1662: A shipwrecked Turk in Dutch Pennsylvania

ExecutedToday.com ^ | October 19, 2017 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

Well known as is the Dutch heritage of New York City — the former New Amsterdam — fewer realize that the Low Countries’ writ in the New World for a brief time ran far down what is today styled the Mid-Atlantic coast, all the way to the lower Delaware River separating present-day New Jersey and Pennsylvania. “New Netherland” had swiped it just a few years before the events in this post from “New Sweden”.

Before it all went over to the Anglosphere the aspirant imperial rival got a few executions in on these distant shores — as we see in this narrative sited in what is now Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It comes to us from the Proceedings of the Delaware County Historical Society, Volume 1, January 1902 via this Delaware County History blog:

UNDER HOLLAND’S RULE – When the next important criminal trial, which has been presented to us in official documents, presents itself, the flag of Sweden had been supplanted by the standard of their High Mightiness of Holland and while the case did not in its incidents come within the present commonwealth of Pennsylvania, yet the criminal proceedings were held within the territory which was subsequently known as Pena’s three lower counties.

In 1661 Alexander D’Hinojassa was acting governor of that portion of the present state of Delaware extending from the southern bank of the Cristiana River to Cape Henlopen, he asserting that the City of Amsterdam, by reason of its purchase from the Dutch West Indies Company, had acquired absolute jurisdiction over the territory before designated, hence he stoutly refused to recognize the authority of Governor Stuyvesant in anywise within those boundaries. D’Hinojassa was a rash, impetuous, headstrong man and in would brook no interference on the part of any one with his prerogatives...

[Rummyfan]

“New Netherland” had swiped it just a few years before the events in this post from “New Sweden”.

Which I suppose is why there is a Swedesboro in southern New Jersey, as well as a suburb of Wilmington named Christiana.

[Red Badger]

They hanged a man innocent of any ‘capital crime’, and used a kangaroo court to do so.......................

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“New Netherland” had swiped it just a few years before the events in this post from “New Sweden”.

I lived with my folks in Chester County, PA while I was in college. I often drove Swedesford Road to my summer job in Paoli and wondered who the "Swede" was for whom the road was named.

I never new about the Dutch and Swedes occupying the area.

[xxqqzz]

This was actually in what is now Delaware. Roughly what is now the Philadelphia metropolitan area, including parts of Delaware and New Jersey were Swedish. The area became Dutch and then English. There are 6 former Church of Sweden Lutheran churches in those 3 states. All of them have been Episcopal churches since colonial times.

Interesting that the shipwrecked sailors were sold by the Indians as slaves. Under English law, Christians could not be enslaved.

Apparently, he tried to escape and assaulted his captors. They had a wider definition of capital crimes than today.

[Verginius Rufus]

There was a short-lived Dutch settlement on what is now the Atlantic coast of Delaware. Because of that, when the charter to create Maryland was written, the area which is now Delaware was excluded from the colony of Maryland. So those long-dead Dutch colonists share the blame for Joe Biden being able to have a rotten borough to be senator from for decades.

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 10/19/2021, thanks CheshireTheCat.