New Sweden: the US's long-lost 'secret' colony

I guess it's a secret to the Brits and the BBC. We learned about Swedish colonies in the Delaware Valley area in fifth grade history class.

So secret that it had its own U.S. postage stamp, as shown at the top of TFA.

There's lots of things that people learned in elementary school in the UK that I don't know about. That doesn't made them a secret.

The article does not dispute this, in fact it's a big part of the New Sweden history in the article. The same person is credited for being responsible for both

> and a lot more people came through new Amsterdam (including my family) than whatnever new Sweden was

Again, Not in dispute. There are paragraphs about how it was a far-flung failed settlement that was taken twice, once by each Dutch and English -- but smooth way to throw in your families long US history coming in through such a a popular port as New Amsterdam. One of my ancestor lines came through some backcountry called Jamestown; def not a swank sounding place like modern-day NYC.

>> "Despite its territorial expansion, New Sweden never became the profitable venture it was conceived to become because it was chronically under-populated and neglected. The colony never counted more than about 400 people" [...] "From 1638-1655, this forgotten Swedish settlement extended across the Delaware Valley, encompassing parts of modern-day New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. In addition to being the smallest, least-populated and shortest-lived European colony in the US, it was also the most clandestine."

> so they would have got ideas from that rather than whatever Sweden was

Where does it even say anything about ideas for Declaration of Independence came from Sweden?

African Americans make up around 15% of the US, Asian Americans around 7%, Arab Americans around 1.5%, and Native Americans around 2%.

That percentage is likely much higher when you factor Latino Americans - the plurality of whom either have indigenous or African ethnic origins. And some of America's richest and most politically powerful states like California and Texas have some of the lowest rates of European heritage in the nation.

This whole "America is European" mentality reeks of West European supremacy and fails to recognize how diverse America is. The only European ethnic groups who still have active blood and ethnic ties with the old country tend to be Central and Eastern Europeans or Irish Americans - large pluralities of whom were forced to leave the old country due to colonial reasons (the Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and British rule in Ireland was equally destructive as colonial rule outside Europe).

Alternatively, the only reason Western Europe didn't have a Park Chung Hee, Suharto, or Zia was because Europeans who were naturalized Americans like Brzeziński (Poland), Kissinger (Germany), and Albright (Czechoslovakia) ran policy during the Cold War era.

The modern equivalents of Brzeziński, Albright, and Kissinger are all either Heritage (ie. Pre-Civil War), Latino, Asian, or Arab American.

Why should European states be given privileges that Japan, South Korea, Phillipines, Taiwan, and others weren't extended until the last 30 years?

We are not a European ethnostate. We are America.

Either way Europeans overestimate American ties to Europe. If you actually visit America in 2026, most culture is either domestic, Asian, or Latino.

Heck, the majority of Americans began viewing Asia and not Europe as America's most important partners back in 2009 [0].

[0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-o...