Sund

History

Sund was not populated by humans until the Bronze Age, however a permanent settlement was only first established in the 5th century by the Swedes. It is suspected that there may have been a partial Finnish settlement due to the existence of a village called Finby. The Sund church was built by the end of the 13th century and the Kastelholm Castle was also built at the end of the 14th century on a small island and it became the administrative centre of the Åland region until losing importance in 1634 and later on in 1745 following country reforms and fire damage. King John III of Sweden kept his deposed brother Eric XIV in captivity in the Kastelholm castle in Autumn 1571. Sund is estimated to have had around 900 inhabitants in 1571 in accordance to the Silver Tax List of that same year. Following the Russian victory in the Finnish War of 1808-1809, the Russians began to build the Bomarsund Fortress in Sund in 1832 in accordance with the orders of Tsar Nicholas I to strengthen the western border, however when the Crimean War began the Fortress was only half-finished, the Bommarsund Fortress surrendered to British forces, who demolished it. In the Treaty of Paris, it was concluded that the Åland islands is not to be fortified. Håkan Skogsjö has documented the permanently residing population of Sund from the 17th century to the present, covering the history of the municipality as a whole, its individual hamlets, down to each original farmstead and the families who lived there.