Once, some years earlier when Printz was a young officer in the Army of Sweden, he had been dismissed from the service for surrendering his post without authority. When he left America under similar conditions, it is said that he took the precaution of getting a letter of recommendation from Peter Stuyvesant to the Dutch West India Company, just as insurance.
The year after Printz sailed away reinforcements did at long last arrive in New Sweden, and with them came a new and impetuous governor named Johan Rising. Finding Fort Casimir in the embarrassing position of being without gunpowder and greatly underestimating the general situation of the Dutch in New Netherland, Rising made the mistake of reducing the fort to Swedish rule and pledging the loyalty of some of the Dutchmen there.
Infuriated, the Directors of the Dutch West India Company sent a fleet of ships and two hundred veteran soldiers across the sea to their governor at New Amsterdam. They ordered him to gather all possible additional forces before the Swedes could be reinforced and “exert every nerve to avenge that injury, not only by restoring affairs to their former situation, but by driving the Swedes from every side of the river.” Stuyvesant responded with alacrity. In September of 1655 he was under sail for the South River with a fleet of seven armed ships, land artillery for besieging batteries, and several hundred soldiers.
Captain Sven Skute who was the commandant at Fort Casimir, now called Fort Trinity by the Swedes, had greatly strengthened the fortifications there in anticipation of the attack. Shot and powder were stored in good supply, as were all other necessities for defense. Skute had written orders from the Council at Fort Christina not to let the enemy pass.
But, when the Dutch flotilla sailed up the river and anchored above the fort, Sven Skute didn’t fire a shot. Stuyvesant was permitted to mount his batteries ashore without interference. After the Swedish stronghold had been completely surrounded and cut off, Skute sent out word that his men were going to defend the position. Governor Stuyvesant replied that if a single Hollander became a casualty there would be no quarter for any Swede in the fort. Whereupon Captain Skute capitulated under terms that permitted him to walk out with his “personal property.” His men had mutinied, it appears.
Leaving Captain Dirck Smith in command of the fort, now renamed Fort Amstel, the Dutch moved on to the Christina. There Stuyvesant repeated his maneuver, investing the fort and the entire Swedish settlement. While he and Rising parleyed, Dutch soldiers pillaged the countryside as far north as Tinicum Island, where Johan Printz’s ambitious daughter, married to a pliable husband, now held forth at Printz Hall in the style of her father. The Hollanders killed livestock, plundered houses and left the women “stripped naked” in their beds, or so it was said.
Governor Rising’s situation was hopeless. He had only a small supply of ammunition, most of it having been sent to Fort Trinity. He was faced not only with the Dutch guns pointing at his fort but with increasing desertions to the enemy. Stuyvesant was demanding complete evacuation of the position or the oath of loyalty to Holland from all Swedish subjects.
In the end the Swedish governor could only agree to surrender, with transportation guaranteed for those who did not wish to remain as Dutch subjects. The governor himself did not fare too badly. It appears that his private property, like that of Captain Skute, was respected under the terms of the capitulation and that it was promised he would be landed in “England or France.”
New Sweden was no more. No longer did the Dutch at New Amsterdam have to worry about Swedish competition on their South River, much less the envelopment of Fort Orange in the north by Swedish penetration of the hinterland.
What the Dutch had to worry about now, other than the Indians in the vicinity of Manhattan who were getting a bit out of hand, were Englishmen—especially the New England traders pressing them in the north. And that was becoming quite a worry!