AHC: Swedish America!

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
Okay, the title is a bit sensationalistic, but the challenge is to make Swedish-speakers demographically and economically dominant in North America analogous to anglophones.

If you like insane speculation, also feel free to give your opinion on what such a society would be like.
 
One major problem is that Sweden has a much smaller population base for settlers compared to England. Even within the New Sweden colony, the Swedish settlers were supplemented with a large portion of Finns.
 
A second, massive outbreak of plague in the British Isles that kills 30-40% of England's population in three to five years during the reign of James I would slow England down demographically speaking but you still need something to help boost Sweden's available settler population.
 
A second, massive outbreak of plague in the British Isles that kills 30-40% of England's population in three to five years during the reign of James I would slow England down demographically speaking but you still need something to help boost Sweden's available settler population.

Perhaps a more diverse supplementary population including more Germans and Balts. That would give swedes more demographic weight from which could slowly assimilate into the general population. Kind of like what happened in the British Colonies with the Welsh, Scottish, German, and Irish settlers who whent with the Enlglish.
 
I'll give this a try, since one of my TLs cover a portion on Swedish-dominated North America. (Namely a recreated state of Vinland, but as a Swedish colony, not Norse) A Swedish dominated North America would see a ton of Scandinavian influence on the country's national culture, plus not to mention you may get some friendly interaction with the natives in the area. Though I doubt the Swedes could pull off the same level of colonization as the OTL British, but at least they can colonize North America in the same way as the French did. (Coureur de Bois pioneers intermarrying with Native women)

The Swedish Vinland colony that I had for my TL was populated not only by Swedes alone, but by Norwegians, Germans (mainly Protestant refugees fleeing from the Holy Roman Empire that resulted in a Catholic victory in the alternate 30YW, as well as Germans from Brandenburg and Prussia), Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Icelandics and Danes. Though Swedish was the lingua franca of Swedish Vinland, it also recognized several languages like German, Danish and even Icelandic.

Industrial wise, Swedish America (or Swedish Vinland) would have been a powerhouse compared to Old Scandinavia where the winter climate results in the Scandinavians focusing on agriculture in the summer and industry in the winter for obvious reasons. Swedish America/Vinland will have the luxury of not experiencing Scandinavian style winters (unless you live in the Extreme Far North, Iceland or even Greenland) but they can establish industries and focus on industrialization without having to take a break and focus on agriculture.

Cultural wise, Swedish may be the dominant language (or a special Creole version of Icelandic that incorporates a lot of native words, kinda like how OTL Michif was created) but German could also be used as a lingua franca in academica. Of course, to have Sweden even reach even greater status, you need to find a way to cripple England from even trying to become a naval power, and this is where preventing Elizabeth's reign from even occuring.
 
If Sweden had more of an empire in Germany and the Baltic could those larger populations be used by Sweden to colonize?
 
Thinking about this one a bit more you could pull it off with a couple of PODs in the mid 17th century without resorting to a deliberate Britscrew. If Gustav Adolph isn't killed at Lutzen and goes on to continue his campaign he could turn the Baltic into a Swedish lake with effective control over northern Germany. A stronger Sweden with more of a population base for taxation, industry, and agriculture would be able to maintain New Sweden giving the Swedes some claim in North America.

If you also butterfly Cromwell's conquest of Jamaica, that will weaken England's hold in the New World and help Spain hold on to naval dominance longer by reducing the range and capabilities of the sea dogs. This means a weaker navy which might lose more in the Anglo-Dutch Wars or possibly even lose the first one making the Royal Navy a weaker force. Couple this with a stronger Sweden and you have a situation where the Swedes could challenge England for and take control of the North Atlantic in a period when English immigration to the colonies was still a trickle. The numbers didn't really start to reach levels where later immigration couldn't displace it until the 1700s, if you have a colonial war between Sweden and England and Sweden wins that could give them New England, New York, and Pennsylvania and possibly also Hudson Bay and Newfoundland. That would give you a pretty good start.
 
Depending on how far back you go, it could be seen as a major issue that Sweden only had a itzy bitzy tiny strip of land out to Kattegat (North of the Sound), and otherwise had to pay their arch enemy Denmark for access through the sound or be bombarded with Cannons from the big coastal citadels in Elsinore and Helsingborg (slimmest part of the sound, only barely 4km (2.5mile for you anglophiles) wide, which were danish up to 1658.
 
Perhaps the Danish could exile a lot of rebellious Swedes to their new colony...

I agree that some kind of Britscrew is needed, or alternatively the opposite, some kind of long term alliance.
 
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