colony · Scandinavia and the Baltic
Saint Barthélemy (Swedish)
Origins
In 1784 King Gustav III obtained Saint Barthélemy from France in exchange for French trading rights at Gothenburg. The Swedes renamed the main harbour, Le Carénage, as Gustavia, after the king, and in 1785 declared it a free port.
Rule and society
A Swedish governor ran the colony, at first with the Swedish West India Company. During the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, neutral Gustavia thrived as an entrepôt for goods, including enslaved people, and its population rose to several thousand. The island had little farmland and depended on trade. Slavery was abolished in 1847.
Decline and legacy
After peace returned, trade declined, and hurricanes and fires damaged Gustavia. Sweden sold the island back to France by a treaty of 1877, after the inhabitants voted almost unanimously for the transfer, and it passed to France in 1878. Gustavia keeps its Swedish name and some Swedish buildings.
Lineage
On the connections map
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- Saint Barthélemy (Swedish) was a colony of Kingdom of Sweden1784 CE – 1878 CE
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Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Saint Barthélemy (Swedish). In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/saint-barthelemy-swedish
- MLA
- “Saint Barthélemy (Swedish).” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/saint-barthelemy-swedish. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Saint Barthélemy (Swedish).” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/saint-barthelemy-swedish.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Saint Barthélemy (Swedish)’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/saint-barthelemy-swedish (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻