Episode #238
238. Living on the Edge: New England, New Netherland, and New Sweden
In the 1600s, Connecticut settlers had to contend with a multitude of threats to their survival, both as individuals and as a colony. Those threats weren't just internal — poor harvests, disease, religious strife — but external, too. The colonists were caught up in a complicated web of international diplomacy, vulnerable to the ambitions of imperial powers like the Spanish, the Dutch, the English, and....the Swedes? In this episode, Natalie Belanger chats with Elizabeth Hines, Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida. Dr. Hines is working on a book about Anglo-Dutch relations in the 17th century. In 2025, she did research at the Connecticut Museum to better understand the context of the Treaty of Hartford of 1650, in which Dutch and English colonists negotiated territorial boundaries between their North American colonies. Hines argues that the treaty became a tool for the Dutch in their goal of swallowing up the Swedish colony on the Delaware River. Though successful in the short term, the Dutch would soon lose all their land in North America to the English. Her work shows that we need to study the Dutch, English, and Swedish empires together to understand early American history. Thanks to Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History for bringing us this unusual story! -------------------------------------------- Don't forget to subscribe to Connecticut Explored magazine today - in your mailbox or your inbox! And please set up your monthly donation to Grating the Nutmeg at ctexplored.org so we can continue bring you the stories you want to hear! This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Natalie Belanger and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com/ Follow Grating the Nutmeg on Facebook and Instagram. Follow executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at West Hartford Town Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!
