It is now well-known that the Vikings set foot in the New World around the year 1000, when Leif Erikson and his family led several expeditions to areas around Newfoundland, which they called Vinland.
However, the Vikings didn’t settle in the region, as the goods they were able to take back home weren’t worth the distance and risks associated with the trip.
Since then, stories of the Vikings sailing to the New World and venturing further south to the United States have emerged.
This has been fuelled by the discovery of artifacts like the Kensington Runestone in Minnesota, which seemed to suggest that the Vikings may have been in the region in the 14th century.
This has since been identified as a hoax, and other runestones have been shown to date to much later, after Columbus’s “discovery” of America and the start of European settlement.
It is now clear that a Norse presence in America doesn’t date to the Viking expansion of the 8th to 12th centuries, but rather the modern Norse diaspora, which started in the 17th century and intensified in the 19th century.
Most people of Norse ancestry who live in the United States today can trace their lineage to these immigrants.
Migration to Colonial America
Alongside the English, French, and Dutch, the Norsemen took an interest in the New World and what Colonial America had to offer.
They were also important in mapping the New World.
The Danes, led by Jen Munk, launched one of the first expeditions to find the Northwest Passage, a route between America and Europe via the Arctic Ocean, in 1619.
It was a disastrous endeavor, with bad conditions forcing the two ships to take shelter in the Hudson Bay, where all but the expedition leader, Jens Munk, and two sailors died.
Vitus Jonassen Bering was more successful a century later when, working for the Russian Empire, he documented the narrow body of water that separated North America and Asia, which was called the Bering Strait in his honor.
He was also the first recorded European to land in Alaska in 1741.
New Sweden
The Dutch were dominating the region around the Delaware River in the early 17th century.
Several Scandinavians joined Dutch expeditions. For example, Hans Hansen Bergen arrived from Norway in 1633 as an overseer of a tobacco plantation, and Alber Andriessen Bradt also arrived from Norway in 1637.
An estimated 60 Norwegians arrived before the region was taken by the British Empire in 1664.
But it was the Swedes who weren’t satisfied to just piggyback on Dutch expeditions and decided to launch their own colonization attempt.
The Swedish South Company was founded in 1626 with the mandate to establish colonies in the New World between Florida and Newfoundland, with the express purpose of establishing their own tobacco plantation and fur trade.
They sponsored 11 expeditions and 14 voyages to the New World between 1638 and 1655.
The first expedition left Gothenburg in 1637, led by the Swedish admiral Clas Larsson Fleming.
They sailed into the Delaware Bay on the Fogel Gip and the Kalmar Nyckel, anchoring at a rocky point on the Minquas Kill in 1638, which is now called Swedes’ Landing.
There, they built Fort Christina, named after the Swedish queen at the time, and established the colony of New Sweden.
Over the next 15 years, around 600 Swedes and Finns made their way to the new colony.
The governor, Peter Minuit, met with the leaders of the local Lenape and Susquehannock peoples and persuaded them to sign deeds for the land, which they could use if they were challenged by the Dutch.
When Minuit died in a hurricane while sailing back to Europe, he was replaced as governor by Mans Nilsson Kling, and then Johan Bjornsson Printz between 1643 and 1653.
He established Fort Nya Elsborg and Fort Nya Gothenborg, and New Sweden prospered.
Conquest of New Sweden
Soon, the Dutch decided to reassert their claim over the Delaware River, building Fort Casimir.
Under their new governor, Johan Risingh, the Swedes captured this new fort and renamed it Fort Trinity.
As a result, the Dutch could no longer accept the Swedes in the region and decided to drive them out.
They sailed up the Delaware River with seven ships and 317 soldiers and retook their fort, and then besieged Fort Christina, which surrendered on September 15, 1655.
The Swedes remained in the area, but their colony was now under Dutch control, though little changed for the settlers on a day-to-day basis.
The English then conquered the region in 1664, and the colony continued under English control.
In 1669, a Swede named Marcus Jacobsson, a member of the Konigsmarck (royal) family, tried to lead a rebellion against English rule in what became known as the Revolt of the Long Swede, but it failed, and New Sweden was fully integrated into the new English territory, though retaining many of its distinctly Nordic characteristics.
We know that they remained a relatively distinct community because the Swedish explorer Pehr Kalem visited their descendants in the mid-18th century and documented their experiences.
Mass Migration Begins
While early Nordic migrants left their mark on America, notably in the development of wooden cabins considered characteristic of the northwest that were a style imported from Scandinavia, mass migration from the Nordic countries to America happened between 1850 and 1920.
Despite a migration lull during the American Civil War, it is estimated that during this period, 1.2 million Swedes, 850,000 Norwegians, 300,000 Danes, and 50,000 Icelanders migrated to the United States.
They were joined by 650,000 Finns, close neighbors of the Norsemen but a distinct ethnic and cultural group, and 30,000 Sami.
In particular, the U.S. recruited 100 Sami to introduce reindeer herding to Alaska and help make the harsh region more habitable.
However, when the Reindeer Act of 1937 forbade non-natives from owning reindeer, many Sami left.
Some Norsemen migrated looking for freedom of religious expression, much like the pilgrims, but most were driven by economic factors.
In the 19th century, the populations of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden collectively tripled, placing significant pressure on local communities and resources.
This was caused by improved medical and agricultural practices, and the relative peace that followed the Napoleonic Wars.
But as farms were subdivided among an increasing number of children, due to improved infant mortality rates, it became difficult to survive, especially in rural areas. Some moved to urban areas, leading to high unemployment, recession, and famine in the 1860s.
Swedish Arrivals
Swedish arrivals began in the 1860s, mostly families making their way to the Midwest looking for farmland. They were followed by unmarried men looking for financial opportunities.
As new arrivals joined familiar Swedish communities that literally spoke their language, distinct Swedish communities emerged, as well as broader Scandinavian communities, as their languages are mutually intelligible.
The Vasa Order of America was established in 1896 to help Swedes with limited resources migrate to America.
They usually came through New York and then settled in the Midwest.
In 1900, Chicago was the city with the second-highest number of Swedes after Stockholm, back in Sweden.
Swedes were also highly present in New York, with Swedish mariners there overseeing the import of Swedish iron. In fact, the name Bronx is named for settler Jonas Bronck.
A group of 51 Swedish settlers established another New Sweden, this time in Maine, which later expanded into several settlements named after cities back home, including Stockholm, Jemtland, and Westmanland.
Norwegian Arrivals
The major organized immigration of Norwegians began in 1825 when sis families left Stavanger on a sloop called the Restauration, often called the Norse Mayflower, on a 14-week journey.
They created the Kendell settlement in New York that attracted further immigrants.
They were called Sloopers and created a gateway for Norwegian migrants to move into Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakotas.
Between 1825 and 1825, 800,000 Norwegians immigrated, which was about one third of Norway’s population.
Except for Ireland, no single country contributed a larger percentage of the US population than Norway.
Danish Arrivals
Danish arrivals are notable because many were recent conversions to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) and made the move because they faced religious persecution back in Denmark.
Arriving in 1847, they settled in what would become Utah, making a major contribution to the Mormon community there.
An estimated 17,000 Danish Mormons came to the United States between 1849 and 1904.
Becoming Scandinavian Americans
Until around 1900, there was relatively little integration between new arrivals from Scandinavia and the wider American population, so much so that they were often called “visitors” by more established Americans.
They set up their own churches and schools and had their own newspapers, all written in their native Scandinavian languages, which were widely spoken.
Things began to change around 1900 when American-born Scandinavians came of age and assumed positions of power in their communities.
The children of farmers, this new generation was mostly white-collar professionals with a better grasp of the English language.
Nevertheless, they still celebrated and even idealized their Scandinavian roots, giving rise to many of the Nordic societies common in the U.S. today.
There were dedicated publications such as Valkyrian in New York and Hemlandet (Homeland) in Chicago that celebrated Scandinavian culture.
Proper integration only really began after World War I, when the United States enjoyed a nationalist era that celebrated distinctly American culture and was suspicious of outsiders.
This is when many immigrants from all cultures started to speak English in their churches and schools and even Anglicized their names to better integrate into the American community.
