Editing Fort Christina (section)

== Dutch Conquest and Aftermath ==

In September 1655, Peter Stuyvesant arrived at Fort Christina with a Dutch fleet of seven ships and approximately 300 soldiers. The Swedish garrison, numbering perhaps thirty men, was hopelessly outmatched. Governor Johan Rising, who had succeeded Printz in 1654, attempted to negotiate but had no leverage. After a brief siege, the Swedes surrendered on September 15, 1655. Stuyvesant offered generous terms: Swedish colonists who wished to remain could keep their property and continue their lives under Dutch rule, while those who wished to leave were free to return to Sweden. Most chose to stay, beginning a period of Dutch administration that would last until 1664, when the English seized all Dutch territories in North America.<ref name="gehring">{{cite book |last=Gehring |first=Charles T. |title=New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch |year=1977 |publisher=Genealogical Publishing |location=Baltimore}}</ref>

The Dutch renamed the settlement Altena but maintained it as a minor post in their colonial network. When the English took control in 1664, the area around Fort Christina became part of the territories administered by the Duke of York and eventually developed into the city of Wilmington, Delaware. The original fort deteriorated and eventually disappeared, its wooden structures succumbing to decay and its site absorbed into later development. By the time William Penn arrived in 1682, the physical fort was gone, though Swedish descendants remained in the area and maintained their distinctive community for generations.<ref name="hoffecker"/>