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Abstract
After decades of different European powers colonizing and exploiting the Delaware Valley, the English controlled the area by 1665. Many of the old settlers from the former colony of New Sweden, collectively called the Swedes, desired independence from the English Empire, setting up a rebellion with the help of the Lenape. This rebellion was stopped by fellow Swedes, establishing English rule in the area which the Swedes and the Lenape adapted to. Close examination of underutilized seventeenth century records from Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, revealed that many of the Swedes in the various regions of the Delaware Valley adopted aspects of English Imperialism by the late 1670s while maintaining ties to the Lenape to further their prospects in an ever-changing landscape.