Fort Christina

About this property

Fort Christina, also called Fort Altena, was the first Swedish settlement in North America and the principal settlement of the New Sweden colony. Built in 1638 and named after Christina, Queen of Sweden, it was located approximately 1 mi (1.6 km) east of the present-day downtown Wilmington, Delaware, at the confluence of the Brandywine River and the Christina River, approximately 2 mi (3 km) upstream from the mouth of the Christina on the Delaware River. Following plans by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden to establish a Swedish colony in North America, the Swedes arrived in Delaware Bay (Fort Christina) on March 29, 1638, aboard the ships Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip under the command of Peter Minuit, the former director of the New Netherland colony. They landed at a spot along the Christina River at a stone outcropping which formed a natural wharf, known as "The Rocks." Minuit selected the site on the Christina River near the Delaware as being optimal for trade in beaver pelts with the local Lenape. He also considered the site easily defensible, and he ordered the construction of an earthwork fort around the Rocks. At the time, the Dutch had claimed the area south to the Delaware (then called "South River"). The Swedes claimed an area for the Realm of Sweden on the south side of the Delaware that encompassed much of the present-day U.S. state of Delaware, eventually including parts of present-day southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey on the north side of the river. The fort's earthworks were strengthened in 1640 by Governor Peter Hollander Ridder to help defend against the possibility of Dutch or Native American attacks. As additional colonists arrived from Sweden in the years following the landing, homes and farms began to be built outside of the confines of the fort. The fort was rebuilt entirely in 1647. The colony of New Sweden remained in constant friction with the Dutch. In 1651, the Dutch under Peter Stuyvesant established Fort Casimir at present-day New Castle, only 7 mi (12 km) south of Fort Christina, in order to menace the Swedish settlement. In 1654, the Swedes captured Fort Casimir under the orders of Governor Johan Risingh. Risingh, fearing reprisals, strengthened the defenses of Fort Christina by adding a wooden palisade around the earthworks. In 1655, the Dutch under Stuyvesant returned in force and laid siege to Fort Christina. The fort's surrender after ten days ended the official Swedish colonial presence in North America, though most of the colonists remained and were allowed to continue their linguistic and religious practices by the Dutch. Stuyvesant renamed Fort Christina as Fort Altena. While the struggle for Fort Christina and Fort Casimir involved hundreds of mercenaries and chartered warships, and was run personally by Stuyvesant, it was not seen at the time as a war between the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Sweden. It was rather a struggle between the Dutch West India Company and the Swedish West India Company.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in New Castle County

Historic places, battles, and census history across New Castle County.

More historic places in Delaware

Browse all historic places in Delaware.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Delaware history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.