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Swedish Caribbean Colonialism
Swedish

About SweCarCol

The scientific background behind Swedish Caribbean Colonialism (SweCarCol) stems from the difficulties inherent in researching the Swedish ownership (1784–1878) of the Caribbean island of St. Barthélemy. When Sweden ceded the colony back to France in 1878, the Swedish administration's archive remained on the island (learn more about the history of the archive here). The Swedish archive, Fonds suédois de Saint Barthélemy (FSB) is currently housed in the French national archive's colonial branch, Archives nationales d'outre-mer (ANOM) in Aix-en-Provence. It was - and remains - closed to research because of the archive's often poor condition.

Since access to the archive was necessary for research on the Swedish period, the project manager of SweCarCol launched a pilot project with ANOM aimed at digitizing parts of the archive in 2012. Because the FSB was sealed from research, it became apparent that the digitization of the complete holdings was the only way to access the archive. The Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation funded the digitization, which was completed in 2017.

Two PhD students participated in the project and used the digitized FSB to write their dissertations, Pålsson 2016 and Wilson 2016. The initial idea to digitize the FSB included public access, but funding was missing. The Swedish governmental research proposition in 2016 referenced the need to further "data-driven research, especially within the humanities and the social sciences" (Prop. 2016/17:50, p. 95). The Swedish Research Council announced a funding call for digitization and public access to cultural heritage collections. The SweCarCol project group and several other projects were awarded a grant via the DIGARV research program. The assessment of the application by the reference group is available here.

Metadata and database

The digitised archival material is stored at Uppsala University Library's Alvin repository. The main entry for the project on Alvin links to the respective archives. The archive volumes have been gone through page by page and information about the content documented in the form of metadata. This metadata is documented in a database used by the website's search engine to present search results. The database contains a number of fields that provide information on the date, origin, content of the document, etc. Each document has also been categorised to make it possible to find documents containing similar types of information. More information on the functioning of the search engine and metadata categories can be found under Search help in the menu.
The database fields and categories are specified in a separate document. The database file itself (in two different formats) that provides access to all metadata created during the project is archived in Alvin. This ensures that the metadata created in the project will be available, for example, in case the search engine suffers technical problems.

Acknowledgments

The SweCarCol project would not have been possible without the support of many institutions and persons, and only a few of them can be listed here. Our sincere thanks go to the funders of SweCarCol: The Swedish Research Council, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. The assistance of the archival institutions, libraries, and other holders of documents was instrumental, among those Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Riksarkivet (The Swedish National Archives) and Collectivité de Saint-Barthélemy. At Uppsala University, cooperation with the University Library and IT department was essential. We have also received support from a wide range of colleagues, both in Sweden and abroad. The support from interested parties at Saint Barthélemy has been a great encouragement and has given us important insights. A complete list of names would become very long, here we only name some of our most important collaborators: Kent-Inge Andersson, Martine Cornede, Jacques Dion, Jean-Yves Dissais, Pauline Dissais, Marcus Hjortzén, Arlette Magras, Elise Magras, Benoît van Reeth, Daniel Wadskog, Malin Wallin Nygårds.

Project group publications

Ale Pålsson, postdoc researcher

  • ‘The Nightmare Island: Representations of Saint Barthélemy in Swedish Novels”, Scandinavian Studies, vol. 95, no. 1 (2023): 56–84. Fulltext pdf.
  • 'Diversity and division: Digital mapping of censuses in the Swedish Caribbean, 1835–1872’, Atlantic Studies 20, no. 1 (2023): 109–133. Fulltext pdf.
  • Ale Pålsson, ‘Lingonröd sol: Sexualitet, alienation och svenskhet i svenska kolonialromaner’, Historisk Tidskrift (2020): 498–528. Fulltext pdf.
  • Talking past the Atlantic: Political culture in St Barthélémy, 1800–1825’, Revue d’Histoire Nordique, no. 21 (2017): 111–130.
  • ’Smugglers before the Swedish throne: Political activity of free people of colour in early nineteenth-century St Barthélemy’, Atlantic Studies, Global Currents, 14, no. 3 (2017): 318-335.
  • ‘Our Side of the Water: Political Culture in the Swedish colony of St Barthélemy 1800–1825’, (Stockholms universitet, dissertation: 2016). Fulltext pdf.
  • ’Common ground – Neutrality and Political Culture in St. Barthélemy 1800-1820’, in Neutrals and Neutrality in the Atlantic world in the 18th century (1700-1820) A global approach, ed. Eric Schnakenbourg, 349–375. Éditions Les Perséides: Bécherel, 2015.

Fredrik Thomasson, PI

  • Svarta S:t Barthélemy: människoöden i en svensk koloni 1785-1847. Stockholm: Natur & kultur, 2022.
  • ‘Black Healers, Surgeons and ‘Witches’: Medicine, Mobility and Knowledge Exchange in Swedish St Barthélemy 1785–1815’, Social history of medicine (2022): 49–71. Fulltext pdf.
  • ‘The Caribbean Scorpion: The Saint Barthélemy Archive and Swedish Colonial Amnesia,’ Small Axe, no. 62 (2020): 53–66.
  • ‘Knowledge, Silence and Denial: the late 18th century debate on Slavery and Colonialism in Sweden’, i: The Moment is Now: Carl Bernhard Wadström’s revolutionary voice on human trafficking and the abolition of the African slave trade, red. Anders Hallengren, 31–45. (West Chester: Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2019). Fulltext pdf.
  • 'Moors in the Caribbean, Sámi in the Seraglio: Swedish Theatre and Slavery Around 1800', Modern Languages Open 1, nr. 1 (2020): 1–19. Fulltext pdf.
  • ‘Tryckort Gustavia – nya svenska karibiska tidningar och slaveri 1804–1828’, Biblis (2018): 2–25. Fulltext pdf.
  • “Gustavia Free Press? Print, Censorship and Handwritten Papers in the Swedish Colony Saint Barthélemy.” In Handwritten Newspapers: An Alternative Medium during the Early Modern and Modern Periods. Eds. Heiko Droste & Kirsti Salmi-Niklander (Helsinki: Studia Fennica Historica 26, 2019): 60–77. Fulltext pdf.
  • ‘Sweden and Haiti, 1791–1825: Revolutionary Reporting, Trade, and the Fall of Henry Christophe’, Journal of Haitian Studies 24, no. 2 (2018): 4–35. Fulltext pdf.
  • ‘Den karibiska skorpionen. Om digitaliseringen av det svenska Saint Barthélemyarkivet i Aix-en-Provence’, Historisk Tidskrift (2018): 78–90. Fulltext pdf.
  • ‘32 piskrapp vid quatre piquets. Svensk rättvisa och slavlagar på Saint Barthélemy’, Historielärarnas förenings årsskrift (2013): 7–29. Fulltext pdf.

Victor Wilson, postdoc researcher

  • ‘Enclaves of Exception: Reaping the Advantages of Colonialism through Free Trade in the Scandinavian Caribbean, 1672–1815’, Global Intellectual History (CS, 2024).
  • ‘The Swedish Slave Trade Efforts at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century: Case Studies in Nordic Transimperial History’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 51, nr. 3 (2023): 555–575. Fulltext pdf.
  • ’Saint-Barthélemy a la systeme colonial français, 1793–1801’, In Entre exclusif et contrebande: les navigations commerciales aux Antilles (1600–1830). Eds. Boris Lesueur & Jean-Sébastien Guibert, 95–112. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2022. Fulltext pdf.
  • ‘Contraband Trade under Swedish Colors: St. Barthélemy’s Moment in the Sun, 1793–1815’, Itinerario 43, no. 2 (2019): 327–347. Fulltext pdf.
  • ‘Gustavia, Saint-Barthélemy, 1793–1815. Pohjoismainen vapaasatama Karibianmeressä.’ In Pohjola, Atlantti, Maailma. Vuorovaikutuksen historiaa. Eds. Kalle Kananoja & Lauri Tähtinen. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden Seura, 2018. Fulltext pdf.
  • ‘La Suède, la libre-échange suédois et l’empire informel dans les Caraïbes, 1812–1814’, Revue d’histoire nordique / Nord Historical Review (2018): 35–58.
  • ‘Commerce in disguise : war and trade in the Caribbean free port of Gustavia, 1793–1815’, (Åbo Akademi: doktorsavhandling, 2016). Fulltext pdf.
  • (med Han Jordaan) ’The Eighteenth-Century Dutch, Danish, and Swedish Free Ports in the Northeastern Caribbean: Continuity and Change’. In Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680–1800: Linking Empires, Bridging Borders. Eds. Gert Oostindie & Jessica V. Roitman, 275–308. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Fulltext pdf.