Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 139.

I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I am recording this episode on January 18, 2024, in Austin, Texas.

We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States

from the beginning without intentional presentism. Here we are back in New Sweden.

For those of you frantically scrolling back through the last few episodes looking for part one, please accept

my apologies. You have to go all the way back to August 28, 2023 to find it. Worse, it's only called

the founding of New Sweden with no part one anywhere to be seen. Nevertheless, that was the real

part one of the new Sweden story and is a solid pre-listen for this episode, if you haven't already done, or if it's been, say, four months.

Other useful episodes to listen to before this one are the furry geopolitics of the eastern seaboard, 1630s to 1660s, which dropped on Halloween, 23, and an overview of the European

settlement of the Northeast before 1650 from January 2nd of just this year.

With the greatest deference to Swedes and Finns, most Americans outside of the immediate area of it, and I dare

say many within it, have barely heard that there was a Swedish colony on the Delaware River for

17 years in the mid-17th century. Historians seem to have landed on only two consequences

of New Sweden that have had staying power,

beyond a few place names in the area between Philadelphia and the mouth of the Delaware Bay.

Those consequences seem to be two.

The first is the log cabin, the design of which was invented by the forest-dwelling fins

and imported to the banks of the

Delaware in 1638. The log cabin was ideally suited to a forested country. No need to cut a straight

trunk into planks, just notch it at the ends, connect them at right angles to make walls,

and plug the gaps with mud or moss or clay to keep the weather out.

It became such an iconic American image that 19th century politicians would brag that they'd grown up in one,

...