A columnist in the Washington Post a few days ago said in passing that as recently as one hundred years ago Sweden was a colonial power. I can’t imagine to what colonies she was referring. She hasn’t answered my inquiry and so I am asking you: Does anyone know of any colonies Sweden had in the early 1900s?
Well, Norway only became independent from Sweden in 1905. I have a feeling that that’s what she was referring to.
New Sweden is now known as Delaware.
Sweden also owned Estonia until the 1700s, and Finland until the Napoleonic wars.
Sweden held virtually the entire shore of the Baltic up until the reign of Peter the Great in Russia: Finland (until 1808), Estonia, Latvia, Livonia, Ingria, Swedish Pomerania (essentially the northwest coastal area of Poland today), Lubeck, and Norway (1815-1907). Delaware and IIRC part of New Jersey were American colonies in the 1600s. I believe they had a few island possessions for a while as well, though I’m not clear on the specifics.
I think the key is the statement that colonial power was “as recently as 100 years ago.”
It may not be complete, but this Wikipedia article lists only two Swedish colonies in the 19th Century and neither lasted later than 1878.
In 1813, Britain ceded the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe to Sweden and was then given to France in 1814 at the end of the war with Napoleon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadeloupe_Fund)
Saint-Barthelemy, another Caribbean island has generally been a French possession (and still is) but was in Swedish hands from 1785 to 1878, thus the main town on the island being Gusavia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Barth�lemy).
Assuming that the list is correct, that is almost 140 years since the last colony and they hardly seemed a power.
The ill-defined Swedish colonial settlement was on both sides of the Delaware River, including parts of what are now Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well as northern Delaware
You beat me to Saint-Barthelemy.
I wouldn’t call hegemony in Europe “colonial”. The countries in Europe “annexed” or “conquered” each other, they didn’t “colonize” each other. Polycarp has listed the greatest expansion of the Swedish Realm which reached its peak in the 17th century. In the 17th century Sweden also established an African colonial presence in present day Ghana for a few years (Cape Coast), overlapping in time with the New Sweden colony.
They got several bits and pieces by being on the right side in the Napoleonic wars, like Norway, as his been mentioned.
I’m guessing she meant St. Bart’s, and overstated its importance, as well as misremembering the time frame.
[nitpick]Well, Britain colonized Ireland, but generally, you’re right.[/nitpick]
Sweden still has a colony in the New World.
It’s called Minnesota.
If she was, she was wrong, because the relationship between Norway and Sweden was nothing close to a colonial one.
Hey, they brought the “log cabin” with them!!
Hey!!
So I was assigned Delaware in the 4th grade.
It’s not generally known, but technically, Sweden owns China, lock, stock, and barrel.
Also Mexico.
Not a problem. I happen to be sitting in a part of South Philly that was once the Swedish town of Wicoca (spelling varied) before Dutch and English settlers arrived… close, in fact, to the “Old Swedes’ Church” (Gloria Dei) historic site. A few of the street names around here still harken back to the Swedish days, and there’s an unhappy little shared Scandinavian consulate office a few minutes’ walk away. I had a leg up on this one… had to add my two cents… 
Don’t forget the little known New Sweden Farmstead located in NJ.
No doubt, but it appears that we’re dealing with a newspaper columnist making a point, not a professor of international relations discussing hegemony versus imperialism.
The “as recently as one hundred years ago” works exactly with Norway, but doesn’t work at all with the real colonies. I stil think it’s the likeliest explanation for what she meant, whether or not she was correct.
By the by, the flag of Philadelphia to this day is in the colors of the Swedish flag because of the early colonization. (Not a great jpeg; the blue is lighter on a real one.)