Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 80 posts

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

#71

Post by oljwo398ogrj »

The ship having the Finnish flag is just a bit anachronistic methinks. Finland would have been under Swedish rule back then (and Swedish, which used to be a language of the elite, is still an official language albeit spoken by a ~5% minority nowadays). The Finnish flag didn't become a thing until much, much later. Even the nationalist Fennoman movement was started by Swedes.

Did you know that Finns weren't always considered white? If you do a bit of Wikipedia spelunking, you'll find e.g. an old German map that paints Finland yellow for 'mongoloid'. Weird, eh? Somewhat recently the Swedes returned some Finnish skulls that were stolen and studied by so-called racial 'scientists'. Also, Finns were apparently called 'China Swedes' in the States.

Another fun fact for those interested: Finnish is a Uralic language, related to neither Swedish nor Russian. In fact, the Uralic languages are a family separate from Indo-European languages.

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

#72

Post by alephnerd »

jltsiren wrote: post #69
alephnerd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Latin America is clearly European, in the sense I understand the concept But depending on where you are in Latin America as well as their familial background they may or may not associate with a European identity. The LatAm states who associate the most with Europe are also the most racial homogenous (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile) because of mass European migration in the late 19th and 20th century. Other larger state…

Ignore the political aspects for now and focus on culture. And feel free to use "Roman" if "European" sounds wrong. But "Western" is wrong, because the same cultural sphere extends to Australia, New Zealand, and Russian Far East. From my perspective, as someone from the Northern fringes of Europe, Latin American society and culture feel fundamentally familiar, while Middle East and North Africa don't. Out of the Lati…

> But "Western" is wrong, because the same cultural sphere extends to Australia, New Zealand, and Russian Far East

Yes. And Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are viewed as "Western" in American discourse as well. The Russian Far East isn't though.

> From my perspective, as someone from the Northern fringes of Europe, Latin American society and culture feel fundamentally familiar

> Out of the Latin American countries I'm most familiar with, Peru feels more European...

Frankly, a Finn isn't the right person to make this distinction. And if you've been to Peru you most likely spent the bulk of your time in Miraflores and other European parts of Lima, and not the majority indigenous hinterland. The European-Indigenous fault line is a major faultline in Peru going back to the Shining Path days.

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

#73

Post by jltsiren »

alephnerd wrote: post #72
jltsiren wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignore the political aspects for now and focus on culture. And feel free to use "Roman" if "European" sounds wrong. But "Western" is wrong, because the same cultural sphere extends to Australia, New Zealand, and Russian Far East. From my perspective, as someone from the Northern fringes of Europe, Latin American society and culture feel fundamentally familiar, while Middle East and North Africa don't. Out of the Lati…

> But "Western" is wrong, because the same cultural sphere extends to Australia, New Zealand, and Russian Far East Yes. And Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are viewed as "Western" in American discourse as well. The Russian Far East isn't though. > From my perspective, as someone from the Northern fringes of Europe, Latin American society and culture feel fundamentally familiar > Out of the Lati…

I've spent more time in the Andes than in Lima. The Quechua are clearly an indigenous group, but they have been forced to adopt most of the European cultural package. If you travel in Russia, you can find many ethnic groups in similar situations.

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

#74

Post by eesmith »

wat10000 wrote: post #61
dreamcompiler wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Texas and took Texas history. I learned things like Texas being the only US state that was once an independent country and where the Six Flags came from (later the name of an amusement park empire that originated in Texas). But they never taught us much about New Mexico.

Vermont was also an independent country, and for longer than Texas was.

The Hawaiian Kingdom lasted from 1795 to 1893.

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

#75

Post by [deleted] »

alephnerd wrote: post #18
zkmon wrote: post #17

What an irony - the once European colonies which depended on their motherlands to defend them in an alien land, now become a menace or estranged godfather to Europe.

At least 25% of us Americans have never had blood or ethnic ties with Europe. 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 st…

[deleted]

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

#76

Post by eesmith »

alephnerd wrote: post #18
zkmon wrote: post #17

What an irony - the once European colonies which depended on their motherlands to defend them in an alien land, now become a menace or estranged godfather to Europe.

At least 25% of us Americans have never had blood or ethnic ties with Europe. 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 st…

Do you not consider Roman Catholicism to be part of the European heritage? I sure do.

A lot of Latino Americans and indigenous people are Roman Catholics, so part of European heritage.

I don't understand why you mention "never had blood .. ties" when at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48842245 you reject the relevancy of blood ties. Wouldn't your argument make more sense as just "never had ethnic ties with Europe.

As a reminder, Obama, African-American son of a white woman, once visited Moneygall, where an Irish ancestor lived, and said "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas."

Lastly, I see you switched from "blood or ethic ties" to "heritage". Could you elaborate on what that means? Must I be Greek inherit some of the intellectual heritage of Ancient Greece? How is my claim to the traditional European liberal arts education heritage any stronger or weaker than that of W. E. B. Du Bois?

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

arrowsmith wrote: post #62
hammock wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Vikings didn’t “conquer” new lands the way you might imagine. Rather than just raiding, they often settled, intermingled with the locals farmers and established new states. As seen in Scottish Isles, Ireland, Danelaw (England), Ukraine, Faroes, Iceland, Normandy, Greenland, Newfoundland etc they sack some leadership but quickly integrate and evolve into mostly peaceful farming societies

Yes but that didn't happen in the Americas. They didn't settle or leave any lasting impact.

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by 1659447091 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #59
alephnerd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of my favorites is that Santa Fe has been the capital city of Nuevo Mexico since 1610. Acoma, another city in modern-day New Mexico, is about 500 years older still We were taught this in California in elementary school. Spanish colonial history actually tends to be taught at the same time or earlier than East Coast history in much of the American West (usually as "California" or "Texas" or "Colorado" history).

I grew up in Texas and took Texas history. I learned things like Texas being the only US state that was once an independent country and where the Six Flags came from (later the name of an amusement park empire that originated in Texas). But they never taught us much about New Mexico.

I once tried to explain away my ignorance of cities within a less recognized state as being a product of the Texas ISD (public schools). Where they heavily taught Texas history from a Texas lens, almost in a way that makes it seem as though Mexico, Spain, and the Comanche were infringing on us.

Then you moved on to US History where they briefly gave an overview of the 13 colonies forming the US (had to start somewhere), in which the great state of Texas is the largest within the contiguous US and pivots to all of Texas's great contributions and workings with the US. Re-visiting all the "alternative facts" learnt and filling in a lot of missing data has taken some time.

Post reply on HN