Samuel Blommaert

Samuel Blommaert was a Dutch merchant and director of the Dutch West India Company and one of the chief investors of the New Sweden Company which led Swedish colonizing expeditions in the New World.

Born in Antwerp into a wealthy merchant family, Samuel was apprenticed in Stade, The Hague, and Vienna. As a member of the Dutch East India Company, he visited the Dutch East Indies before he turned to opportunities of the New World.

Since he had a long experience in overseas trade he became a leading director of the Dutch West India Company, and held that post from 1622 to 1629 and again from 1636 to 1642. He was also an investor of the Swedish West India Company which was founded with the aim to develop trade and colonies on the North American coast, from Florida to Newfoundland. Between 1637 and 1655 the company sponsored a total of eleven expeditions to the Delaware. However, after two expedition proved to be unprofitable for him, he decided to withdraw.

Blommaert also held business investments in the copper industry and trade, particularly in Swedish brass works acting as a major marketer of Swedish grain and copper.

His thirty-eight letters written in a period from 1635-1641 and addressed to Axel Oxenstierna, the Sweden’s chancellor, serve as an important source for the history of New Sweden.