This essay discusses the Nordic region Bohuslän the decade after it became "Swedish" in 1658, during what I call the region's "transition period". The wide cause of the study is to show how the traditional understanding of this state shift (and of state shifts in general) need to be problemized and understood in the light of the state conditions of Early Modern Europe. By examine court protocols from the local-court of Orust and Tjörn (one of five local courts in contemporary Bohuslän) and the local noble's writings to the Swedish parliament, a tricky mixture of references to different territories gets observed and analyzed.To approach the difficult identity problems, I have assistance in Peter Sahlins' conclusions from his study of the French-Spanish borderland during the same period. Especially helpful are his identity schemes by which he (inspired by the Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth) supposes that each identity originates from a counter-identity. This study ends up in an attempt to reconstruct the landscape of identities and counter-identities found in the sources, according to professor Sahlins' schemes.

The estate of Rydboholm is situated in the municipality of Österåker, north of Stockholm, Sweden, and has a long history dating back to the 14th century. Rydboholm was the home of several families of great national importance, such as the Finsta and Vasa clans. However, since the 1500s, the noble family Brahe was the most influential; leaving its mark on the castle and surroundings. The gardens of Rydboholm consist of two parts; The first is from the baroque era, dating back to the 1660s, and the second is an immense landscape park completed around the year 1800 by Magnus Fredrik Brahe. During his travels through Europe, Magnus Fredrik Brahe was influenced by the new English-style gardens and he brought a large collection of literature on the subject back to Sweden, still kept in the library of Rydboholm.