Abstract
This chapter deals with contacts between Native Americans and Swedes in New Sweden (1638–1655) and their exchange of material culture. Furthermore, the chapter traces some of the objects in Sweden and discusses their meaning and use in the new context. An object-biographical approach underlines the complexity and relevance of things in a colonial situation, in the colonies as well as in the mother country. The chapter encompasses the journey across the Atlantic and deals with three sites and their material: the grave slab of Johannes Campanius Holm in Frösthult, Sweden; the results of the excavation of the Swedish settlement of Printzhof/Tinicum and thirdly the Native American objects in Sweden and their new contexts such as Skokloster Castle. Both America and Sweden were influenced by the material culture of colonial contact, a material culture that became part of a process that changed both people and societies.
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Notes
- 1.
My transcription. On the interpretation of the phonetic writings, see Brunius 2007: 33, n3, also Williams 2012, espescially page 346 on the translation of Algonquin into Swedish.
- 2.
The social span was quite wide, including all these categories. It is highly relevant to acknowledge that the Swedes appropriated a common European and colonial attitude in adopting the system of slavery. One slave is known (the first in Delaware), Anthony, who had been bought in the Caribbean in 1638 and brought to Fort Christina (RA Handel och Sjöfart vol. 196; cf. also Johnson 1911:699; Williams 1996:2–4). After the arrival of Johan Printz in 1643, Anthony was recorded under the name Antoni Swart (Eng. Black) and was forced to follow the governor to New Gothenburg and to work as a field hand and running the governor’s sloop (Johnson 1911:706).
- 3.
Sweden was not only the leading exporter of copper; iron was also a prominent export commodity (cf., e.g. Magnusson 2010:124–137; Evans and Rydén this volume).
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Acknowledgements
This chapter was made possible through a position as visiting researcher at University of Maryland, College Park, in autumn 2010, and with the kind support of Mark Leone and Paul Shackel. I am grateful for the financial support to Riksbankens jubileumsfond, Kungl. Vitterhetskademien and Helge Ax:son Johnsons foundation which made the stay possible. I am indebted to Magdalena Naum for concrete help in the finishing stage of this chapter. I am also indebted to David Furlow for letting me use his photo of the finds from the Printzhof site.
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Nordin, J.M. (2013). There and Back Again: A Study of Travelling Material Culture in New and Old Sweden. In: Naum, M., Nordin, J. (eds) Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity. Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, vol 37. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6202-6_12
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