Johan Classon Risingh (1617 in Risinge – 1672) was the last governor of the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

New Sweden New Sweden ( sv, Nya Sverige) was a Swedish colony along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now the United States from 1638 to 1655, established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a great military power. New Sweden form ...

Biography

Risingh was born in 1617 in Risinge,

Östergötland Östergötland (; English exonym: East Gothland) is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland and the Baltic Sea. In older English li ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. After gymnasium at

Linköping Linköping () is a city in southern Sweden, with around 105,000 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Church ...

, he attended the

University of Uppsala Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

and

University of Leyden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

. From 1651 to 1653, he held the office of secretary of the Commercial College of Sweden. He wrote the first treatise on trade and economics ever compiled in Sweden in the autumn of 1653. Receiving knighthood, he set out from Sweden early in 1654, to take up his duties in New Sweden. His first act was to cause the seizure of the Dutch

Fort Casimir Fort Casimir or Fort Trinity was a Dutch fort in the seventeenth-century colony of New Netherland. It was located on a no-longer existing barrier island at the end of Chestnut Street in what is now New Castle, Delaware. Background The Dutch c ...

, which the

Director-General of New Netherland This is a list of Directors, appointed by the Dutch West India Company, of the 17th century Dutch province of New Netherland (''Nieuw-Nederland'' in Dutch) in North America. Only the last, Peter Stuyvesant, held the title of Director General. As t ...

Peter Stuyvesant Peter Stuyvesant (; in Dutch also ''Pieter'' and ''Petrus'' Stuyvesant, ; 1610 – August 1672)Mooney, James E. "Stuyvesant, Peter" in p.1256 was a Dutch colonial officer who served as the last Dutch director-general of the colony of New Net ...

, had erected just below

Fort Christina Fort Christina (also called Fort Altena) was the first Swedish settlement in North America and the principal settlement of the New Sweden colony. Built in 1638 and named after Queen Christina of Sweden, it was located approximately 1 mi (1.6 ...

(near

New Castle, Delaware New Castle is a city in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. The city is located six miles (10 km) south of Wilmington and is situated on the Delaware River. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 5,285. History New Castl ...

) in 1651. Stuyvesant subsequently responded by leading an expedition to New Sweden and brought the colony under control of his government. After the surrender, Risingh and the other officials, soldiers, and such colonists as were unwilling to become Dutch subjects, were taken back to Europe. Risingh died in poverty at Stockholm in 1672. Risingh's reports for the period 1654 to 1655, constituting a valuable history of New Sweden under his administration. A contemporary manuscript copy of this report in Swedish is in the

National Library of Sweden The National Library of Sweden ( sv, Kungliga biblioteket, ''KB'', meaning "the Royal Library") is Sweden's national library. It collects and preserves all domestic printed and audio-visual materials in Swedish, as well as content with Swedish ...

. This report was printed in 1878, in the appendix of Carl K. S. Sprinchorn's ''Kolonien Nya Sveriges Historia '' (in English: History of the Colony of New Sweden). A translation of Sprinchorn's text was made by Amandus Johnson. Risingh is an amusing character in Washington Irving's "Knickerbocker's History of New York." Irving gives a tongue-in-cheek report of the battle for Fort Casimir.Irving, Washington: Knickerbocker's History of New York, Ed. Anne Carroll Moore, NewYork:Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1959. Originally published 1809.

References

Other sources

* Johnson, Amandus. ''Johan Classon Rising: The Last Governor of New Sweden'' (Philadelphia: The Swedish Colonial Society, 1915) * Johnson, Amandus. ''The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware 1638-1664, Volume II'' (Philadelphia: The Swedish Colonial Society, 1927) *Ward, Christopher. ''Dutch and Swedes on the Delaware, 1609 - 1664'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930) * Griffis, William Elliot. ''The Story of New Netherland. The Dutch In America '' (Boston And New York. Houghton Mifflin Company. The Riverside Press Cambridge. 1909)

External links

Report of Governor Johan Risingh, 1654 (his name has in the modernised English translation been changed to Rising)
1617 births 1672 deaths People from Finspång Municipality Governors of New Sweden People of New Netherland People of New Sweden People of colonial Delaware {{Sweden-bio-stub