The Malady of Emigrants: Homesickness and Longing in the Colony of New Sweden (1638-1655)

This chapter explores homesickness of the Swedish colonial employees in the settlement of New Sweden and pays attention to the potential role of material culture in instigating feelings of longing. In the seventeenth century, in the age of wars fought far from home, colonial expansion and transoceanic resettlements, homesickness became a considerable social problem. In 1688, Johannes Hofer, a Swiss student of medicine described it as a psycho-somatic condition caused by inability to adjust to the life after relocation. Homesickness, or nostalgia, was to him “the sad mood originating from the desire for return to one’s native land”. Homesickness was a common malady in colonial America and one of the causes of return migration. It did not spare those employed in the colony of New Sweden, including Johan Printz, one of its governors. The governor’s letters and reports sent to Sweden provide insights into dissatisfaction with the life in the colony and desperate longing to return home. In case of governor Printz and his employees, nostalgic feelings might have been instigated by the interactions with objects brought from home. Already Hofer observed that those feeling homesick “are moved by small external objects and nothing creates a stronger impression than the desire recalling the homeland”. These connections between fantasies about home and materials that bring them about are explored and theorized about in this chapter

Sweden in the Delaware Valley: Everyday Life and Material Culture in New Sweden

In 1637 the Swedish Crown, encouraged by Dutch merchants, developed a plan to establish a colonial outpost in America to tap into profitable tobacco and beaver pelt trade. The same year the first cargo ships left Sweden and sailed westwards to claim their piece of America along the Delaware River. Although in many ways unsuccessful and short-lived (the colony collapsed in 1656), New Sweden became a home for generations of colonists. This chapter focuses on the different aspects of their daily life: their longing and desperation, practices of homemaking and domesticating the landscape, their perception and interactions with the neighbouring Native American groups. It discusses the ways material culture was used, exchanged and appropriated by the colonists and the local Lenape and Susquehannock in the processes of meeting, negotiations and daily coexistence