The Last Letter Home Read online

  Readers wishing to assess Moberg’s own personal sentiments on this issue should understand that he was indeed sympathetic to Native Americans. He had a great interest in the culture of American Indians and saw the loss of their lands as a calamity. In Moberg’s own words, the white Americans’ treatment of the Native Americans was “one of the most reprehensible deeds in world history.” According to his own later writings, he felt he had written this same message into the Emigrant Novels. He wrote in 1968: “In my novels I laid the blame for the Indian uprising principally on the white man’s hard and inhuman treatment of his red brother.” Earlier American novels of the frontier had pictured Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages, Moberg wrote. He argued that he himself had gone against that tradition by portraying them as peace loving.7

  Determining the true relationship between actual nineteenth-century Swedish immigrants and Ojibway and Dakota people in Minnesota is extremely difficult because there are so few accounts written on the topic from a Swedish perspective. One line of reasoning is that the two groups enjoyed good relations. In 1932, Andrew Porter of Chisago County reminisced that his Swedish parents traded food with Native Americans in the 1850s and remained on good terms with them even when wild and unfounded rumors about Indian atrocities spread throughout the area in the late summer of 1862. Porter commented: “These Indians were very friendly and they never did any harm to people or stock.”8 Likewise, Moberg himself talked with descendants of the first Swedish settlers around Chisago Lake. These people recalled their own parents’ tales of friendly contacts with Indians, who were “peaceful and nice, if they were left to live in peace.”9

  Other comments hint at less cordial contacts. In his work on the Indian leader Little Crow, historian Gary Clayton Anderson wrote: “Most newcomers were from Germany or Scandinavia and carried a cultural baggage into Minnesota that was of necessity thrifty, so they saw no reason to share resources with Indians.”10 There were instances of white settlers taking (and keeping for themselves) excessive amounts of fish and game in areas near Indian camps. This approach could have caused serious misunderstandings with the Dakota, who considered it “exceedingly uncivilized to hoard food.”11 During the Dakota War of 1862, furthermore, one of the more aggressive white citizen-soldier units guarding against Indian attacks was the Scandinavian Guards of Nicollet County.12

  One writer has concentrated on the subject of Swedish immigrant-Native American relations as portrayed in the Emigrant Novels. The Swede Kent Adelmann wrote that, even though Moberg was sympathetic to Native Americans, he depicted them in the novels as seen through the eyes of Europeans. According to Adelmann, Moberg determined through his research how different Swedes understood the American Indian way of life. But because he was writing from the perspective of “immigrated Europeans,” he could not picture a close relationship between settlers and native people.

  Adelmann argued, furthermore, that Moberg’s immigrant tale focused sharply on the concept of freedom. In America, Mobergs fictional Swedish settlers attained freedom from an oppressive European class system, but they did so at the expense of another people (Native Americans) who themselves were being oppressed in the social system of the United States. This situation, incidentally, gives to the novel an ironic touch that the practical-thinking Karl Oskar has difficulty understanding and accepting.

  Native Americans did not have the opportunity to speak for themselves in the novels, Adelmann continued. Samuel Nöjd, a character Moberg generally portrayed as repulsive, defends the Native peoples against Karl Oskar, who argues that they are lazy. Meanwhile, the reader hears from the natives themselves only indirectly through a speech made by Dakota leader Red Iron, quoted in the novel. Adelmanns reasoning was that Moberg, although not Eurocentric in his intentions, was at critical moments in his novels unable to divorce himself from a Eurocentric narrative approach.13

  Moberg returned to the journals of Andrew Peterson for information on the Swedes during the Civil War. Peterson wrote of his attempt to join the Union Army. He was turned down for medical reasons—his advanced age and a chronic back problem. Peterson had incurred his back injury while lifting stones on his farm and spent his declining years as a semi-invalid. Moberg used a similar series of events involving Karl Oskar to show both the protagonist’s part in the drama surrounding the Civil War and his advancing old age. Like Peterson, Karl Oskar attempts to pass a physical examination for the military. For the first time, however, Karl Oskar is forced to become a bystander. Then back troubles increasingly hobble him, and his sons take over the farm.

  Although some readers prefer the storytelling qualities of The Emigrants over other sections of the Emigrant Novels, there is little in Moberg’s corpus that exceeds the poetic nature of the final parts of The Last Letter Home. Here Moberg captured the feelings of homesickness, anger, regret, and lost love in one aging figure. Karl Oskar has changed from the forward-looking young man “K. O. Nilsson, Svensk” to the backward-peering “Charles O. Nelson, Swedish American.”

  In the end Kristina finds peace, while Karl Oskar is left to ponder the depth of his love for Kristina and to dream of home. His life is behind him. Upon Karl Oskar’s death, Moberg established a final link between Minnesota and Sweden. Inspiration for this connecting device came to Moberg from a letter he found in Andrew Petersons papers. After Peterson’s death in Waconia, one of his neighbors wrote a letter to Petersons relatives in Sweden. In order to include the letter in his novel, Moberg reworked and rewrote it, while at the same time retaining its authentic flavor. Moberg’s version of the letter functions as the conclusion to The Last Letter Home. With it, the author invoked God’s blessing on the native land of his Swedish immigrants.

  R. McK.

  NOTES

  1. Moberg, “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,” 317.

  2. Lannestock, Vilhelm Moberg i Amerika, 124.

  3. Andrew Peterson and Family Papers, 1854–1931, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.

  4. Gary Clayton Anderson, Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650–1862 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 261–80. On the Dakota War of 1862, see also Kenneth Carley, The Sioux Uprising of 1862 2d ed. (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1976); Anderson, Little Crow, Spokesman for the Sioux (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1986); Anderson and Alan R. Woolworth, eds., Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988).

  5. In the early 1860s, the only Swedish-language newspaper available on a regular basis to Swedes in Minnesota was Hemlandet, published in Chicago. Hemlandet contained little news from Minnesota, and those few items from this state it published appeared weeks or even months after the events described.

  6. Moberg, “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,” 330.

  7. Moberg, “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,” 330–31.

  8. Lloyd C. Hackl, The Wooden Shoe People: An Illustrated History of the First Swedish Settlement in Minnesota (Cambridge, Minn.: Adventure Publications, 1990), 37.

  9. Moberg, “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,” 331, author’s italics.

  10. Anderson, Little Crow, 130.

  11. Anderson, Kinsmen of Another Kind, 11.

  12. Carley, Sioux Uprising of 1862, 49.

  13. Kent Adelmann, Vilhelm Mobergs utvandrarserie: en introduktion till “indianproblemet” (Lund: Kent Adelmann, 1976).

  Bibliography for the Emigrant Novels

  Compiled by Vilhelm Moberg

  Pehr Kalm: En resa i Norra Amerika. I–III. (1753–1761.)

  Carl Aug. Gosselman: Resa i Norra Amerika. (Stockholm 1835.)

  Hans Mattson: Minnen. (Chicago 1890.)

  Johan Bolin: Beskrifning öfwer Nord-Amerikas Förenta Stater. (Wexiö 1853.)

  Ole Rynning: Beretning om Amerika. (Kristiania 1838.)

  Gustaf Unonius: Minnen från en sjuttonårig vistelse i Nordvestra Amerika. I–II. (Uppsala 1862.)

  Emer
oy Johnson: Early Life of Eric Norelius. 1833–1862. (Rock Island 1934.)

  Oscar N. Olsson: The Augustana Lutheran Church in America. Pioneer Period 1846–1860. (Rock Island 1934.)

  N. Lindgren: Handlingar rörande åkianismen. (Wexiö 1867.)

  E. Herlenius: Åkianismens historia. (Stockholm 1902.)

  ———. Erik Janseismens historia. (Stockholm 1900.)

  M. A. Mikkelsen: The Bishop Hill Colony. (Chicago 1892.)

  George M. Stephenson: The Religious Aspects of Swedish Immigration. (Minneapolis 1932.)

  L. Landgren: Om Sectväsendet. (Härnösand 1878.)

  Joh. Schröder: Vägvisare för Emigranter. (Stockholm 1868.)

  H. Hörner: Nyaste Handbok för Utvandrare. (Stockholm 1868.)

  A. E. Strand: A History of the Swedish-Americans of Minnesota. I–III. (Chicago 1910.)

  Theodore C. Blegen: Building Minnesota. (Minnesota Historical Society. 1938.)

  ———. Norwegian Migration to America. (Northfield 1940.)

  ———. Land of Their Choice. (Minneapolis 1955.)

  Lawrence Guy Brown: Immigration. (New York 1933.)

  W. J. Petersen: Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi. (Iowa City 1937.)

  Herbert and Edward Quick: Mississippi Steamboating. (New York 1926.)

  Joseph Henry Jackson: Forty-Niners. (Boston 1949.)

  ———. Gold Rush Album. (New York 1949.)

  Henry K. Norton: The Story of California. (Chicago 1923.)

  G. Catlin: Nord-Amerikas Indianer. övers. från eng. (Stockholm 1848.)

  Colin F. MacDonald: The Sioux War of 1862.

  I. V. D. Heard: The History of the Sioux War. (New York 1863.)

  J. F. Rhodes: The History of the Civil War. (1917.)

  C. Channing: A History of the United States I–VI. (1925.)

  Edvard A. Steiner: On the Trail of the Immigrant. (New York 1906.)

  Francis Parkman: The Oregon Trail. (New York 1950.)

  Oscar Commetant: Tre år i Förenta Staterna. Iakttagelser och skildringar. (Stockholm 1860.)

  Clarence S. Peterson: St. Croix River Valley Territorial Pioneers. (Baltimore 1949.)

  John R. Commons: Races and Immigrants in America. (New York 1907.)

  A. W. Quirt: Tales of the Woods and Mines. (Waukesha 1941.)

  The Frontier Holiday. A collection of writings by Minnesota Pioneers. (St. Paul 1948.)

  Robert B. Thomas: The Old Farmers Almanac. First issued in 1792 for the Year 1793. (Boston 1954.)

  Minnesota Farmers Diaries: William R. Brown 1845–1846.

  ———. Y. Jackson 1852–1863. (The Minnesota Historical Society. St. Paul 1939.)

  Swedish-American Historical Bulletin. 1928–1939. (St. Paul.)

  Year-Book of The Swedish Historical Society of America. 1909–1910. 1923–1924. (Minneapolis.)

  G. N. Swahn: Svenskarna i Sioux City. Några blad ur deras historia. (Chicago 1912.)

  Roger Burlingame: Machines That Built America. (New York 1953.)

  Railway Information Series: A Chronology of American Railroads.

  ———. The Human Side of Railroading. (Washington 1949.)

  Andrew Peterson: Dagbok åren 1854–1898. En svensk farmares levnadsbeskrivning. 16 delar. (Manuskript i Minnesota Historical Library. St. Paul.)

  Mina Anderson: En nybyggarhustrus minnen. (Manuskript tillh. förf.)

  Alford Roos. Diary of my father Oscar Roos. (Manuskript d:o.)

  Peter J. Aronson: En svensk utvandrares minnen. (Manuskript d:o.)

  Charles C. Anderson: Levernesbeskrivning. (Manuskript d:o.)

  Eric A. Nelson: My Pioneer Life. (Manuskript d:o.)

  V. M.

  Locarno, June 1, 1959.

  Suggested Readings in English

  Compiled by Roger McKnight

  About Vilhelm Moberg:

  Holmes, Philip. Vilhelm Moberg. Boston: Twayne, 1980.

  McKnight, Roger, “The New Columbus: Vilhelm Moberg Confronts American Society,” Scandinavian Studies 64 (Summer 1992): 356–89.

  Moberg, Vilhelm. The Unknown Swedes: A Book About Swedes and America, Past and Present. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988.

  Thorstensson, Roland B. “Vilhelm Moberg as a Dramatist for the People.” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1974.

  Wright, Rochelle. “Vilhelm Moberg’s Image of America.” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington 1975.

  About Swedish Immigration:

  Barton, H. Arnold. A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans, 1840–1940. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994.

  ———, ed. Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840–1014. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press for the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society, 1975.

  Beijbom, Ulf, ed. Swedes in America: New Perspectives. Växjö: Swedish Emigrant Institute, 1993.

  Blanck, Dag and Harald Runblom, eds. Swedish Life in American Cities. Uppsala: Centre for Multiethnic Research, 1991.

  Hasselmo, Nils. Swedish America: An Introduction. New York: Swedish Information Service, 1976.

  Ljungmark, Lars. Swedish Exodus. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979.

  Nordstrom, Byron, ed. The Swedes in Minnesota. Minneapolis: Denison, 1976.

  PREFACE

  THE COUNTRY THAT CHANGED THEM

  This is the last installment of a story about a group of people who left their homes in Ljuder parish, Sweden, and emigrated to North America.

  These immigrants settled in the St. Croix Valley of Minnesota, in the land of the Chippewas and the Sioux. It was a wild-growing region, never before touched by ax or plow. When the settlers had built their abodes and secured their daily needs they began also to concern themselves with their spiritual requirements. According to their ability they organized for a life beyond their corporal needs: They built churches and schools, they employed ministers and teachers, they agreed upon laws for peaceful community life with equal rights for all. They elected councils to solve their quarrels and mete out justice among them. In their frontier world they had to start everything from the very beginning. They changed the land that had received them and created for themselves a new community.

  The region these immigrants helped develop was admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state, and they themselves became citizens of the United States.

  But this alone did not guarantee them peace and security in their new land. After ten years in the New World their existence was threatened to its very foundations. Within the Union such great antagonism had arisen between opposing factions that it resulted in a four-year, utterly bloody civil war. And while this was still going on, their own new, free state was shaken by another internal strife: The Indians who had been forced to vacate their ancestral hunting grounds by the ever-encroaching settlers started an uprising to drive them out and regain their land.

  The gift of liberty so generously extended to the immigrants made great demands on the recipients: It saddled the settlers with responsibilities that had been unknown to them in their native country. The United States demanded of its citizens talents never needed in their homeland. In Sweden they had been subjects of temporal and spiritual authorities they themselves had not elected, and—like people not of age—they had had a government over them to decide what was best and most beneficial for them. Here in the New World they were citizens of age: They themselves elected their government, and they elected as their officials men who had their confidence and who would serve the people rather than hold them in obedience.

  The ability wholly to govern themselves was exacted of the settlers. And the necessity to decide for themselves forced and stimulated them to new efforts and developed in them new strength. In exercising their newfound liberty the immigrants gained the experience which gave them the strength to build their new society.

  Thus, in turn, the immigrant-citizens were changed by their new country. They changed the country and the United States of America changed them.


  Part One

  I

  OLD ABE CALLS

  —1—

  It was in the beginning of the age of the telegraph. This remarkable invention was in use everywhere in North America; in a few short minutes it could transfer important news from one end of the country to the other. The morning happenings in the South were known in every city and village of the North long before evening. The telegraph was a miracle not yet become commonplace.

  What happened in South Carolina on the morning of Sunday, April 14, 1861, was known to every city dweller in Minnesota within a few hours; the news reached many of the smaller villages before the day was over; more remote settlers were perhaps not aware of it for still another day. It reached the people of Lake Chisago in the forenoon of Monday the fifteenth. This April day was never to be forgotten by any one of those who lived it.

  It was the season of seeding. Karl Oskar Nilsson, owner of the first settlement at the lake, was harrowing his field for the spring wheat. For the first time he was driving his recently acquired team of horses. The weather was mild for that time of year, it had rained moderately, and the soil seemed ready after the stirring of the harrow pegs. The black earth was pregnant with growing and sufficiently dry after the rain not to clog his shoes. Pigeons, meadowlarks, and sparrows faithfully followed the team across the field and picked with eager beaks at worms and larvae exposed by the harrow. The horses pulled this heavy implement easily enough with such a brisk pace that the driver had difficulty in keeping up with them. Karl Oskar still dragged his left foot a little due to an old injury in his leg which always made itself known under stress.

  He was pleased with his new team. There was a great difference between the lively, brisk horses and the dull, sluggish oxen. Now harrowing was easy. This afternoon he must sow his wheat, for tomorrow morning the Spring Court convened in Center City and he was to serve on the jury.