The Last Letter Home (4 page)

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.)

Emeroy 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.