum of History, Wilmington, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The conference will focus on relations between Native Americans and European Americans in the Delaware Valley of the 17th century, especially those among the Lenape and Susquehannock Indians and the settlers of New Sweden. The American-Scandinavian Foundation, the Delaware Humanities Forum (a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities), and the Indian Rights Association have provided generous funding to assist the conference. Professional Development for Teachers: Since the American Swedish Historical Museum is an official provider of professional development programs for New Jersey and Pennsylvania ("Act 48" in Pennsylvania), teachers from those states who attend the conference will receive 6 hours of professional development credit. New Sweden: The Swedes founded their colony on the lower Delaware in 1638. It's Finnish and Swedish colonists were the first Europeans to settle permanently in the Delaware Valley. It's neighbors were English and Dutch colonies to the south and north, the Lenape Indians (also called the Delawares and the Lenni Lenape), who also lived in the Delaware Valley, and the Susquehannock Indians, who lived farther to the west. New Sweden's relations with its Native American neighbors were often difficult but considerably less violent than those between other Europeans and their Indian neighbors. An objective of the conference will be to understand why this was so. Program: After a registration period from 8:30 to 9:30, a.m., and welcoming remarks, Daniel K. Richter will begin the conference with a keynote presentation titled "Native Americans and Europeans in the Seventeenth-Century East." Richter is the Director of the McNeil Center and a Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Jean R. Soderlund will follow with "Natives and Immigrants in the 17th-Century Delaware Valley." Soderlund is a Professor of History and the Chair of the History Department at Lehigh University. The conference's luncheon speaker will be Staffan Brunius, Curator of the Americas at the Ethnographic Museum, Stockholm, Sweden. Brunius will discuss 17th-century Native American objects in Swedish museums in a talk titled "Artifacts in Sweden from Northeastern North America: Facts, Possibilities, and Uncertainties." There will be three concurrent sessions in the afternoon. In (1) The Nature of the Swedish-Native American Relationship, Gunlög Fur will present "Comparing Relationships: Swedes and Indians, and Swedes and Saamis." Fur is an Associate Professor of History at Växjö University, Sweden. The session's other presentation will be "The Politics of Large and Small: Swedish-Indian Relations from Pieter Minwe to Johan Risingh," by Lorraine E. Williams, Curator of Archaeology and Ethnology, New Jersey State Museum, and Richard Waldron, Executive Director, the American Swedish Historical Museum, Philadelphia. In (2) Swedish and Native American Economic and Diplomatic Roles, Peter S. Craig, the Historian of the Swedish Colonial Society, will discuss "Swedish Indian Traders, 1638-1737, and Their Role as Peacemakers in the Colonies of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey"; and Alison D. Hirsch, independent scholar, will speak about "Indian and Swedish-Finnish Women in the Fur Trade." The presenters in (3) Wampum, Indian Middlemen, and Lenape-Swedish Trading Relations will be Marshall J. Becker, Anthropology Department, West Chester University, "Wampum Use in Swedish Colonial America: Johan Printz and the Lenape"; and Michael R. Dondzila, History Department, University of Delaware, "Their Profit Was Peace: Trade, Diplomacy, and the Evolution of a Lenape Middleman Role in the 17th Century." Each program segment will include time for dialogue between the speakers and the audience. A new feature of this year's conference, the New Sweden Heritage Dinner, will follow at the Brandywine Country Club, Wilmington, beginning at 5 p.m. Registration: Click here to download brochure/registration form. Information: Links to related sites: Swedish Colonial Society American Swedish Historical Museum McNeil Center for Early American Studies Trinity Episcopal (Old Swedes') Church New Sweden Centre Historical Society of Delaware
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