Dutch and Swedish Encounters With the Lenape

[bridget orman]

Dutch and Swedish Encounters With the Lenape
During the first decades of the seventeenth century, the harsh winds of change swept across the Lenape’s land bringing European explorers and settlers in search of commercial opportunities. In 1633, Dutch and Swedish investors, under the leadership of Peter Minuit, formed the New South Company; the Dutch had already been involved in colonization along the Hudson River. In 1638, the Company bought a tract of land from the Lenape near present-day Wilmington, Delaware. The Company then established a settlement on Tinicum Island (near today’s Philadelphia International Airport) with John Printz as governor. Swedish and Finnish settlers who engaged in fur trading followed. Further fur trading posts were established along the west bank of the Delaware River. In 1640, the New South Company came under control of Swedes as Dutch investors sold their shares. Dutch officials still had ambitions on the Delaware River and established new trading posts. In 1655, Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Governor of New York, led an invasion capturing Swedish settlements. However, Dutch rule proved short-lived as the Dutch soon lost claims in North America to Great Britain. The Swedes remained and established a community in West Philadelphia along the west bank of the Schuylkill River bearing the Lenape name, Chinssessing, "a place where there is a meadow" (which grew to be the district of Kingsessing