of the
present century by the general body of white citizens, and often
subjected to most cruel and unjust persecution and punishment on charges
that were either baseless or founded only in malice. The restriction on
domestic manufactures was another barb in the side of the colonists, and
that policy continued by the English successors of the Dutch, had much to
do with exciting the War for Independence. The patroons also were an
aristocratic element foreign to the prevalent spirit of North American
settlement, and their feudal rule, although liberal and patriarchal in
some instances, became less tolerable as years rolled on, and the people
comprehended the absurdity and injustice of mediaeval institutions on
American soil. It is fortunate that the patroon system, unlike slavery,
was ultimately uprooted without revolution.

* * *

Americans should be proud of the fact that Gustavus Adolphus, the great
king of Sweden who died on the field of Lutzen in the cause of religious
liberty, gave his approval to the project for planting a Swedish colony
in America, and by proclamation, while in the midst of his campaign
against the Catholic League, recommended the enterprise to his people.
Eighteen days later the champion of Protestantism fell in the hour of
victory, and a noble monument erected by the German people marks the spot
where he gave up his life that Germany might be free. The scheme was
carried out by the regency which took charge of the kingdom, and Governor
Minuit, recalled from New Netherland, sailed from Gottenburg in 1637 to
plant a new colony on the west side of Delaware Bay. The colonists
arrived at their destination in the spring of 1638, and Minuit procured
from an Indian sachem a deed for a region which, the Swedes claimed,
extended from Cape Henlopen to the Falls of the Delaware, where Trenton
is now, and an indefinite distance inland. The Dutch protested and
threatened, but Minuit built a fort on the site of Wilmington, and called
it Fort Christina, in honor of the young queen of Sweden, daughter of
Gustavus Adolphus. The colony prospered, and a number of Hollanders
settled there with the Swedes. Minuit died in 1641, and the Swedish
government proceeded to place the colony on a permanent footing, and
called it "New Sweden." The colony was unable to hold its own against the
Dutch, and surrendered in 1655 to an expedition led by Peter Stuyvesant.

While New Netherla