I know that the small colony was lost by the Swedes to the Dutch, who then absorbed it into their own, and then of course the Dutch colony was lost and absorbed by the English/British into their own, but what happened to the small population of Finns and Swedes who initially stayed across the pond? Did they become fully absorbed into the Dutch population of early America?
Well, the first assimilation was of the Finnish-speakers into the Swedish-speakers, at least language-wise. Swedish became the sole language of the colony. Most of the immigrants were Finnish in one way or another, but many were bilingual, as many of the Finnish speakers were 'Forest Finns' who'd previously been settled in Värmland in Sweden, where they practiced their traditional slash-and-burn or 'burn-beat' agriculture (classic Finnish painting), only to later be evicted once the government realized they needed the forest to produce charcoal for the mining and metal industry in the area. So many of the Finns were from Sweden proper, while at the same time, many of the Swedish-speaking immigrants came from Finland, from the Swedish-speaking area around Vasa and Korsholm, where Johan Printz was living when he was tasked to recruit colonists and become the first governor. (Indeed two settlements were named for the area; New Korsholm and New Vasa)
To add to the confusion, a lot of present-day writing in English lump them together as 'Finns', while 'Swede' and 'Finn' in Swedish sources of the time referred mainly to which language they spoke. (Neither of which is very satisfactory; a Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnian had a lifestyle more similar to the people in the neighboring Finnish-speaking village than the latter had with slash-and-burn Forest Finns)
The one book written contemporary with the actual colony, but published after it, is this one by the priest Thomas Campanius Holm: "Short Description of the Province of New Sweden in America, which now is called Pennsylvania by the English".
An interesting fact about Holm's writing is that there are a lot of Dutch-isms in his description of waterways; he uses the words rivier , baai and kil (creek) rather than Swedish terms. The period of Dutch rule was quite short though, the same source has some letters from after the Dutch period, from the late 1690s to Sweden requesting Swedish bibles, psalters, catechisms, ABC-books and priests. In the Swedish Lutheran tradition of the time, people were supposed to be able to know and read the catechism and parts of the Bible, and were in fact tested on this knowledge annually. The situation in that regard is described as very poor at that point (letter from Erik Biörk, 1697, p99), although 1,200 settlers are still described (perhaps optimistically) as speaking Swedish as well as any native.
There'd never been that many settlers to begin with; some hundreds, and they were a minority in the area for certain, albeit a significant one. Sweden did for a time continue to send bibles and priests to maintain the Lutheran faith. One was Israel Acrelius, who wrote an account published in 1759, which is one of the main sources for the later situation.
The situation Acrelius descrbes (p416 in particular) in the mid 18th century is essentially that the assimilation into the larger English population is in full swing. Only older people are described as not knowing or refusing to use English. Bilingualism and intermarriage are all around, with that some are converting to Presbyterianism, some apostates are even becoming Quakers! Sermons are being held in English now, and to an increasing extent. A few decades later there were so few using Swedish as a first language, they'd stop completely.
But it was not religious freedom that had caused settlers to move there, nor which compelled them to remain. The majority did remain, mostly peasants and also there the Finns to a higher degree. The reason was that it was simply a far better place to live, materially.
For instance, a letter from 1693 (p85):
"This country is a mighty wealthy fruitful land, for all types of grain, such that God be praised, it produces richly and profusely of what we sow and plant."
To quote the visiting Erik Biörk's 1697 letter again, his description could scarcely be more positive:
The land is otherwise as wealthy as it has ever been described, with all sorts of blessings in abundance, from which the people live well in overabundance, without toil and drudgery. They also know of few taxes. They call themselves peasants since they work thusly just as in Sweden, but own clothes and such as the most noble of Burghers. Fresh [meat] they have from the water as from the forest, knowing of no lack of any thing from the other country around here. Those from here [Sweden] who most need grain for bread and drink, God let them live in this manner and have the same blessing. They know of no poor here among themselves. Everyone provides for themselves, for the country stands entirely open and in the service of those who have the ability to farm it.
See, Forest-Finns in particular had already been living in deep wilderness, and in America many of them simply continued the same practices of slash-and-burn agriculture deep in the forest. Just in a much more fertile country with a milder climate. Their traditional Fennoscandian timbered houses (aka 'log cabins') remained the natural and better choice in that landscape where forests were deep but sawmills and nails rare, which is why it was soon adopted by other settlers too.
It's an interesting perspective since it's a polar opposite to the dominant one, namely the experiences of the British who came from a much more urban (and perhaps more urbane too) environment.
Additional source:
Carol E. Hoffecker (ed), New Sweden in America
Translations are my own.
This is really a side note so apologies for its short length...
There are some sources which describe the Swedes (term including the Finns in this text and context) of the New Sweden as having lifestyles and experiences (like slash-and-burn) fairly similar with those of the natives of that area. And also describe there being considerable amount of mixing between the Swedish colonists and natives, the relations were reportedly better than elsewhere likely because the cultural divide wasn't quite as massive as with more urban colonists. According to some sources this caused at some point consternation among other Europeans who saw Swedes as being 'half Indians' and how Swedes and Indians were like one people while the Delaware Indians reportedly saw them as roughly akin to a 'fellow tribesmen'.
