Charismatic and courageous, he had spent the last several months leading a growing group of rebels in a bloody battle against William Most Americans are familiar with France, Spain, Holland and England’s colonial history in the United States, but lesser-known is New Sweden, a Swedish holding that once spanned parts of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Berkeley refused, so Bacon raided and killed them on his own. Firsthand accounts describe desperate people eating pets and shoe leather.