"New Sweden or Something like it" Topic

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sweden

What forces would you field for a small nation based on a colony like New Sweden.
I am considering something like this in 10mm.
Will probably use Loose Files and American Scramble rules.
Will have two European Nations one will most likely be New France and the other will New Sweden or a Huguenot Nation.
Would also include Native American allies.
Just looking for suggestions and opinions

Mongo

I am afraid they didn't have much forces. The population of New Sweden was only a few hundred people at most so in terms of military forces it was a dosen or two of regulars together with some militia and a some 10 artillery pieces

If New Sweden had remained independent and developed into the 18th century…

Maybe a company or two of regular infantry and gunners, to man the fort that guarded the main harbor.

Maybe a battalion or two of local militia. Farmers by trade, not terribly martial or well drilled.

Maybe half a troop of the local gentry mounted on their best horses, capable of scouting and messenger service, not battle cavalry at all. In combat they dismount, tree up and shoot it out. They might have fancy uniforms.

Probably no real frontiersmen – this colony wouldn't have driven deep into the interior. The frontier would have moved beyond them by the 18th century, and been under British control.

Maybe up to a couple hundred 'domeciled' Indian warriors, grouped in warbands of up to 30 or so each. A lot of these men would be Christians and many would be farmers, but they'd still have superior fieldcraft and warrior culture compared to the militia. The 'wild' Indians would have moved out of the neighborhood some years back.

Depending how many ships are in the main harbor, maybe up to a couple hundred sailors who know how to handle personal weapons and artillery, and have some balls for a fight, especially if there's a chance of loot. Fairly disciplined under their own officers. Fieldcraft not worth a goldurn, though.

If you're very, very lucky, there might be a small naval vessel in the main harbor with a crew of 70 or 80 of the King's sailors and a couple of dozen Marines. They wouldn't send a ship-of-the-line to America.

And that's gonna be it, Governor. You say you want to raise an expeditionary force to capture Cartagena? Bwaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

I'd say that there WOULD be real frontiersmen. Lot's of Sweden was much the same as the N. American frontier at that time!

How about a scenario that Queen Christina exiles herself there and starts a colony parralel to Sweden?

How about a scenario that Queen Christina exiles herself there and starts a colony parralel to Sweden?

Now why would she do that spontoon? Let's develop the idea a little more.

Sweden during the 17th and early 18th centuries was preoccupied with holding a Baltic empire against newer, stronger contenders. Never a rich country and with a relatively small population, Sweden's resources were over-stretched fighting wars in Germany and Poland. There were few ships or men to spare for colonies in North America.

Eventually Charles XII reached too far into the Ukraine, and lost nearly everything. Sweden was never again a major European power.

Sweden in the 1640s was not capable of mounting a trans-Atlantic colonizing effort comparable to the French, British or Dutch. The New Sweden colony in the Delaware valley never amounted to more than a couple of trading posts. The Dutch were able to take over the Delaware valley in 1655 against no effective resistance.

But suppose the Dutch had supported Swedish ambitions, and protected the Swedish colony (why?), and themselves had held out against the British conquest of New Amsterdam (how?), so that New Sweden had survived past the turn of the 18th century under the Swedish crown.

Let's suppose that Tsar Peter, contrary to his demonstrated qualities of moderation, realism and enlightenment, after Poltava had carried out a total conquest and annexation of Sweden. The Baltic to become a Russian lake. The Swedish royal house and nobility to be dispossessed, in favor of Russian usurpers. Russian garrisons to be planted in all cities, and the country Russified in language, religion and law, like some central Asian 'stan in hither Siberia.

Suppose the Swedes learn of the Russian plans. Unable to resist conquest, the defiant Queen gathers her nobles, her remaining soldiers, as many peasants and farm animals as can be saved, and sails in a great fleet to exile in the Delaware valley.

By 1710, the Delaware valley is no longer a frontier. Without William Penn founding his colony, the white farming population is much less than in our timeline. Many more Unami, Munsee and Mahican tribesmen remain in the valley. Now these Indians are more than half-Christianized, dressed in European trade goods and taking up European farming methods, but still barely a generation from their native traditions.

In this Delaware valley the exiled Swedish court build their capital, New Stockholm. There they gather strength and plan a return to their homeland, a Swedish Restoration. Inevitably. Some day.

Interesting storyline, Zippy! Though I suspect that Spontoon meant Queen Christina who abdicated in 1654 (inter alia so as to be free to convert to Catholicism). Rather than a yearly allowance she was given the income from various estates in Sweden and Pomerania. Let's assume those to have been in the colony, around the Fort named after her instead (why mortgage prime real estate at home to a queen who's abandonning her country?) Rather than settling (at first) in Antwerp she might have visited her posessions on the Delaware. Her Catholic leanings would make for interesting diplomatic involvement with New France and New Spain…

@ OP: A "Huguenot nation" is indeed a very interesting what-if, although by 1685 more of the East Coast would have been spoken for. However it is an often-noted weakness of French policy not to have opened New France to its religious dissidents, as happened in Britain. If you reverse this one policy choice, without fiddling much with History otherwise, French Canada is considerably strengtened while Britain is deprived of the manpower and technical as well as military know-how of the exiles…

Musketier, you probably know that in the 1560s, French Huguenots tried to found colonies in Carolina and northern Florida. The French allied with some local Indians against others. They planned to prosper by raiding Spanish shipping in the Carribean and in transit to and from Spain. But Spanish Governor Menendez wiped the Huguenots out in a fast, vicious campaign, and founded St. Augustine to prevent their return.

What if Fort Caroline had survived and prospered?

The Creek Indians of the region were civilized farmers who had recently participated in the High Mississippian chiefdoms (now mostly fallen). The Creeks later welcomed Spanish missionaries and built up a major system of missions in Spanish Florida, that was destroyed in the early 18th century by British slave-raiders.

What if French and Creeks together had built up a strong Huguenot colony in the Carolinas, that could have held off competing British and Spanish colonies?

My idea exactly Musketier! Probably had her own Swedish corps of Amazons with her!

Swedish Amazon Bikini Drabant Guard? The mind boggles. But in a good way.