Editing Tinicum Island (section)

== Printz's Departure and Later Years ==

Governor Printz departed New Sweden in 1653, frustrated by the Swedish government's failure to provide adequate support for the colony and worn down by a decade of struggle on the frontier. He returned to Sweden, where he lived out his days on an estate granted by the crown. His successor, Johan Rising, inherited a colony in precarious condition, with Dutch pressure increasing and resources dwindling. Rising attempted to strengthen the Swedish position by seizing Fort Casimir, a Dutch post on the Delaware, but this provocation brought swift retaliation. In 1655, Peter Stuyvesant arrived with a Dutch fleet and conquered the entire colony in a virtually bloodless campaign.<ref name="gehring">{{cite book |last=Gehring |first=Charles T. |title=New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch |year=1977 |publisher=Genealogical Publishing |location=Baltimore}}</ref>

After the Dutch conquest, Tinicum ceased to function as a colonial capital but remained inhabited by Swedish settlers who chose to stay under Dutch rule. The Dutch renamed the colony New Amstel and administered it as part of New Netherland, but they made no effort to displace the existing Swedish and Finnish population. When the English seized all Dutch North American colonies in 1664, the Tinicum settlers found themselves under yet another European power, eventually becoming subjects of William Penn when he established Pennsylvania in 1681. By this time, the original colonial structures had deteriorated, and the site's significance lay in memory rather than physical remains.<ref name="johnson"/>