CHAPTER VII
_Causes of Emigration Continued. Special Factors. Religion as a Cause. Emigration Agents._
In the class of special causes which have influenced the Scandinavian emigration, political oppression has operated only in the case of the Danes in Southern Jutland.[45]
[45] As a result of the Dano-Prussian war of 1864 Jutland below Skodborghus became a province of Prussia. The greatly increased taxes that immediately followed and the restrictions imposed by the Prussian government upon the use of the Danish language, as well as other oppressive measures that formed a part of the general plan of the Prussianizing of Sleswick-Holstein, drove large numbers of Danes away from their homes, and most of these came to the United States. In notes and correspondence from Denmark in Scandinavian-American papers during these years complaints regarding such regulations constantly appear, and figures of emigration of Danes "who did not wish to be Prussians" are unusually large for this period; for example in the foreign column of the _Billed-Magazin_. The United States statistics also show a sudden increase in the Danish immigration during the sixties and the early seventies. From 1850-1861 not more than 3,983 had emigrated from Denmark; while in the thirteen years from 1862 to 1874 the number reached 30,978.
Military service, which elsewhere has often played such an important part in promoting emigration, has, in the Scandinavian countries, been only a minor factor, the period of service required being very short. Nevertheless it has in not a few cases been a secondary cause for emigrating. Those with whom I have spoken who have given this as their motive have, however, been mostly Norwegians and Swedes; but none of those who belong to the earlier period of emigration give their desire to escape military service as a cause.
Religious persecution has played a part in some cases, especially in Norway and Sweden. The state church is the Lutheran, but every sect has been tolerated since the middle of the century, in Norway since 1845. While few countries have been freer from the evil of active persecution because of religious belief, intolerance and religious narrowness have not been wanting. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the followers of the lay preacher, Hans Nielsen Hauge, in Norway were everywhere persecuted. Hauge himself was imprisoned in Christiania for eight years. And the Jansenists in Helsingland, Sweden, were in the forties subjected to similar persecution. Thus Eric Jansen was arrested several times for conducting religious meetings between 1842-1846,--though it must in fairness be admitted that his first arrest was undoubtedly provoked by the extreme procedure of the dissenters themselves. After having been put in prison repeatedly, Jansen embarked for America in 1846 and became the founder of the communistic colony of followers at Bishopshille,[46] Henry County, Illinois. No such organized emigration took place among the Haugians, but we have no means of knowing to what extent individual emigration of the followers of Hauge took place during the three decades immediately after his death. The well-known Elling Eielson, a lay preacher and an ardent Haugian, emigrated in 1839 to Fox River, La Salle County, Illinois, and many of those who believed in the methods of Hauge and Eielson came to America in the following years.
[46] So named from _Biskopskulla_, Jansen's native place in Sweden. See article by Major John Swainson on "The Swedish Colony at Bishopshill, Illinois," in Nelson's _Scandinavians_, I, p. 142. This article gives an excellent account of the founding of the Bishopshill settlement and Jansen's connection with it. See also _American Communities_ by Wm. Alfred Hinds, 1902, pp. 300-320.
It was persecution also that drove many Scandinavian Moravians to America in 1740 and 1747. Moravian societies had been formed in Christiania in 1737, in Copenhagen in 1739, in Stockholm in 1740, and in Bergen in 1740.[47] In 1735 German Moravians from Herrnhut, Saxony, established a colony at Savannah, Georgia.[47] In this colony there seem to have been some Danes and Norwegians. In 1740 a permanent colony was located at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and in 1747 one at Bethabara, North Carolina. Persecuted Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Moravians took part in the founding of both these colonies.
[47] _Decorah-Posten_, September 9, 1904, p. 5. See also above p. 37.
As we have seen, the first Norwegian settlement in America was established in Kendall, Orleans County, New York, in 1825. It has been claimed that the "sloopers" were driven to emigrate by persecution at home.[48] Another writer has shown that the only one of the Stavanger Quakers who suffered for his belief prior to 1826 was Elias Tastad, and he, it seems, did not emigrate.[49] The leader of the emigrants in _Restaurationen_, Lars Larson i Jeilane, had spent one year in London in the employ of the noted English Quaker, William Allen. In 1818, Stephen Grellet, a French nobleman, who had become a Quaker in America, and William Allen preached in Stavanger.[49] The Quakers of Stavanger were of the poorest of the people. It is highly probable, as another writer states,[50] that Grellet, while there, suggested to them that they emigrate to America where they could better their condition in material things and at the same time practice their religion without violating the laws of the country. The main motive was therefore probably economic.
[48] R. B. Anderson is emphatic in this view. Pages 45-131 of his _First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration_ are devoted to a discussion of the sloop "Restaurationen" and the Quaker Colony in Orleans County.
[49] Nelson's _History of Scandinavians_, 1901, p. 133.
[50] B. L. Wick, in _The Friends_, Philadelphia, 1894, according to Nelson, p. 134. I have not been able to secure a copy of the above article, therefore cannot here state the arguments, or cite more fully.
It is perfectly clear to me that not very many of the Orleans County colonists were devout Quakers; for we soon find them wandering apart into various other churches. Some returned to Lutheranism; those who went west became mostly Methodists or Mormons; others did not join any church; while the descendants of those who remained are to-day Methodists. The Orleans County Quakers do not seem to have even erected a meeting-house; and in Scandinavian settlements a church, however humble, is, next to a home, the first thought.[51] Nevertheless the Quakers of Stavanger did suffer annoyances, and it must be remembered that the leader of the expedition and the owner of the sloop was a devout Quaker,[52] as were also at least two other leading members of the party. Had it not been for these very men the party would probably not have emigrated, at least not at that time.
[51] The reader who knows Björnson's _Synnöve Solbakken_ will remember the author's introduction of this feature in Chapter II, the first two pages.
[52] Lars Larson settled in Rochester where he could attend a Quaker church. The same is true of Ole Johnson, another of the "sloopers" who later settled in Kendall but finally returned to Rochester, where he died in 1877.
There was much persecution of the early converts to the Baptist faith in Denmark between 1850-1860; and not a few of this sect emigrated. In 1848 F. O. Nilson, one of the early leaders of the Baptist Church in Sweden, was imprisoned and later banished from the country. He fled to Denmark, and in 1851 embarked for America. In the fifties Swedish Baptists in considerable numbers came to the United States because of persecution. There are, however, very few Norwegian Baptists, and I know of no cases where persecution drove Baptists to leave Norway.
Proselyting of some non-Lutheran churches in Scandinavia has been the means of bringing many Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes to this country. In the fifties Mormon missionaries were especially active in Denmark and Norway. Their efforts did not seem to be attended by much success in Norway, though not a few converts were made among the Norwegians in the early settlements in Illinois and Iowa, as in the Fox River Settlement.[53] In Denmark, however, Mormon proselyting was more successful than in Norway. All those who accepted Mormonism emigrated to America of course, and most of them to Utah. In the years 1851, 1852, and 1853 there emigrated fourteen, three, and thirty-two Danes, respectively, to this country. But in 1854 the number rose to 691, and in the following three years to 1,736. In 1850 there were in Utah two Danes; in 1870 there were 4,957. The first Norwegian to go to Utah probably was Henrik E. Sebbe, who came to America in 1836, and went to Utah in 1848, where he became a Mormon.[53]
[53] Some of the early Mormon leaders were Norwegians, however, as Bishop Canute Peterson (Marsett), of Ephraim, Utah, who came to America in 1837 from Hardanger, Norway. The slooper Gudmund Haugaas became an elder in the church of the Latter Day Saints in La Salle County, Illinois; he died in 1849 and was succeeded by his son Thomas Haugaas.
In 1849 a Norwegian-American, O. P. Peterson, first introduced Methodism in Norway.[54] After 1855 a regular Methodist mission was established in Scandinavia under the supervision of a Danish-American, C. B. Willerup.[55] While the Methodist church has not prospered in the Scandinavian countries, especially in Denmark and Norway, there are large numbers of Methodists among the Scandinavian immigrants in this country,[56] and the early congregations were recruited for a large part from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
[54] See a brief account by Rev. N. M. Liljegren in Nelson's _History of Scandinavians_, I, pp. 205-209.
[55] Methodism had been introduced into Sweden from England early in the century.
The efforts of steamship companies and emigration agents have been a powerful factor in promoting Scandinavian emigration. Through them literature advertising in glowing terms the advantages of the New World was scattered far and wide in Scandinavia. Such literature often dealt with the prosperity of Scandinavians who had previously settled in America. Letters from successful settlers were often printed and distributed broadcast. The early immigrants from the North settled largely in Illinois, Wisconsin, and, a little later, in Iowa. As clearers of the forest and tillers of the soil they contributed their large share to the development of the country. None could better endure the hardships of pioneer life on the western frontier. Knowing this, many western states began to advertise their respective advantages in the Scandinavian countries.
[56] By far the larger number, however, are Swedes.