1 Ounce 350th anniversary of Latvians in America

This piece marks the 350th anniversary of the first documented Latvian settlement in North America — the short-lived Tobago and Delaware colonies established in the 1630s and 1640s under the Duchy of Courland, a semi-autonomous vassal state within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Duke Jacob Kettler's colonial ambitions were genuine enough that Courlandish settlers reached the mouth of the Irbe River in present-day Delaware in 1638, predating many better-remembered European colonial ventures.

Issued in 1989, when Latvia was still a Soviet republic, the coin carries an unmistakable political edge — affirming a continuous Latvian national identity and diaspora history at a moment when independence was still two years away.