A heritage to celebrate: Swedes in America, 1846-1996

Scandinavian Review, Autumn 1996 by Barton, H Arnold

This year, 1996, is officially designated the 150th anniversary of the great Swedish migration to America, dating from the arrival of Eric Jansson and followers in 1846.

The Swedish presence in America, however, by no means began with the Janssonists. In 1988 the 350th anniversary of the establishment in 1638 of Sweden's own colony on the Delaware River was celebrated both in Sweden and the United States. The colony remained under the Swedish flag for only seventeen years, during which its Swedish and Finnish population-Finland then being part of the Swedish realmcame to less than four hundred souls. Their descendants nonetheless rapidly increased and by now include far more Americans than are aware of that fact. These Nordic colonists have been credited with having introduced the pioneer log cabin and other useful woodland ways on the early frontier. But the most significant thing about New Sweden has surely been the pride it has inspired among later Swedish- and Finnish-Americans by identifying them with the early colonial history of their new homeland.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries a number of individual Swedes came to America. Among the very few who stayed were some colorful personalities who would later play important parts in the early history of the great Swedish immigration.

By around 1840, there was grave concern over growing impoverishment in Sweden. Much new land had been brought under cultivation since the beginning of the century and yields had improved. Still, the population grew even more rapidly, particularly among the poorer classes of the countryside. Available farmland became ever scarcer. Industrialization was beginning to get underway, but could not keep pace with population growth. Sweden was becoming ever riper for the mass migration of a large part of its population to greener pastures across the sea, such as was already taking place from the British Isles, especially Ireland, and from Germany.

Idealistic Emigration, New Communities

Just when emigration from Sweden to America properly began remains open to varying interpretation. In 1838, Carl Friman from Vastergotland, went out to the Wisconsin frontier with his five sons. Their letters were published in the liberal Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet, together with reports of the emigration then beginning in Norway. In 1841, Gustaf Unonius from Uppsala, with his bride and three others, established their "New Upsala" at Pine Lake, Wisconsin. His enthusiastic letters to Aftonbladet aroused widespread interest, especially in educated circles, encouraging various idealists and restless souls to follow him out to Pine Lake.

Among those who were impressed by these accounts was the farmer and miller Peter Cassel in Ostergotland, who in 1845 led 21 relatives and friends from Kisa parish out to the Iowa Territory, where, joined by others along the way, they established their "New Sweden" in Jefferson County. Cassel's own letters, published in Ostgotha Correspondenten in Linkoping, particularly impressed the Swedish peasantry, coming from a respected man of their own kind. Beginning already in 1846, a growing stream of peasants from Ostergotland and Smaland made their way out to Iowa and neighboring northwestern Illinois.

These early emigrants were soon overshadowed by the arrival in 1846 of a far larger wave, consisting of over 1,200 followers of the selfproclaimed prophet Eric Jansson, mainly from Halsingland and Uppland. At Bishop Hill, in Henry County, Illinois, the sect established its New Jerusalem. Jansson was assassinated by a disgruntled former follower in 1850, but the colony survived another decade, reaching its greatest numbers and prosperity.

Numerous one-time Janssonists meanwhile left to settle in other northwestern Illinois localities, in turn drawing to them new arrivals from Sweden, many of whom soon moved on in search of available land. Bishop Hill, together with the nearby Swedish Lutheran settlement at Andover, lilinois, dating from 1847, and Peter Cassel's New Sweden in Iowa, were the original "mother colonies," settled directly from the old country, from which new groups constantly ventured further west and north to the advancing frontier. Such stage migration resulted in a spreading network of "daughter colonies," which before the century was over would extend out to the Pacific coast and up onto the Canadian prairies. Chicago and the Twin Cities meanwhile emerged as the main Swedish-American urban centers.

Emigration from Sweden reached its first, modest peak by the mid1850s, then fell off during hard times in America beginning in 1857 and the Civil War-during which Swedish immigrants loyally served in the Union forces-from 1861 to 1865. Between 1867 and 1869, Sweden suffered from serious crop failures. Thanks to already established contacts with America, improved transport on steamships and railroads, and the American Homestead Law of 1862, emigration rapidly swelled to previously unimaginable proportions. It declined over the next few years, with the return of better times in Sweden.