Re: CHAT: US ancestry [was Re: FWD [OT but interesting] Arctic

>From: "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>
>
>Quoting Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...>:
>
> > > Date:         Sun, 18 Aug 2002 23:46:25 -0400
> > > From: John Cowan <jcowan@...>
> > >
> > > There probably aren't enough people who list themselves as both
> > > African-American and of Danish ancestry (say) to show up as even
> > > a blip.  Both are a matter of self-labeling.
> >
> > Remember that the US Virgin Islands used to be Danish, and had a
> > significant slave population. They were run as a colony by expat Danes
> > for about seventy years after emancipation, as well. So there's bound
> > to be a number of families with both African and Danish descent.
> >
> > Now, if you'd said Swedish there...
>
>Well, for a while the Swedes did colonize most of what is now
>Delaware, and Delaware has always had a large African population.
>(During the Civil War, the only reason it didn't secede was
>that Lincoln militarily occupied it, and so it did its best
>to be generally obnoxious to the Union government.) But that was
>350 years ago, and, according to the US Census website, very few
>people remain in that state who claim Swedish ancestry, so you're
>probably right that if there are any such people, they would
>probably not be recognized as such on a Census form.
Since Sweden didn't have any excess population back in the 17th century,
quite few Swedes ended up in "Nya Sverige" (which was the colony's official
name) -  a few hundred IIRC. They've must been swamped fairly quickly by
other immigrants after the place passed out of Swedish control.

                                       Andreas

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