Bibliografi:Norske migranter og amerikansk urbefolkning

Denne kommenterte bibliografien over kilder med relevans for interaksjonene mellom norske innvandrere og amerikansk urbefolkning ble til på oppdrag fra Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt i 2024. Arbeidet er i vesentlig grad utført av ph.d. Samuel Joseph Klee, som hadde et engasjement som «Intern» (praktikant) ved Nasjonalbiblioteket i vårsemesteret 2024. Klees oppdrag var å finne fram til litteratur og kilder som på en eller annen måte hadde relevans for interaksjonen mellom skandinaviske migranter og amerikansk urbefolkning, altså det vi tidligere – og til dels fortsatt – kaller «indianere». Oppdraget var vagt, og forventningene ganske små.

Forskere som har arbeidet med denne tematikken tidligere, har i stor grad vært enige om at dette er et lite utforsket og beskrevet felt – i sterk kontrast til en rekke andre aspekter ved skandinavisk migrasjon til USA. Den svenske historikeren Gunlög Fur formulerer denne oppfatningen nærmest som et hjertesukk:

Countless books and articles have been written on the topic of Scandinavian emigration, yet not a handful deal with interactions – voluntary or not – between Scandinavian immigrants American Indians.

Det var denne snaue «håndfull» av artikler og et par bøker som var utgangspunktet for den bibliografiske undersøkelsen som ble gjennomført. Særlig følgende publikasjoner var viktige som startsted for arbeidet:

• Bergland, Betty A. (2000). «Norwegian Immigrants and “Indianerne” in the Landtaking, 1838-1862.» Norwegian-American Studies, Vol 35. University of Minnesota Press, s. 319-350.

• Bergland, Betty A. (2021). "Norwegian migration and displaced indigenous peoples: Towards an understanding og Nordic whiteness in the land-taking." I Sverdljuk, Jana, Terje Mikael Hasle Joranger, Erika K. Jackson og Peter Kivisto. Nordic Whiteness and the Migration to the USA. A Historical Exploration of Identity. London og New York: Routledge, s. 17-34.

• Fur, Gunlög (2014). «Indians and Immigrants – Entangled Histories». I Journal of American Ethnic History. Vol. 33. Nr. 3. University of Illinois Press, s. 55-76.

• Hansen, Karen V. (2013). Encounter on the Great Plains. Scandinavian Settlers and the Disposession of Dakota Indians. 1890-1930. Oxford University Press Inc.

• Leonard, Samantha, Mikal Eckstrom, Karen V. Hansen og Gwen N. Westerman (2020). "Immigrant Land Taking and Indian Dispossession." I Joranger, Terje Mikael Hasle (ed.) Norwegian-American Essays 2020. Migration, minorities and freedom of religion, Oslo: Novus Press, s. 21-73.

• Skarstein, Karl Jakob (2006). Krigen mot siouxene. Nordmenn mot indianere 1862-63. Oslo: Spartacus forlag.

• Øverland, Orm (2006). "Norwegian Americans meet Native Americans. Exclusion and Inclusion in Immigrant Homemaking in America." I Armstrong, Charles I. og Øyunn Hestetun (red.). Postcolonial Dislocations. Travel, History and the Ironies of Narrative. Oslo: Novus, s. 109-122.

Med referanseapparatet i disse publikasjonene som startsted brukte Sam Klee nærmest en «snøballmetodikk» for å komme på sporet av andre utgivelser og kilder. Både bøker, tidsskrifter og aviser i Nasjonalbibliotekets samlinger ble undersøkt, og en rekke mer eller mindre skjulte litterære kilder dukket fram fra samlingene. Utvalget vokste stadig etter hvert som snøballen (eller snøballene) rullet videre, og det endelige resultatet overtraff våre forventninger. Mange av kommentarene har en stikkordpreget karakter. Alle brukere er velkommen til å supplere eller endre annotasjonene. Og hvis du kjenner til annen litteratur eller kilder som burde vært inkludert i denne oversikten, så bruk gjerne samtalesiden for å tipse oss om dette. Sam skrev sine kommentarer på engelsk, og av praktiske grunner vi har i stor grad valgt å holde fast ved denne språkformen.

Sekundærkilder (i kronologisk orden)

Victor E. Lawson, “The First Settlements in the Kandiyohi Region and Their Fate in the Indian Outbreak,” Yearbook of the Swedish Historical Society of America 10 (1925-1926): 31, 44.

• Kommentarer

Mentioned in Fur (2014) and Widén (1965). Difficult source to find – there appears to be a transcription available on this site: Genealogytrails.com. (search “Lawson” to find it). According to Fur, discusses Norwegian settlers’ deaths.

Einar Haugen, “Norwegians at the Indian Forts on the Missouri River during the Seventies,” Norwegian-American Studies 6 (1931): 89—121.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Bergland (2000).

Theodore C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, 1825-1860 (Northfield, MN: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1931).

• Kommentarer
• Blegen’s one mention of Native Americans is on page 371. Mentioned in Bergland (2000).

Carlton C. Qualey, Norwegian Settlement in the United States (Northfield, MN: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1938).

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Bergland (2000), Bergland (2021).

Theodore C. Blegen, “Pioneer Folkways,” in Grass Roots History (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1947), 81—102.

• Kommentarer
• This text mentions the Søren Bache diary (see primary sources section). Other essays in the collection may have primary sources accessible here. Mentioned in Bergland (2000)

Albin Widén, Svenskarna och Siouxupproret (A.-B. Lindqvists Förlag, 1965).

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Fur (2014). Swedish book – but apparently has good quotations from the settlers about the conflict. Fur notes that Widén relies on another secondary source heavily (Lawson, 1925).

A.E. Morstad, “Erik Morstad’s Missionary Work Among Wisconsin Indians,” Norwegian-American Studies 27 (1977): 111—150.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Bergland (2000).

Odd Lovoll, The Promise of America: A History of the Norwegian-American People (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1984), 89—91.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Bergland (2000). Lovoll recounts the story of Guri Endresen Rosseland, “from Vikør in Hardanger,” who survived a violent encounter with Native Americans in 1860 and the fallout through 1862 (89). Interesting story, though sadly Lovoll does not cite the sources for his quotations about Guri’s account.

Jon Gierde, From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway to the Upper Middle West (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Leonard et. al. (2020). Source is recommended by the above authors “for discussions of Norwegian [immigrants’] distinct tie to land and landownership” (Leonard et. al., 67).

H. Elaine Lindgren, “Ethnic Women Homesteading on the Plains of North Dakota,” Great Plains Quarterly 9, no. 3 (Summer 1989): 157—73.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Leonard et. al. (2020). Supplemental source for contextualizing Norwegian women in land-taking.

Orm Øverland, Immigrant Minds, American Identities: Making the United States Home, 1870—1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in a few of the secondary articles.
• Relevant Native American discussions in the book:
• Discusses Swedish American book for school children in 1917, associated with the Lutheran Augustana Synod – and it “presents an idealized image of these early Swedish Americans [in 1691], in particular in their relations with Native Americans. Not only does the story show that the seventeenth-century settlers, like the later immigrants, ‘had struggled against harsh conditions but succeeded in building a prosperous community’ but it has them ‘concerned about the same issues that were confronting the Swedish-American community in general and the Augustana synod in particular around the turn of the century, namely how to maintain the language and religion of their Swedish ancestors.” (80) - but does not really return to discussing Swedish and Native relations (80)
• The book is not named directly, only mentions that Dag Blank mentions it in Becoming Swedish-American.
• Notes that “There are few stories where participation in massacres of Indians form part of a homemaking argument” (88) - rather other conflicts, like the Revolutionary or Civil War, take a greater place in immigrant homemaking narratives.
• Observes that the Finns had a similar myth of harmonious cooexistence with Native Americans (126).
• Myths among Norwegian American communities - “Some spoke of legends of white Indians, reports of Norse influence on Indian languages, and the many alleged Viking Age artifacts, such as the Kensington rune stone, that have been found in Minnesota and other states. Even such wild takes, however, should be taken seriously by the historian as born of an immigrant group’s need to claim America as home.” (166)
• In his footnotes, here, Øverland looks to a few sources:
• Skandinaven almanak og kalender (Chicago, 1926) “include ‘Norse Words Used by White Indians’ (reprinted from the Literary Digest), and ‘Norse Explorers Ahead of Columbus’ (reprinted from the New York World), which give both material and linguistic ‘evidence’ for Nordic visitors to the Pacific Northwest in medieval times.” (Øverland, 226)
• I have sent a request to the Norwegian American Genealogical Center and Naeseth Library in Madison, Wisconsin, to see if I can get some scans of these documents. We have Skandinaven in our online database, but not their almanacs. We may have it in the physical holdings (have some years, not clear if 1926-7 are there), will check on that.
• Notes that the Kensington Stone is widely seen as a fake, though there were some in the 1920s who promoted it: Hjalmar Holand, “Norske oldfund i Minnesota,” Skandinaven almanak og kalendar (Chicago, 1927). Apparently Holand wrote many other things on the stone in the 1930s and 40s, but this citation will suffice. Blegen wrote an analysis in 1968, too.
• Interesting discussion of the 1925 centennial, which may prove of interest to the upcoming bicentennial preparations (pages 170—173).
• Focus on “Norwegian-American myths of foundation and of sacrifice, what we may call the Viking Story and the Civil War story” that had a role in the 1925 commemorations (170) - “The two stories are quite different in point of departure, content, and strategy: the one claims that all that made America great was Norwegian before it became American; the other insists that Norwegian Americans earned a right to be American because they were among the first to stand up in defense of their chosen homeland in a time of national crisis” (170—171).
• The 1925 celebration was largest in St. Paul, MN. President Coolidge attended. And there was a large “historical pageant” performed, “by fifteen hundred [performers] before eighty thousand spectators” (170) - “. . . the pageant performed on the state fairground argued ‘that not only were Norwegians entitled to equal status in the culture with ‘Yankee’ Americans, but also were actually better Americans.” (Øverland, |170)
• “Pageant of the Northmen” - includes a great quote by the organizer (see attached image of quote – too long to take time to transcribe). (170)
• Øverland argues that “the pageant, in its way, presented Leif Erikson and St. Olaf as part of a Norwegian-American past much as Anglo-American history books and literary histories would present the Magna Carta and Shakespeare as part of the Anglo-American past” (171)
• Lots of Viking symbolism associated with the celebration, connecting 1000 AD and 1825 (171) and combining that with settler imagery (no note of Native American representations, which gets at the “silences” argument that Øverland makes elsewhere – see Orm Øverland, “Intruders on Native Ground: Troubling Silences and Memories of the Land-Taking in Norwegian Immigrant Letters,” in Transnational American Memories, edited by Udo J. Hebel (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 79—103).
• There was also a commemorative stamp authorized by the US Postal Service, one with a Viking ship, the other with the Restaurationen of 1825 on it (171).
• Leif Erickson and Hans Christian Heg (Norwegian American who died in Civil War) as “two historical characters . . . used to represent the two basic but very different components of a homemaking mythology that claims the United States as the true home of Norwegian Americans” (172)
• Notes that there is a statue to Heg in the Wisconsin State Capitol, from the 1920s, with credit to Waldemar Ager, a novelist friend of Rølvaag (172)
• Notes the irony also, of renewed fervor for Norwegian identity in 1920s, even as it was slipping away as a tangible marker of daily life (173) - “And as they lost their distinguishing language, Norwegian Americans also lost the complex web of myths of foundation, ideological contribution, and sacrifice created in and for this language” (173).

Larry Lundblad, “The Impact of Minnesota’s Dakota Conflict of 1862 on the Swedish Settlers,” Swedish-American Historical Quarterly 3, no. 51 (July 2000): 219—220.

• Kommentarer

Mentioned in Fur (2014). Quoted as a reference to historians who "acquit Nordic seettlers of blame” (64).

Betty A. Bergland, “Norwegian Immigrants and ‘Indianerne’ in the Landtaking, 1838—1862,” Norwegian-American Studies 35 (2000): 319—350.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Øverland (2006)
• Mined for sources – great historiographic essay. Overview of both the primary and secondary sources that perpetuated narratives about Norwegian-Native relationships, starting with Ole Rynning’s accounts.
• Notes that Rynning was precedent-setting for migrants and historians, insofar as setting the narrative trope (Bergland, 320)
• Bergland notes that there is a connected history between federal policies that facilitated both Norwegian immigration and Native displacement (320)
• Note that in Bergland’s later essays, especially her 2021 chapter, she pushes this even further—not just policies, but the narratives that boosters perpetuated. She also points to the culpability of those who were otherwise ignorant of Indians’ mistreatment—that they could and should have known, but chose or carried on in ignorance. This is a stark contrast to Gwen Westerman’s (2020) impressions.
• Bergland points to the social construction of race, the relationship her work has to whiteness studies (321-2)
• Points out her reasons for doing this study:
• “The rural nature of Norwegian migration and the long-term effects of landedness provide a vital base for material well-being among Norwegian-Americans" (322) - only 1/4 of Norwegian immigrants lived in US cities in 1900 census (322-3)
• Centrality of land to Natives and Norwegians, both culturally and economically (323) - “grounded” in the land (323) - “Thus, while migrating Norwegians could continue an agricultural way of life rooted in the land, tribal peoples were forced to abandon theirs” (323)
• Bergland then goes over how her article will set out the historiographic patterns, key sources, knowledge about and relations with Native Americans, and theoretical frames for future work (323-4)
• Discusses several early historians’ work about contact, especially among Norwegian American historians
• Einar Haugen, “Norwegians at the Indian Forts on the Missouri River during the Seventies” (1931)
• A.E. Morstad, “Eric Morstad’s Missionary Work Among Wisconsin Indians” (1977)
• Carlton Qualey and Theodore Blegen’s respective works, starting in the 1930s, as setting patterns for addressing the topic among scholars of Norwegian American immigration – framed the terms (325)
• Qualey – framework of phases: treaties (more migration), Dakota Uprising (less migration), and in all seeing Natives “as causal factors” in this regard, “along with plagues and economic crises” (325)
• Blegen as similar (326), associating Natives with the risks of the land.
• [note – one historian who does not show up here at all is Fredrick Jackson Turner – not a Norwegian, but surely these other historians were aware of Turner’s Frontier Thesis. Did that have any impact on how they were conceptualizing these contacts? Could search through their work and find out]
• Additional note: Ole O. Moen, in his essay “The Dual Heritage: Theodore C. Blegen, Marcus Lee Hanson and the Norwegian Americans” in Essays on Norwegian-American Literature and History (American Institute, University of Oslo, 1986), does observe/argue that Blegen was “heavily indebted to Turner. He praises Turner for pointing out the significance of immigration in American history, but criticizes him for neglecting this aspect in his later works. Recognizing the value of the frontier thesis for its ‘focusing attention on some of the mainsprings of national life,’ Blegen regrets its failure to account for the diversity of cultures within American civilization. Being thus aware of Turner’s limitations, Blegen nevertheless pays tribute to the great historian in his appraisal of the new school of immigration historians: ‘Turner’s general view of immigration dimly foreshadowed the newer historiorgraphy of immigration, which rejects filiopietism on the one hand and, on the other, broadens his own frontier hypothesis into an interpretation that does not leave large areas of American life unexplained’” (Moen, 253).
• See link: https://www.nb.no/items/31b6b4abee847c55084671ca0c85af93?page=253&searchText=%22Theodore%20Blegen%22%20AND%20%22frontier%20thesis%22
• Ingrid Semmingsen – does not reference Native Americans much at all, in Bergland’s assessment (327)
• Odd Lovoll (1999) - wrote of Dakota conflict, Guri’s account – gets a little bit into land ownership struggles with west and Natives (328)
• Jon Gjrede’s work, The Minds of the West, no Natives mentioned (328)
• Bergland then shifts focus to fiction
• Ole Rølvaag, Giants in the Earth (published in English in 1927)
• Attempted to humanize natives – and tensions with them over land and sacred land use (239) - still problematic despite depictions of folk-exchanges with natives from Norwegian American characters (329)
• Rølvaag shows the role of 1862 in Norwegian American memory and accounts (329) which also shows up “in immigrant letters, diaries, newspapers—for decades after the event” (329)
• There is likely something that we could do with the newspapers full text search, or N-Gram, to see what these associations looked like on an actual mass scale, in a way that was unavailable to Bergland at the time. See research question section above.
• Goes further back to Rynning and travel literature, Peter Testman’s “Account” (1839?), John Reinert Reierson’s Pathfinder (1844, see below).
• In Reierson, Natives as “harmless” (331) “Defends federal Indian policy” because land was for migrants, against “monopolistic” and “barbarian” Indian land possession (331).
• Ole Munch Ræder, from Norwegian government “to study the jury system,” travel letters published in an Oslo paper, 1847 to 1848
• speculated on the Chinese origins of Natives (331) - focused on Wisconsin Natives (332).
• Made comparison to Sami and Northern Norwegians (332) especially regarding clothing for Sami, credit-debt for Northern Norwegians, especially regarding that relation between Bergen and Northerners. Ræder, according to Bergland, “offers a folk sense of justice based on fair exchange, as he further allies Indians with the people of North Norway” (332)
• In general, “convey[s] both an informed and a sympathetic view” (333) but also rather grotesque caricatures of Natives searching for scalps (333)
• Elise Wærenskjold - another writer, to Texas in 1847 (333ff)
• 9 July 1951 letter, published in Oslo and Hamar in 1852, “Texas is the Best State” (see below).
• Olaus Duus – Wisconsin letters published in 1947 – pastor - “confers both dignity and humanity on the indigenous peoples he describes. Also, it seems noteworthy that Duus did not describe them as potential converts.” (335) Contemporary effect more as a leader than being published at time of his life
• “‘Encounter’ stories” tropes, then, with Natives as part of the landscape – eyewitness authors, but not really concerned with justice (336)
• Bergland also discusses observers who wrote while still in Norway:
• Bishop Jacob Neumann of Bergen – 1837 – wrote a pamphlet, “Bishop Jacob Newman’s Words of Admonition to the Peasants” (described on pages 336-7)
• Faith motives regarding preventing migration, wilderness mentioned, no mention of Natives (337)
• Musem displays in Oslo – 1862, 1876
• First half of the 1800s, church “as a central intellectual authority shaping the conceptual world of Norwegian emigrants . . . and ethnography remained an emergent science” (338)
• Norwegian Lutheran Church and Natives (338ff)
• J.W.D. Dietrichson and Herman A, Preus (sympathetic portrayals)
• Dietrichson’s “Reise blandt . . .” has frequent Indian mentions – a lot of white man’s burden discourse – Natives as not to be feared, and critiques of US treatment (340)
• Preus and Church newspapers in 1857 (340)
• In all, Bergland then makes the argument that prior to the uprising, there was not a substantial fear narrative (at least among the clergy, largely among others as well) (341)
• Explores the effects of Norwegian laws and attitudes toward Jewish and Sami minorities, on immigrants’ attitudes toward Natives (342)
• Exclusionary stance – especially towards Jews 1814-51 – but also not many in Norway at the time, in 1814 – also state claims to Sami grounds (343)
• Concludes with a discussion of Olof E. Dreutzer – whose sources are detailed below. His circular in response to the Sioux uprising is discussed at length, negative portrayal of Natives, informative in tone (344)
• Post-1862, lots of newspaper retellings (345).

Sarah-Eva Ellen Carlson, “They Tell Their Story: The Dakota Internment at Camp McClellan in Davenport, 1862-1866,” The Annals of Iowa 63 (Summer 2004): 251—278.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Fur (2014)
• This article seems informative regarding the Native experience during this time, but does not include much int he way of details about Scandinavian participants at all. Found in footnote #38 of Fur. If of interest, Fur’s footnote includes an extensive bibliography about the Sioux side of the uprising and their experiences:
• Gary Clayton Anderson, Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650—1862 (St. Paul, MN: 1984).
• Gary Clayton Anderson, Little Crow: Spokesman for the Sioux (St. Paul, MN: 1986).
• From Fur’s use of the source, appears to be some mentions of Native Americans and Scandinavian contacts – noting that Natives “disliked the German and Scandinavian settlers, who shared very little with them” (138, quoted in Fur, 64). And that “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” (130, quoted in Fur, 64—65). Perhaps some intercultural conflict, then, regarding reciprocity and its meaning, which as such has been a theme noted in the scholarship of the 1980s and 2010s. Fur does counter Anderson, though, insofar as he claims that “sharing of food is staple of immigrant stories,” but that “they also often frame Indians as beggars, and in doing so, reveal their lack of understanding of Indian norms of sharing and giving . . .” (65)
• O.E. Olson, “Emigranters självbiografier N-W,” 15:7:12 [citation given for a primary source used here – of a Maple Ridge, MN resident who described trading with natives for food (65)
• Gary C. Anderson and Alan R. Woolworth, eds., Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862 (St. Paul, MN: 1988).
• Waziyatawin Angela WIlson, ed., In The Footsteps of Our Ancestors: The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century (St. Paul, MN: 2006).
• Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodla, The War in Words: Reading the Dakota Conflict through the Captivity Literature (Lincoln, NE: 2009).
• Angela Cavender Wilson, “Decolonizing the 1862 Death Marches,” American Indian Quarterly 28 (2004): 185—215.
• This was an interesting one to skim. Does not address the specifically Scandinavian identity of any of the whites involved in the 1862 conflict, but does address lots of Native perceptions of whites. Which is interesting, especially if reading against the grain (so to speak), with the awareness of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants among those involved. Could be interesting/helpful when considering the Native American studies side of the scholarship.

Orm Øverland, “Becoming White in 1881: An Immigrant Acquires an American Identity,” Journal of American Ethnic History 23, no. 4 (Summer, 2004): 132—141.

• Kommentarer
• Uses the Fra Amerika til Norge letters here (132)
• “There is hardly mention of whiteness in earlier letters” (133) and “Letters rarely mention Native Americans” (133)
• Look at footnote 6 for Dec 1864 letter, and footnote 7 for 1868 letter, regarding perceptions of Native Americans:
• Footnote 6 – Hellik Olsen Lehovd, Dec 26, 1864, Fra Amerika til Norge 2, page 304.
• Footnote 7 – from Gunder Helgesen Skare, September 6, 1868, ibid., 464.
• “There is little suggestion of what today is labeled racism in this use of ‘white’; nor is whiteness an American rather than an immigrant identity. Indeed, most accounts of the 1862 war in Minnesota do not use ‘white’ to identify Americans of European origin.” (133)
• Then dives into the Jacob Hilton letters (134). Notes his travels to the west, to New Mexico
• “It is clear from the letter (Winter 1881) that he feels so good here not only because it is beautiful but because he has experienced becoming one of ‘us’—white—and is not one of ‘them’—the useless other” (134). While in Iowa, Natives “had seemed exotic; now, in New Mexico, they are among the ‘others’ against whom he has defined himself as one of ‘us’” (134)
• “He is one of the ‘white people’ who are coming in. He is one of ‘us,’ not one of them” (135)
• Øverland notes the April and June 1881 letters especially here
• Notes that Jacob Hilton was accompanied by Gus (August) Halvorsen Hilton, father to Conrad Hilton, the hotel founder (136). He then discusses the story of Gus Hilton barely surviving an encounter with Natives, in his August 28 letter.
• “The emotions of Jacob Hilton were nevertheless real and were shared by many of his new countrymen in the Southwest” (137)
• “As a ‘civilized white’ Westerner he has little patience with effete Easterners who have the slightest sympathy with the Apaches. Indeed, it is in his ‘judgment’ of Easterners that he most clearly demonstrates his identity as a white Western American male” (137) - the gendered elements of his letters and emphasizing white manhood
• “This was an identity foreign to his father, who did not appreciate the way his son wrote about Indians” (137) - quotes from the November 1881 letter, to show Jacob responding to a rebuke
• “Jacob’s racism is central to his socialization as a member of a community of white men” (137)
• Notes in his November 1881 letter, Jacob boasted of the Western violent order of justice, discussed the hanging of thieves, and promised to “send you a photograph of the two hanged robbers in my next letter. Hurrah for America! It is the only way we can protect our lives and our property” (138)
• Lots of discussion of his weapons (138-9)
• “In Socorro, violence has become a natural way of life for ‘civilized white men.’ The year before, in Boulder, he had still thought of a society ‘where the rifle and revolver are law and justice’ as a ‘world outside of ‘civilization’’” (139)

Betty Bergland, “Norwegian Immigrants, Wisconsin Tribes and the Bethany Indian Mission in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, 1883—1955,” in Norwegian-American Essays, edited by Orm Øverland (Oslo: NAHA Norway, 2005), 67—102.

• Kommentarer

• Will request via UiO. Referenced in Øverland (2006), in reference to “the manner in which tribes in Wisconsin responded to the government’s changing policies” (ØVerland 2006, 114).

Orm Øverland, “Norwegian Americans Meet Native Americans: Exclusion and Inclusion in Immigrant Homemaking in America,” in Postcolonial Dislocations: Travel, History, and the Ironies of Narrative, edited by Charles I. Armstrong and Øyunn Hestetun (Oslo: Novus Press, 2006), 109—122.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Fur (2014)
• Available at NB: https://www.nb.no/items/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2017110908003
• Øverland was a prolific writer in both Norwegian and English scholarship. This essay appears to be borrowed, in some parts, in his introduction to the sixth volume of the Fra Amerika til Norge letters (2010). Specifically, page 61 in the 2010 work, discussing Ole R. Sørtømme, is essentially a translation with little modification from this, his 2006 article, on page 114. See https://www.nb.no/items/647fbd26d178038e0bfdd38e39fd003e?page=63&searchText=%22Ole%20R.%20S%C3%B8rt%C3%B8mme%22 - not necessarily a problem on the academic integrity bits – just may find more information in the 2010 text as well to complement the 2006 text.
• Discusses displacement of natives (109) and the disconnect between Native and immigrant historiographies (much like in Fur 2014)
• “The two population groups have been neighbors if not always friendly” (110)
• His focus here is on the letters from Norwegian immigrants to their families back home, and the depictions of natives therein
• Says that Rølvaag may have coined the term “land taking” in his Giants in the Earth (1927)
• Depictions of landscapes as dotted with evidence of Native past presences – and depictions of friendly encounters. In all, portrays Norwegians as “not only accepted by welcomed on the land of the Native American, who never returns to disturb the peace of these breakers of the sod and tillers of the soil” (111-112). This is in stark contrast to actual encounters.
• Guri Endresen Rosseland letter – 2 December 1866 – argues that her meeting with Natives was not unique, per se (114) And that we can see her heroism without buying the accompanying settler discourses about her significance (114)
• Ole R. Sørtømme letters – fear narratives (115)
• Discusses Jacob Hilton letters, too – how he became “white” in New Mexico – in a defining process against Natives in the West and “the effete liberal Americans of the East” (117)
• “Most Norwegian immigrants seem to have been quick to adopt the prejudices European Americans had developed since their first arrivals in the early seventeenth century. This helped make them like other white Americans and thus their denial of the humanity of the people they had displaced had a homemaking function. That is, it helped Norwegian immigrants to be accepted as white Americans.” (120)
• Notes historian Clarence Clausen – said his family knew Natives who learned some Norwegian terms (121) [seems like an interesting intercultural encounter detail]
• Notes some Sioux Indians of Norwegian descent and gift to Bergen museum (121).

Orm Øverland, “Intruders on Native Ground: Troubling Silences and Memories of the Land-Taking in Norwegian Immigrant Letters,” in Transnational American Memories, edited by Udo Hebel (Berlin: 2009).

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Fur (2014)
• The key quote that Fur uses, from page 84 of Øverland:
• “[i]t may be that the silence of the letters reflects the invisibility of people who were uncomfortable reminders of the ethical ambiguities of immigrant homemaking” (84, quoted in Fur, 68).
• Fur pushes back on this a little bit.

Betty Ann Bergland, “Settler Colonists, "Christian Citizenship", and the Women's Missionary Federation at the Bethany Indian Mission in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, 1884-1934,” in Competing Kingdoms: Women, Mission, Nation, and the American Protestant Empire, 1812-1960, edited by Barbara Reeves-Ellington, Kathryn Kish Sklar, and Connie A. Shemo (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 167—194.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Fur (2014)

Elliott West, “The Nez Perce and Their Trials: Rethinking America’s Indian Wars,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 60, no. 3 (Autumn 2010), 3—18, 92—93.

• Kommentarer

• Mentions Swedish homesteaders
• I have his most recent book on westward expansion. I will check to see if there are any references regarding Scandinavian migrants [update: not much there].

Karen V. Hansen, “Land Taking at Spirit Lake: The Competing and Converging Logics of Norwegian and Dakota Women, 1900—1930,” in Norwegian American Women: Migration, Communities, and Identities, edited by Betty A. Bergland and Lori Ann Lahlum (St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2011), 211—45.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Fur (2014) and Leonard et. al. (2020)

Anna Peterson, “Making Women’s Suffrage Support an Ethnic Duty: Norwegian American Identity Constructions and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1880-1925,” Journal of American Ethnic History 30, no. 4 (Summer 2011): 5—23.

• Kommentarer
• Early twentieth century, Norwegian American women positioning as progressive and democratic vis-a-vis suffrage and homeland
• “Between 1901 and 1912, Norwegian women won a series of legislative victories, including the universal right to vote. To Norwegian Americans, these events held special meaning. They represented verifiable and contemporary proof of what Norwegian Americans had been arguing for some time: namely, that their homeland was a bastion of progress and democracy and that they had carried this particular legacy to the New World” (5)
• “Women’s suffrage advocates also used this particular rhetorical emphasis to substantiate their claims that Norwegian Americans had a duty to support women’s suffrage based on their cultural connection to progress and equality” (5)
• “Suffragists translated an established rhetoric of Norwegian AMerican progressiveness into assertions that Norwegians were culturally obligated to support women’s political equality in the United States” (6)
• Notes the Kensington Rune 1898 (6) and Norwegian Americans’ emphasis on Viking heritage and discovery of America (6)
• “At the turn of the twentieth century, Norwegian Americans increasingly stressed their relationship to the qualities of liberty, progress, and equality” (6)
• “Collet’s, Lie’s, and Ibsen’s popularity and their groundbreaking critique of women’s inequality came to symbolize Norwegian Americans’ progressive roots” (7)
• “Norway’s nearly universal rate of literacy allowed Norwegian immigrants to participate in an exchange of ideas with their native land that centered on literature” (7) - books sent from home country to the States to continue reading in own language and sharing in that culture
• Notes that Elise Wærenskjold was one of these – she “lived on the isolated Texan prairie and asked her family and friends in Norway for novels written by recently published authors, especially Jonas Lie. Wærenskjold did not care much for Ibsen, but did ask for a copy of Ed dukkehjem because of its importance to the feminist cause. All of these rural Norwegian Americans wanted access to books from Norway as a way to connect to the society they had left behind while forging a new identity in the United States.” (7-8)
• Urban Norwegian Americans often had more opportunities to participate in organized literary societies” (8)
• “In the minds of many Norwegian Americans, Norway became an idyllic land, one that upheld the values of freedom, independence, and progress” (8)
• “Norwegian immigrant Ida Hansen started Kvinden og Hjemmet in her Cedar Rapids, Iowa, home in 1888 and gave it the subtitle Et maanedskrift for den Skandinaviske kvinde i Amerika” (9)
• Circulation peaked at 83,000 in 1907 “the same year Norwegian women gained limited suffrage” (9)
• “The editors and contributors of Kvinden og Hjemmet openly used ethnicity as grounds to elicit Scandinavian American approval of women’s suffrage. They frequently sought to link Norwegian American identity and feminism” (9)
• Lots of articles that did comparative work, trying to evoke what Norwegian Americans should be doing
• One contributor “concluded that it was Norwegian women’s ability to candidly address their situation that led them to victory and assured her readers that ‘it wouldn’t hurt to think about it’” (10)
• Discusses the Scandinavian Woman’s Suffrage Assocation (SWSA) and how they tried to utilize this cultural/political affinity for domestic agenda in the US (11ff)
• Notes a banner/sash from the SWSA in 1914, during celebrations of Norway’s constitutional centennial - “Women Vote in Norway” - “While it carried different messages for Norwegian Americans than it did for Anglos, the sash clearly highlighted links between the current battle in the United States and Norwegian Americans’ triumphant suffragist sisters in the old country” (14)
• Post-1918 and WWI, Scandinavian women still held to their ethnic identity in this discussion - “Scandinavian Americans might have disassociated themselves from their ethnicity in other ways, such as through the adoption of the English language in churches and schools, but the SWSA chose to maintain its ethnic affiliation until the organization dissolved in 1920 after women’s suffragists’ demand for the vote resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution” (17)
• “The interconnectedness between Norwegian American identity construction and the American women’s suffrage movement is especially evident in the writings from the centennial of Norwegian immigration to the United States in 1925.” (17)
• Frederikke Qvam – leader of National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Norway - “headed a project to gather and condense the history of the Norwegian women’s rights movement from 1814 to 1924 in celebration of the centennial of Norwegian immigration to the United States” (18) [will look for her in the NB database]
• “In the United States, Norwegian American women compiled an anthology in 1925 to help define what constituted a ‘Norwegian-American woman.’ Many of the poems, articles, and biographies that helped establish this definition referenced a Norwegian American progressive identity. For example, SWSA member Helen Egilsrud wrote an article titled ‘Our Ideals’ for this compilation in which she attributed the success of the women’s suffrage movement to the ‘radical ideals’ Norwegians had brought with them to America. She claimed that it was Norwegian Americans’ ‘duty to support and fight’ for these ideals of ‘freedom, honesty, and the spirit of progressiveness’ in their adopted country.” (18)
• “Also in 1925, the International Women’s Council convened in the United States . . . During this meeting, the noted Norwegian American Republican spokeswoman Carrie Fosseen gave a speech titled ‘The Working Out of Suffrage.’ Fosseen stated that Norwegian women brought a sense of appreciation for the ballot and political freedom with them to the United States. She argued that this, in part, enabled Norwegian American women to actively use their new-found right to vote” (18)

Maria Erling, “Wrestling with the Mission Mantle: Matthias Wahlstrom, Failed Missionary to the Comanche, and the Relation between the Augustana Synod and the Covenant Church,” Swedish-American Historical Quarterly 63 (April-July 2012): 135—157.

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Fur (2014)
• Downloaded from online open access: https://bibno-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/samuel_klee_nb_no/Documents/Norwegian-Native%20Contact%20Project/Erling_Essay.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=nIOct0

Karen V. Hansen, Encounter on the Great Plains: Scandinavian Settlers and the Dispossession of Dakota Indians, 1890—1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Fur (2014) and Leonard et. al. (2020)
• According to Leonard et. al., “From Karen V. Hansen’s book . . . we know that Scandinavians eagerly and actively accumulated land at Spirit Lake. The story she tells of coexistence on the reservation chronicles the process of dispossession of Dakota land from 1904 to 1929. Her landowning statistics include all landowners, not just homesteaders” (Leonard et. al., 32).
• Again, Leonard et. al.: “Scandinavians were the largest landowning group on the reservation, far surpassing Dakotas. Women comprised 24 percent of Scandinavian landowners” (34)

Gunlög Fur, “Indians and Immigrants—Entangled Histories,” Journal of American Ethnic History 33, no. 3 (2014): 55—76.

• Kommentarer

• Cited in Leonard et. al. (2020), regarding how immigrants “are most often lumped together as ‘white settlers’” (Fur, 55)
• Notes, like Bergland, lack of historiographic attention to Norwegian-Native contacts (55)
• Notes Scandinavian immigrants who, 1840s-1930s, “settled on Indian land or near Indian Reservations” (55) - meetings as “obvious” but under-discussed (55)
• Notes that “settlement and removal” historiographies are disconnected, but I’m not sure that’s entirely the case still, given the later sources in this list (56)
• Argues connecting immigrant and indigenous histories is critical – and notes that more recent historians “still neglect encounters between indigenous peoples and non-Anglo American settlers” (57)
• Writing from the Swedish and Scandinavian perspective, observes that lack of own competence in Dakota and Ojibwe history/culture/language would necessitate collaborative work for more comprehensive project (57)
• Spends a lot of the article discussing two fictions – of “American Empire” and “friendly relations that deny not only conflicts over land and resources and various and ongoing interactions, but also the erasure of indigenous Americans in the history of the continent” (58)
• Discusses Fredrika Bremer, Finnish-born Swede who traveled the States in 1850s, wrote of it (58-9)
• Impact of James Fenimore Cooper’s writings, which were translated into Swedish in the 1820s (59)
• Notes Ole Munch Ræder travel letters, from 1847-1848, makes the case that he mentions of tomahawk-armed natives looking to scalp people was an allusion to James Fenimore Cooper (60), but she is also relying on Bergland (2000) for quotes from Ræder.
• Discusses Orm Øverland’s Immigrant Minds, American Identities (2000), and discusses the need to not reduce all settlers to “white” homogeneous group (60)
• Swedish primary sources discussing inevitable Native extinctions (60)
• “Swedes in America did not immediately identify with Anglo-Americans, nor were they initially viewed as such” (60) unclear racial status vis-a-vis Natives and settlement
• Key passage: “It was the land itself that brought Indians and immigrants into contact and conflict” (61)
• Finn and Sweed experience with Sami as possible cause of hospitable relations, or at least of memorialization of good ties (61)
• Noted Hugo Nisbeth, a Swedish writer, perhaps a good example of broader Scandinavian impressions (62) - was aware of “the trauma of dispossession” (62)
• Louis Ahlström - Swedish settler in Wisconsin – also acknowledged trauma (62-3) - lots of nature mentions in his accounts of Wisconsin
• Then moves into discussing 1862 uprising – under Little Crow – August 17, 1862 – four Natives shot, 5 white settlers killed (63) - over 500 settlers killed in the following month, lots of Natives too - “epicenter in Southwest Minnesota” (63)
• Noted that 24 Swedish and Norwegian settlers died (64)
• Some, like Lawson (1925) and Lundblad (2000) tried to absolve Nordic settlers of responsibility (64)
• Interesting bit regarding food and reciprocity miscommunications and failed intercultural communication, where Natives perceived stinginess, whereas Immigrants saw begging (64-5)
• Øverland discussion of immigrants trying to claim insider, belonging status (66)
• When discussing whiteness status, discusses Elliott West’s work – specifically Swedish settlers, but probably broadly applicable (67)
• Then discusses erasure narratives, 1940s (67-9) - silence in sources regarding Natives? Øverland quoted, speculating it was because of immigrants’ discomfort? (see above) - Fur pushes back, arguing that we need to examine silences – points to everyday interactions – that the homesteads attested to need to bring two fields of study into contact (69) - “Countless homesteads belonged to both worlds, and their offspring are as much a part of American history as any other” (69) [key]
• Notes Native woman and Swedish man, couple, who had children – both were trying to become American [I thought this was a good point] (69)
• Contemplates meaning of truth and reconciliation, and need for scholars to have “double vision” in both fields (69-70)

Jørn Brøndal, “‘The Fairest among the So-Called White Races’: Portrayals of Scandiavian Americans in the Filiopietistic and Nativist Literature of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of American Ethnic History 33, no. 3 (Spring 2014): 5—36.

• Kommentarer

• This is very much in line with Bergland (2021) and others, on the development of Norwegian Americans’ identity as white.
• “This turn to scientific race thinking appeared to place the Scandinavian immigrants and their American-born progeny in a relatively safe spot in the public discourse on immigration policy, on the more agreeable side of a widening divide separating the ‘old’ immigrants of northern and western European background from the ‘new’ immigrants of southern and eastern European heritage” (5)
• “The aim of the present article is to study more closely ways in which a number of commentators—some contributing to a debate on Scandinavian American identity, others participating in a nativist discourse on immigration restriction—grappled with positioning the Scandinavian Americans within this evolving hierarchy of whiteness.” (6) - also notes that “less has been written about the immigrant groups whose whiteness seemed beyond doubt” (6)
• “A few sources do actually indicate that in the early days of mass migration, Scandinavian immigrants occasionally confronted hostility from their native-born white surroundings, as when Norwegian newcomers in Wisconsin in the 1840s were labeled ‘Norwegian Indians,’ or when one of Wisconsin’s founding fathers implied that he would rather vote for a black man for political office than for a Norwegian immigrant” (6)
• Note: did a brief newspaper search on Newspapers.com for “Norwegian Indians.” Did not turn up very much. The most interesting results are here (see link). Some sources discussed the ethnicity of baseball players, others about a 2007 film that, while not great cinema, could be an interesting complement to the other depictions of Norwegian settlement and integration into American society. One article uses the term to describe then-prince Harald in 1953, when he visited with Native Americans from Montana. Otherwise, the term is used in the states to discuss the Sami, as if the American reader needs to call every indigenous person “Indian” to understand where they stand. Finally, there was someone running for US Senate in 2000 who identified as a Norwegian Indian.
• “First, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of Scandinavian American filiopietistic writers claimed that not only were the racial qualities of their own group impeccable, but they also deserved a special status for their role in the ‘discovery’ of America. Second, in the first two-and-a-half decades of the twentieth century, several prominent American writers contributed works to a fast-growing body of literature on immigration policy that was nativist in orientation and racist in inclination.” (7)
• “In order to prove their credentials at the very top of a racialized pecking order—indeed, to establish a status for the Scandinavian Americans on a part with that of white Americans of ‘old stock’—one homemaking myth was of particular significance, a myth that, as Øverland and Dag Blanck each suggest, played a central role especially to Norwegian American identity formation but was also of importance to Swedish Americans and—as it turns out—Danish Americans. That is the story of the Viking discovery of America around the year 1000” (10)
• Notes that Rasmus B. Anderson of the University of Wisconsin was responsible for propagating the story of Leif Erickson as part of the Norwegian American homemaking myth. His book, America Not Discovered by Columbus (1874) “would go through eight printings and be translated into both Danish and German” (10) - “The meaning Anderson was trying to convey was double: first, the Norse Vikings came to America before anyone else from Europe and should be so honored. Second, Leif Erickson was white. As Anderson reiterated: ‘Let us remember Leif Erickson, the first white man who planted his feet on American soil!” (10)
• Notes that in 1893, for the Chicago World’s Fair, “a replica of a Viking ship under the command of captain Magnus Andersen sailed from Bergen in Norway to New York City and thence via the Hudson River and the Erie Canal on to the Great Lakes and Chicago, [and] Rasmus B. Anderson—now recently retired U.S. Minister to Denmark—joined the boat for the journey’s final leg” (11) - was covered by the NYT
• Then goes into the nativist writers (13ff), and their attempts to establish a racial order scientifically
• Good overview of the racist/scientific literature, and how it tried to position Norwegians (16-17)
• Some even tried to position democratic government within the “Anglo-Nordic idea of liberty” (18)
• Attempts to make Columbus Norwegian: “While acknowledging that the Vikings came first, Clinton Stoddard Burr urged his readers not to denigrate the role played by Columbus, for ‘if the famous navigator was only emulating the achievement of the Vikings,’ in all likelihood he was a north Italian and thus a Nordic who ‘probably owed his pioneering spirit to the blood of his ancesters [sic] through whose veins ran the partial strain of Goth or Lombard” (19)
• “In Madison Grant’s opinion, ‘Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are purely Nordic and yearly contribute swarms of a splendid type of immigrants to America, and are now, as they have been for thousands of years, the nursery and broodland of the master race.” (20)
• “In sum, by showering praise on the Scandinavian Americans on grounds of race and a distant past, and contrasting them favorably with the ‘new’ immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, the nativist writers were offering a narrative that, while following a harsher and more explicitly racial line of reasoning, blended in quite well with the romantically inspired filiopietistic writings of the Scandinavian Americans. Indeed, in 1920, the poet Edgar Lee Masters, in an obvious gesture to Madison Grant, wrote a poem entitled ‘The Great Race Passes,’ the first stanza of which read: ‘They were fair-haired Achaeans / Who won the Trojan War / They were the Vikings who sailed to Iceland / And America / They became the bone of England / And the fire of Normandy / And the will of Holland and Germany / And the builders of America” (22)
• Discusses how the Scandinavian Americans themselves were trying to “justify, at least for now, their own presence in the United States . . . with their language, literature, and mythology acting as romantically inspired proxies for peoplehood and race” (25)

Karen V. Hansen, Grey Osterud, and Valerie Grim, “‘Land Was One of the Greatest Gifts’: Women’s Landownership in Dakota Indian, Immigrant Scandinavian, and African American Communities,” Great Plains Quarterly 38, no. 3 (Summer 2018): 251—72.

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Leonard et. al. (2020).
• Used here to discuss the different pathways that women took to landownership – namely, making and commuting homestead claims, purchases, inheritance, and joint ownership (Leonard et. al., 31).

Samantha Leonard, Mikal Eckstrom, Karen V. Hansen, and Gwen N. Westerman, “Immigrant Land Taking and Indian Dispossession,” in Norwegian-American Essays 2020, edited by Terje Mikael Hasle Joranger and Harry T. Cleven (Oslo: Novus Press, 2020), 21—73.

• Kommentarer

• Fascinating series of essays, and an interesting complement to Bergland’s work.
• Starts with anecdote about 1881 immigrant woman from Norway who moved to North Dakota, covers her story to 1925, with receiving homestead (21)
• Goes over general history of dispossession in Minnesota and Dakota territories (22)
• 1862 Homestead Act – allowed men and single women to get 160 acre plots of land – explicitly “invited immigrants to claim homestead land (22) - intent to become citizens a key part of homesteading – and it excluded Natives, then, as they were also excluded from full citizenship (22-23)
• “Immigrants unwittingly wrested title from Indigenous Peoples” (23) - which is a rather different approach than Bergland’s work, where she sees immigrants as both active and complicit (Bergland 2021).
• Dawes / Allottment Act of 1887 – assault on the “lifeways” of Dakota people (23) - and boarding schools as a part of cultural genocide (24)
• This collection of essays, then, within a settler colonial frame (24) - “an inclusive, land-centered project that coordinates a comprehensive range of agencies, from the metropolitan center to the frontier encampment, with a view to eliminating Indigenous societies” (24) - Patrick Wolfe’s definition
• Whose land? “Whose labor made life possible?” (24)
• Settler colonialism as a “reproductive project” (24)
• See also Kelly Lytle Hernandez’s work, City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017) as a good example of this settler colonial frame.
• Land, citizenship, whiteness matrix (25)
• Around 1910 in North Dakota, Norwegians were the top immigrant group at 29% (approximately) of the white population, while Scandinavians comprised 40% (26)
• So the essays have a focus on land taking around Fort Berthold and Spirit Lake reservations in North Dakota, and connections to immigrants (26)
• First essay by Hansen and Leonard, then: “Reservation Homesteading: Norwegian Immigrant Women and Indian Dispossession, 1887—1934”
• Hansen’s oral history with her grandmother: “We stole the land from the Indians” (27). This was taken in part from Hansen’s 2013 book. There, she discussed how her family homestead was established between 1905 and 1912, as part of the land-taking in the twentieth century (28). This demonstrates that it did not stop in the nineteenth century, but was rather an ongoing process. “. . . reservations remained major land repositories into the twentieth century” (29)
• Looks at the gendered elements of the 1862 and 1887 acts (30)
• “Wherever Norwegian immigrant women were concentrated, they were active in land taking, which probably attracted them to the place. Due to their traditionally special relationship to land and farming, Norwegian immigrants were drawn to the opportunity for land-ownership presented by the U.S. Homesteading Act” (30)
• Women as growing share of homesteaders in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (31)
• Different paths to landownership (31) purchase, inheritance, own claims, joint ownership
• “Using recently digitized land records and census records, we have built a database of homestead and commutation claims on both reservations” (32) - good empirical element
• Compare to Haugen (2013) data, both showing large number of Scandinavian and female homesteaders (32-34)
• “Surplus land on the reservation . . . was opened to white homesteading in 1904” (34). This drastically shrank reservation footprints (34)
• Also uses US National Archives for Bureau of Land Management sources for land files, to tell stories of Norwegian American women homesteaders (37)
• Gets into the differences between a homestead claim and a purchase and a commutation (the latter as costing more, two to three times as much) - the commutation of a homestead claim grants a patent to the land, rather than a deed, and one paid in cash – the idea being that you paid for the land, rather than continuing to work it over time to receive the homestead grant/deed - this was a faster process, could take out a loan to buy, and then could leave sooner and have greater mobility (37-38)
• Norwegians “were the predominant group of non-native landowners on the Spirit Lake and Fort Berthold reservations” (39)
• “The disparity between men and women speaks to the fervent and effective commitment Scandinavian women made to obtaining land. Homesteading was the most labor intensive way to acquire land, but required the least capital” (39)
• “More Norwegian women homesteaded (about 10 percent more on both reservations) and more Norwegian men commuted their claims (about 5 percent more on both reservations)” (40)
• “For first and second generation Norwegian women, both homesteading and commutation provided important paths to landownership” (42). The authors see this as a key to mobility despite gender inequality: “women’s commitment to investing their labor in the land stemmed from an economic and cultural calculus” (42)
• Second sub-essay, by Mikal Eckstrom: “Dakotas and Russian Jewish Immigrants: Structured Land Taking and ‘Making’ American Farmers” (43ff)
• 1970s oral history sources (43)
• North Dakota as “nexus for interactions between these groups” of Jewish, Norwegian, and Native Americans (43). These interactions as structured by federal regulation and racial hierarchy (43)
• Russian Jews and “uplift” communes by German Jews (44)
• Five of these in North Dakota, one near Spirit Lake. “These private philanthropic projects, the U.S. government’s continual quest to reduce Indigenous landholdings, and the Spirit Lake Dakotas’ determination to retain as much of their treaty land as possible brought the worlds of Dakotas and Russian Jewish immigrants together” (44)
• Goes over Spirit Lake Dakotas and their use of allotment and attempts to preserve their culture: “How they initially claimed and worked the land remained firmly rooted in Indigenous customs” (45) - took on some US characteristics, like housing (45)
• Homestead agents split Native claims and families, as opposed to Jewish homesteads, where they preserved inheritance plots (46-47)
• Still, difficult life: “Yet Jewish immigrants were never asked to change their cultural practices, change crops, or endure cultural rupture” (48)
• Jewish female landownership, in contrast to Eastern European experience (49)
• Natives could not “sell or even give up their allotments [went through bureaucrats] . . . Settler families like the Colofs had the liberty to mortgage and sell their land after receiving their patent” (50)
• “Uplift” projects and whiteness (50ff) as entailing race, land, voting rights, power (51). “Becoming a settler colonialist was an avenue to becoming ‘white’ in the rural West” (51)
• Jews in North Dakota served in military, fought Natives, voted, etc. - looks to Matthew Frye Jacobson, his term for this as “political whiteness” which was inaccessible to Dakotas as Natives (51)
• Government interventions to reduce Indianness (52-3)
• Native profits from agricultural goods as different than Jewish or Norwegian equivalents – Natives received federal annuities or goods, as a federal measure of control (53-54)
• Schooling, too, as radically different projects across groups (55-6)
• “The federal government placed immigrant Jewish settlers and their Norwegian counterparts above Indigenous peoples in the settler hierarchy” (58)
• Final sub-essay, by Gwen Westerman: “Filling the In-Between Spaces”
• The great lead here is that she witnessed a 2017 performance of The Uprooting, about Norwegian-American immigrants. See Rosseland, The Uprooting, as well as suggested essay topic.
• Westerman notes that, when watching a production of the play on a 2017 conference, “What struck me most about this production was my realization that those Norwegian immigrants had no idea where they were going or exactly how the land in the Great Plains had been ‘opened up’ for them. The Russian Jews were resettled in agricultural communes across North Dakota, as Ekstrom explains, after they ‘had fled persecution and pogroms in Russia.’ These immigrants were not coming with the specific goal to steal Indian land or to settle on Devil’s Lake [same as Spirit Lake] Reservation; they were coming to America” (59)

Betty A. Bergland, “Norwegian Migration and Displaced Indigenous Peoples: Toward an Understanding of Nordic Whiteness in the Land-Taking,” in Nordic Whiteness and Migration to the USA, edited by Jana Sverdljuk, Terje Mikael Hasle Joranger, Erika K. Jackson, and Peter Kivisto (London: Routledge, 2021), 17—34.

• Kommentarer
• “intersections of indigenous and immigrant peoples” (17) - “draws on whiteness studies to explore the process of Norwegians identifying as white” (17) - “securing land remains core to understanding identification” (17)
• “Nordic whiteness” concept (18) - more recent works have almost a contemporary focus, lack historical focus (18)
• Mills, The Racial Contract (1997), people “consent” to whiteness, implicitly or explicitly, and “avoid questioning the system” (19) - supported by “epistemology of ignorance” (19) - “giving consent must be an ongoing process” (18)
• Notes land as a way that Norwegians benefited – land as primary drama, federal dispossession as key (19)
• “This essay argues that Norwegian immigrants—generally, but with possible exceptions—consented to the racial contract in a process that occurred gradually over time and space” (19) [key]
• Three periods:
• Wisconsin and Removal (1830s to 1850s)
• Civil War and Indian Wars (1860s to 1870s)
• Early 20th Century and Celebrations of Migration Centennial in Twin Cities for Norwegian Americans (1914, 1925)
• “These historical moments demonstrate how Norwegian immigrants came to understand their presence in North America, accept American values, and reveal a gradual acceptance of the racial contract” (20)
• Then gets into the periods
• Period 1
• First Norwegian Americans in the Midwest - “Sloopers” - from New York, 1834 – discusses Rynning – notes he “speaks well” of Natives while erasing conditions of their removal and dispossession (20)
• 1848 – Wisconsin statehod – 9,467 Norwegians, approximately 3% of the white population (20) - 29,567 in 1860 (3.8%) - 59,619 in 1860 (5.6%)
• Notes differences between tribes that moved to WI, who moved to WI to avoid whites, and those from WI who “resisted removal” (21) and those from WI who were removed West (21)
• Notes Øverland (1995) - with letters and silences again (21)
• As well as the 18th century primary sources she addressed in 2000 as a counterpoint to Øverland’s silences arguments (21)
• Duus’ story regarding his wife, again (21) - and theological reasons for refusing superiority (22)
• Mid-upper class – reported encounters and were generally empathetic – also “seemed to support the racial contract. Ræder defended Indian policy as just, and Dietrichson rationalized federal policies as necessary and inevitable due to Indians’ lack of civilization” (22) - R. and D. as aligned with the state (22) - “In short, Ræder and Dietrichson assist naïve/clueless immigrants on the nature of the racial contract—and to see the world wrongly” (22) - help migrants “embrace an ‘epistemology of ignorance’” (22) - “Duus did offer an alternative view, but he returned to Norway” (22)
• Second period – 1860s to 1870s (23ff)
• US-Dakota War (1862) (23)
• Cause as “sustained assault on the land and tribal ways of the Dakota people” (23)
• “Private ownership of land and its sale were alien concepts” (23) - made land-purchases and treaties of 1850s problematic (23-24)
• August 17, 1862 to September 23, 1862 in Minnesota – approximately 800 settlers and soldier deaths, similar/unknown Native numbers (24)
• Norwegians in the conflict – 12,000 Norwegians in 1860 Minnesota – 23 deaths in 1862 conflict (24)
• Mentions Guri Endresen again (24) - did not write her family until 1866
• Norwegian papers in Chicago and Wisconsin use of “massacre” and “uprising” (24) [other terms to look into] - accounts followed in ensuing years
• Minnesota government and hanging of 38 Dakota in December 1862 (25) and subsequent deportations and military pursuit of fleeing Dakota - “These military expeditions led to the massacre of innocents . . . justified as protecting the frontier for white settlement” (25) - on newly “open” land” for immigrants (who were unaware, or had limited awareness, of expulsion) (25)
• Reservation Lands – degraded by Allotment Act / Dawes Act of 1887, privatized land, white purchases – including Norwegians - “Thus, land in Minnesota was ‘emptied’ for white settlement but also land designated for the exiled Dakota” (26)
• Notes drastic increase, the of Norwegian population in the state (26)
• Mentions Hansen’s 2013 book as good scholarship (26-7)
• Final period and “narrating whiteness” (27)
• 1914 as celebrating Norwegian Constitution and shared democratic values (27)
• 1925 as celebrating Restauration and focus on “allegiances to the US . . . and achievements of Norwegians” (27) - 1925 context of WWI nativism (27) - trying to emphasize Norwegian role in racial hierarchy (28)
• Pageant and Hans Christian Heg – US Civil War soldier, died 1863 (28)
• “Using 100 actors and twenty-four scenes, the Pageant sought to legitimize the land-taking two generations after the US-Dakota War, kept alive in newspapers, commemorations, and monuments” (28)
• There is a scene where Natives “depart” the stage – followed by Norwegians (28) - frames disappearance narrative (28) [cites Phil Deloria]
• Willard Dillman was the writer – a local – he left a narrative of it! (will find)
• Asks who the Pageant represented, whose ideas (29) - all, few, or the Bygdelag councils? (29) - “a full response to these questions cannot be addressed here but should be asked” (29)
• Notes founding of the NAHA in 1925 too (29)

David C. Mauk, The Heart of the Heartland: Norwegian American Community in the Twin Cities (St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2022).

• Kommentarer

• New book, with a few mentions of Native Americans:
• Near beginning of book, describes the “Land-Taking Pioneer Generation” (25-ff) and traces their spread across the Midwest and Plains states during the 19th century
• “Without ownership of land on the American frontier, the first-generation immigrants had no home, no place to resume the family lineage and history after breaking with the ancestral plot of land in Norway. Such attitudes inevitably colored their sense that Native Americans—with their land and resources held in common—represented a culture alien to the Norwegians’ and made them support removal of the Natives or the loss of their title to the land” (28).
• Notes early St. Paul, MN area, where Native peoples (Ojibwe and others) met and married Europeans (38) and that there was a substantial Native population in the area. Though that they were removed in 1851 (39) - with Norwegians arriving “at this stage in its development” circa 1847 (39)
• Describes some of the early land-taking in the Minneapolis region, when the military ceased to control land, and white squatters on just-recently Native lands (52-55)
• In directories of residents in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Mauk notes that “Native Americans seem no more than an initial impediment [to?] overcome. The St. Paul writer descries their former presence as an element of departed romance. These attitudes help explain the surprise with which so many white Minnesotans witnessed the Dakota War of 1862.” (58)
• Describes Norwegian participation in the Dakota War
• Men who had enlisted to fight in the Civil War, about 67 Swedes/Norwegians killed in Dakota War (63) - 12.7% of total US casualties there, double proportion of Swedes/Norwegians in the general population in Minnesota
• Retells the Guri Endreson Rosseland story (64-65). Cites Øverland and Blegen for his sources. Apparently “A wider public did not know the letter’s contents until her descendants allowed the historian Theodore Blegen to translate and publish it in 1929” (65) Her family home was restored/preserved “by the state as a historic site for the Minnesota centenary in 1958” (66).
• “After the Dakota War of 1862, contacts between Norwegian and Native Americans soured and remained distant into the post-World War II years” (304). Quotes from an oral history to this effect – Krista Sande Johnson, “explained how she absorbed stereotypical attitudes toward Ojibwe people—and Native Americans in general—when she was young.” (304)
• Quote at length, describing life in the late 1940s, in Detroit Lakes, MN: “. . . the jail would be littered with Indian men, hanging from the windows in all kinds of weather, dangling things out, and their women and their children would be outside wailing with their meagre possessions. And they’d be passing things back and forth through the window—liquor or food or candy or whatever. And that was one of my earliest recollections: these Indian men hanging out of the jails, and the women outside. People didn’t want to drive by there. My mother would make comments about ‘Oh, they’re doing it again, they’re hanging out the windows.’ And my father would make comments about ‘Indians and liquor do not match.’” (304) Also that her family always blamed the Natives for their state.
• Source is a 28 April 1999 interview, with the Twin Cities History Project, where Johnson “discussed how common views about Native Americans were spread among the white community in both rural areas and the Twin Cities” with Reverend Kieth Olstad, a pastor at University Lutheran Church of Hope (414).
• Mauk also observes that these two groups, starting from rural MN, both moved to the Twin Cities, and then had to learn how to interact with one another. (305)
• Regarding racial hierarchy in the Twin Cities in the twentieth century:
• “Norwegian Americans played central roles in negotiating relations between the haves and the have-nots in the Twin Cities. Their position in the status hierarchy of Minneapolis-St. Paul could hardly have been higher from 1945 to 1975. The public perceived them and Scandinavian Americans generally as ‘old’ immigrants whose early arrival and white Protestantism by then had assisted their integration into the mainstream white majority. In Minnesota that meant they had participated in historical events and processes that earned them a place among the ‘founders’ of the state and Twin Cities. They had played prominent roles in the original land-taking from the Native Americans and the organization of farming-district and small-town governments, and they constituted a major component of the people who between the later 1860s and 1970s either immigrated directly to or left the countryside for Minneapolis-St. Paul.” (292)
• Also quotes Boe (see below) regarding Indians coming to the Norwegians with their needs (292)
• “In cooperation with others, local Norwegian Americans and their leaders in fact rose to the occasion, actively working to meet the internal and metropolitan challenges outlined above, especially the protests of growing African and Native American minorities in the 1960s. By the end of the decade, however, as a prominent part of the old-stock white establishment, Norwegian Americans repeatedly elected conservative Charles Stenvig mayor in Minneapolis during a backlash against liberal social policies that was both local and national.” (293)
• “Encouraged by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, thousands of Native Americans left desperate conditions on reservations around the country, including in the Upper Midwest, to find industrial work in the nation’s metropolitan areas, including Minneapolis-St. Paul [in the post-WWII period]. Like other newcomers from minority groups, most of them selected homes in districts that historically housed Scandinavian immigrants and their community institutions” (307)
• Notes that Native American population in Twin Cities grew in 1950s-1970s - “from three to four hundred to eleven to twelve thousand” (326) - partly pushed by BIA federal efforts to urbanize Native population and move them out of reservations (326) - and that some of the Native Americans moved to regions of the city that were historically inhabited by Norwegian immigrants (327) - established mutual aid societies, churches, and schools there (327)
• Norwegian American minister, Paul A. Boe - “a dramatic instance of a relationship of trust that grew up between a Norwegian American minister and Native American activists who local, state, and national authorities were convinced were dangerous radicals” (328)
• Boe – directed American Lutheran Church’s social services – after merger of Norwegian/Scandinavian/German American Lutheran churches (1961) (328)
• Interpersonal connections to Native community and activists (328)
• During 1973 activist “occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota” Boe was called “to come as an observer who would personally experience their situation. Boe arrived at the Pine Ridge Reservation the next day, and local Natives sympathetic to AIM [American Indian Movement, group established in 1968 in Minneapolis] ushered him into their besieged camp at Wounded Knee [surrounded by federal law enforcement]. AIM’s occupation . . . was to protest against what it called the ‘trail of broken treaties’ left by white governments and the resulting misery of reservation life.” (328)
• Many of his congregation later opposed his participation in that event (329)
• He also had a “special ministry to Indians” in St. Louis Park (Minnesota?) (330)
• “Norwegian Americans and Native Americans in the Twin Cities were generally self-segregating and held critical views of each other. Still, Lutheran Social Services, its employees (such as Boe), DFL activists, and some historically Norwegian congregations in downtown Minneapolis have developed cordial relations and engaged in mutual assistance with the Native American community” (330).

Primærkilder (grovt sett i kronologisk orden)

Ole Rynning, Ole Rynning’s True Account of America, translated and edited by Theodore C. Blegen (Minneapolis, MN: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1926 [1838 original]).

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000), Bergland (2021)
• According to Bergland (2021): notes he “speaks well” of Natives while erasing conditions of their removal and dispossession (20)
• https://www.nb.no/items/48f4fad57cf6ddaec1d7a420cf2b3d5c
• Originally published in Oslo in 1838. Bergland (2000) works with this edition, which includes both the original and translated text. Rynning died in 1839. Some mentions of Native Americans. Search for “Indian” turns up nothing, though “Indians” returns a handful of results. For example:
• His account is set up in a Q&A fashion, and question 10 is “Is there considerable danger from disease in America? Is there reason to fear wild animals and the Indians?” (65)
• Other mentions on page 75 (in an annotation – unclear if this is from the original or Blegen – I suspect original), 80 (on Indians living by hunting, not really encounter, more that settlers would have to imitate Natives), and then 90-1 when he answers question #10.
• Blegen, in his introduction, notes that Rynning’s father, Jens Rynning, wrote about his son’s reported death in Morgenbladet in 1939, and included a list of comparison points about Norway and North America, including:
• “Her [i Nord-Amerika] lever man i Enighed med hinanden, fordi hver Uforligelig kan flytte ud, og hvad Indianer angaaer [?], da er man ikke sikker for varigt Venstad med dem.”
• Link to Morgenbladet edition in NB: https://www.nb.no/items/fc00f0dec829f7b785fe34b0b799e45f?page=1&searchText=Indianer
• Blegen’s translation: “Here they live in harmony with one another because every irreconcilable person can move out. As to the Indians, one is not sure of a lasting peace with them.”
• Note that Rynning’s format, the series of questions he has about animals/diseases/Natives, all track with the formatting of the play by Rosseland, The Uprooting. (See below)

Johan Reinert Reiersen, Veiveser for norske emigranter til de forenede nordamerikanske stater og Texas (Christiania, 1844).

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000) and Bergland (2021)
• According to Bergland (2000), Natives as “harmless” in his account (Bergland, 331). “Defends federal Indian policy” because land was for migrants, against “monopolistic” and “barbarian” Indian land possession (Bergland, 331).
• https://www.nb.no/items/e0e4acbf6a58be48949f9d169964a4bb
• I forord, “harmløse Indianer” (XIV)
• Bergland, and her translation of that section: “In his Forward, he reassures fellow countrymen that they need not fear being ‘molested by the completely harmless Indians who still roam the forests of Wisconsin.” (331)
• Translation of Veiveser in English, by Frank G. Nelson (1981) available on Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/pathfinderfornor0000joha

J.W.C. Dietrichson, Pastor J.W.C. Dietrichsons Reise blandt de norske Emigranter i “De forenede nordamerikanske Fristater” (Madison, WI: 1896 [1846 original]).

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000) and Bergland (2021)
• According to Bergland (2000), Dietrichson makes frequent mentions of Native Americans – a lot of white man’s burden discourse – Natives as not to be feared, and critiques of US treatment (Bergland, 340)
• According to Bergland (2021): Mid-upper class – reported encounters and were generally empathetic – also “seemed to support the racial contract. Ræder defended Indian policy as just, and Dietrichson rationalized federal policies as necessary and inevitable due to Indians’ lack of civilization” (22) - Ræder and Dietrichson as aligned with the state (22) - “In short, Ræder and Dietrichson assist naïve/clueless immigrants on the nature of the racial contract—and to see the world wrongly” (22) - help migrants “embrace an ‘epistemology of ignorance’” (22)
• https://www.nb.no/items/1a3b5fd7040f4c80a706a762f9ec1d8d
• This edition was published in Madison, Wisconsin, but the original was published in 1846 in Stavanger. Not sure NB has access to the original. Search for “Indianere” comes back with several results. NB does not have access to the translation in English (A Pioneer Churchman, 1973). In any case, describes some encounters, Bergland has a good synopsis.

Søren Bache, A Chronicle of Old Muskego: the diary of Søren Bache, 1839-1847 (published diary)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000)
• Republished, translated: https://www.nb.no/items/7dc1ced21d2988516aac92df311a117e?page=49&searchText=Indians
• Mentioned in Bergland, as cited in Blegen. Bache born in Drammen in 1814. Many passages in diary confirm the “absence” of Indians narrative. Other instances, such as on page 38, recount encounters with Native Americans. Search terms “Indian” and “Indians” turn up decent results. One interesting result, on page 45, notes an observation in 1841 from Bache – that “Nothing remarkable or worthy of recording happened during this long period; our existence could be compared with that of hermits since there were hardly any people with whom we could associate except the filthy Norwegian mountaineers who, in certain respects, were exactly like Indians.” Compares Indians and mountaineers vis-a-vis “filthy” term again in 1844, on page 125. On page 142, “. . . they also had to fight against wild beasts and Indians” (1845).

Elise Wærenskjold letter, “Texas is the Best State” (1852)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000)
• Original: https://www.nb.no/items/6eb246622541ee0b3dfc9fcd7c69d63c?page=0
• Republished and translated into English: https://www.nb.no/items/583f4159fbd4d2ebda834593706ecccc?page=49&searchText=%22Texas%20is%20the%20best%20state%22
• Wærenskjold also appears in the Fra Amerika til Norge letter collection, with at least one letter in 1867, which mentions Native Americans: https://www.nb.no/items/869b824c5168ffe7d702947540c80eba?page=401
• Peterson (2011) notes that Elise Wærenskjold also participated in Norwegian-American reading networks – she “lived on the isolated Texan prairie and asked her family and friends in Norway for novels written by recently published authors, especially Jonas Lie. Wærenskjold did not care much for Ibsen, but did ask for a copy of Ed dukkehjem because of its importance to the feminist cause. All of these rural Norwegian Americans wanted access to books from Norway as a way to connect to the society they had left behind while forging a new identity in the United States.” (Peterson, 2011, 7-8)

Elisabeth Koren, letter, June 10, 1855 (in her published diaries)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000)
• Location in 2021 collection: https://www.nb.no/items/c67e486c09b5e4f245fae82f77408be3?page=135&searchText=the%20diary%20of%20elisabeth%20koren (mention near end of letter)
• And a second letter, https://www.nb.no/items/c67e486c09b5e4f245fae82f77408be3?page=43&searchText=indianere

Olaus Duus letters (1855-1858)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000) and Bergland (2021)
• Wisconsin letters published in 1947 – pastor - “confers both dignity and humanity on the indigenous peoples he describes. Also, it seems noteworthy that Duus did not describe them as potential converts.” (Bergland, 2000, 335) Contemporary effect more as a leader than being published at time of his life
• Bergland notes in both instances that Duus wrote at one point about how his wife had a Native midwife, and was grateful for that (see primary source below)
• https://www.nb.no/items/cb1bc6b9cc512602b98215f4e1a5fed6?page=19&searchText=Indians (a few hits here if you search for “Indians”)
• Different list of hits when searching “Indian” - including one of his wife having an Indian midwife - https://www.nb.no/items/cb1bc6b9cc512602b98215f4e1a5fed6?page=87&searchText=Indian

Herman A. Preus (1857-1860)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000)
• https://www.nb.no/items/d9d8e1e325b1f66e28f6dcc31e8202cc?page=1&searchText=%22Herman%20A.%20Preus%22
• Bergland mentions Preus as a Norwegian minister who emigrated to the US, and wrote an article “that appeared in the publication of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America” (Bergland, 341). I believe this newspaper article from Morgenbladet notes that he had emigrated, or in the context of discussing emigrants.
• The Bergland citation for Preus also mentions that his “Indianere i Nordamerika” was published with Kirkelig Maanedstidende in 1857 – which I do not believe is in the NB collection. However, there are some mentions of the publication and Preus in Norwegian papers in 1858 and 1860:
• Adressetidende for Brevig, Stathelle, Langesund, Banble og Eidanger, 4 September 1858. https://www.nb.no/items/a5b5745fb0b86ee0c6341ae03b3558b9?page=1&searchText=Preus
• Stavanger Amtstidende og Adresseavis, 14 January 1860. https://www.nb.no/items/597eeb2ad94730e21be357bc578a06f8?page=1&searchText=Preus
• No luck so far turning up his original text, though. Looks like UiO has a copy of the secondary source where Bergland got her quote from Preus.

Olof E. (O.E.) Dreutzer (1850s-1860s)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000)
• According to Bergland, his 1863 circular in response to the Sioux uprising contained negative portrayal of Natives while maintaining an informative in tone (344)
• Bergland also says to look at Blegen’s book, The American Transition pages 409 to 412 on Dreutzer. [book is available at UiO – will request and scan] [1]
• Dreutzer was a US government representative at the Bergen consulate, in the 1860s. He wrote a pamphlet in 1863 for circulation in Norway about the 1862 Dakota Sioux uprising, for reading in Norway. Apparently it is 16 pages, in Norwegian (Bergland, 343). Does not appear that this document is in the NB. The circular (“Cirkulære fra de nordamerikanske Staters consulat i Bergen”) is mentioned in a few places – the only copy in Norway is held at the library in Bergen.
• https://www.nb.no/items/bb92b276a66c8c98352a7d4e9981bd0b?page=560 (Semmingsen, 536-537)
• https://mitt.bergenbibliotek.no/cgi-bin/m2?tnr=648199 (see below)
• However, we do have other records of Dreutzer and his contacts with Native Americans.
• In the NB newspaper database, we see that he was nominated to the consulate in May 1862:
• Christiania-Posten, 6 May 1862. https://www.nb.no/items/800b4023c71206dc5c3b0d607ca3be2a?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• Stavanger Amtstidende og Adresseavis, 12 May 1862. https://www.nb.no/items/8b92b93cd73e96ebd3be41e61dbd63d7?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• Bergensposten, 16 May 1862. https://www.nb.no/items/1da10ba29ded37823a24613d5e07f38a?page=3&searchText=Dreutzer
• Joined the consulate in June 1862:
• Aftenbladet, 13 June 1862. https://www.nb.no/items/447e2424383abf6248dd4b0b85976a5d?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• Christiania-Posten, 13 June 1862. https://www.nb.no/items/b43a17023bb1f4f7679a5c7e7ce781df?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• Morgenbladet, 14 June 1862. https://www.nb.no/items/23f2ddb21199e808cc062e4997480624?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• Stavanger Amtstidende og Adresseavis, 18 June 1862. https://www.nb.no/items/0a9ee3d5d638c442022a7a9c8cdc3a65?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• A few months into his position, Dreutzer faced a bit of a crisis. On the 22nd of November, Morgenbladet published a letter from a Norwegian emigrant to America, who began warning folks in Norway about moving to the United States. “I dette saataldte gerlige Amerika er nu ikke godt at være.” He described the risk of being pressed into military service (I believe), and then describes “Vi habe en anden og lang grusommere Fiende i vor Nærhed, nemlig Indianerne,” and the “Grusomheder, som ingen Ven kan beskrive.” (again my rough reading of the text – still getting used to the typeface). Now, the Indian uprising was in August, so the writer is a bit distant from the immediate aftermath. There is then a bit of commentary from Morgenbladet, concerns about “Indianerns Tomahawk.” Dreutzer, then, is cited in a discussion from a Bergen paper (that had been sent to Morgenbladet), and his discussion about a circular from his office. This seems a bit early to be the circular that Bergland discusses. But he says that no one who was not born in the United States would be pressed into military service, and goes over the homestead act (ability to receive 160 acres), volunteer army, etc. In my reading of it, I don’t see Dreutzer addressing concerns about Native Americans here. But this could be a good complementary, contextual source alongside the more-cited circular.
• Morgenbladet, 22 November 1862. https://www.nb.no/items/4cd077866047cd6685fe697c21d9e7d0?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• The Bergen Library kindly scanned their copy of Dreutzer’s 1863 circular, regarding why it was still safe and desirable for Norwegians to migrate to the United States in the aftermath of the Sioux uprising. The quality is not the best, and it appears that the first page might be slightly cut off. However, the section on Native Americans (Indianerne) is intact.
• [Olof E. Dreutzer], Cirkulære fra de nordamerikanske Staters Consulat i Bergen (1863). https://bibno-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/samuel_klee_nb_no/Documents/Norwegian-Native%20Contact%20Project/1863_Dreutzer_Circular_ScanFromBergenLibrary.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=YojRGy
• We also find a 5 April 1863 article in Morgenbladet, which appears to be a letter to the editor (?) regarding Dreutzer’s 1863 circular. Unclear if the same one that Bergland discusses though.
• Morgenbladet, 5 April 1863. https://www.nb.no/items/407a384cb11439d5c3c42d7ba8cefe82?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• Then, finally, a letter to the editor of Bergenposten by Dreutzer himself, in the 28 August 1864 edition. Appears to discuss some issues with the ongoing war in America, though no direct mention that I can see of Indians.
• Bergenposten, 28 August 1864. https://www.nb.no/items/d3f54091d6791c2ab0ad66076bbc9fdf?page=1&searchText=Dreutzer
• There are a few other hits in the newspaper database for him between 1865 and 1870, but none seem relevant.
• I did some digging on him in Newspapers.com as well (subscription I have through UiO). He does appear several times in the states in the years leading up to his appointment in Bergen.
• Looks like he was a lawyer, and had some ties to the granting of Native American lands in Wisconsin, and may have had a brief military appointment (PDFs are accessible at links):
• “Our Correspondence,” Kansas State Journal, 26 February 1863, 2. https://bibno-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/samuel_klee_nb_no/Documents/Norwegian-Native%20Contact%20Project/The_Kansas_State_Journal_Thu__Feb_26__1863_.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=JQQgJ1
• “The Upper Wolf, Wis.,” Semi-Weekly Wisconsin, 6 January 1869, 1. https://bibno-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/samuel_klee_nb_no/Documents/Norwegian-Native%20Contact%20Project/Semi_Weekly_Wisconsin_Wed__Jan_6__1869_.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=Foynk4
• “Military Appointments by the Governor,” Janesville Daily Gazette, 19 February 1858, 3. https://bibno-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/samuel_klee_nb_no/Documents/Norwegian-Native%20Contact%20Project/Janesville_Daily_Gazette_Fri__Feb_19__1858_.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=eaDrbK
• Also some notices of his appointment as consul, in stateside papers:
• “Consuls,” Wisconsin State Journal, 15 January 1862, 1. https://bibno-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/samuel_klee_nb_no/Documents/Norwegian-Native%20Contact%20Project/Wisconsin_State_Journal_Wed__Jan_15__1862_.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=ahkL6E
• “Further From Washington,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 January 1862, 1. https://bibno-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/samuel_klee_nb_no/Documents/Norwegian-Native%20Contact%20Project/The_Philadelphia_Inquirer_Fri__Jan_24__1862_.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=nA7vPx
• And then a notice that he was the “late” (i.e. deceased?) consul to Bergen, and there was some federal funding released for his “relief.” Does not say when he died, though. Suspect that may also be in the NB database in one of the Bergen papers. Though he does show up later in some papers—may have to clear that up if this is of interest.
• “Fortieth Congress,” New York Herald, 27 March 1867, 3. https://bibno-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/samuel_klee_nb_no/Documents/Norwegian-Native%20Contact%20Project/New_York_Daily_Herald_Wed__Mar_27__1867_.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=kcuOa5
• However, Ancestry.com seems to suggest he may have died later? Unclear, probably not relevant for our purposes. https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/olof-emanuel-dreutzer-24-1s8ch45

Hemlandet Newspaper, Chicago, 1862

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Fur (2014)
• [Report in Hemlandet newspaper, Swedish paper published in Chicago – report on Indian attacks in Minnesota]. Hemlandet, 27 August 1862, 2.
• Original digitized by Minnesota Historical Society: https://newspapers3.mnhs.org/jsp/PsImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=213eae36-842e-49d8-80fe-5d15ad15e075%2Fmnhi0011%2F1FUNGP56%2F62082701
• Note that searching for “Indian” in their database in 1862 returns 34 results
• https://newspapers3.mnhs.org/jsp/PsImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=213eae36-842e-49d8-80fe-5d15ad15e075%2Fmnhi0011%2F1FUNGP56%2F62091001 another one mentioned by Fur – 10 September 1862, page 1 (he mis-cited as 9 September), which I believe discusses the implications of the war for settlement and free land.

Eric Norelius, [reports to paper regarding Native American conflicts in Minnesota], Hemlandet, 3 September 1862, 2—3.

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Fur (2014)
• Original digitized by Minnesota Historical Society: https://newspapers3.mnhs.org/jsp/PsImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=213eae36-842e-49d8-80fe-5d15ad15e075%2Fmnhi0011%2F1FUNGP56%2F62090301
• Norelius was “an Augustana Synod pastor.” (Fur, 64). Fur uses a translation of this newspaper article from Ulf Jonas Björk, who presented a paper on the topic in 2007 at a conference. In Björk’s translation, Norelius is sympathetic to the Native Americans, and is uncomfortable with the violence being waged against them, even while partly perpetuating the narrative that they were dying out.

Louis Ahlström (1860s)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Fur (2014)
• Fur makes mention of Louis Ahlström, a Swedish immigrant who noted the plight of Native American dispossession. Looking him up led me to the following book, by Ahlström. However, whether it was the same Ahlström seems questionable, as the book was published in 1932, and Fur mentions an encounter Ahlström had with Native Americans in 1869. Nevertheless an interesting source. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89067955526&seq=13&q1=Indian

Guri Olsdatter Rosseland (Endreson) letter, 2 December 1866, in Fra Amerika til Norge (vol 2), edited by Orm Øverland and Steinar Kjærheim (Oslo: Solum Forlag, 1992).

• Kommentarer

• https://www.nb.no/items/869b824c5168ffe7d702947540c80eba?page=381
• This source appears in several different secondary sources. Account of survivor of Dakota uprising 1862, in letter to family back home. This is a transcription of the original Norwegian letter, as found in a collected edition.
• In Øverland (2006), he notes that “Blegen refers to accounts published in 1905, 1908, and 1926. It is clear from these accounts that Guri Rosseland was responsible for the saving of several lives, something she does not make much of in her letter.” (Øverland, 113). He also notes that her meeting with Natives was not unique, per se, and that we can see her heroism without buying the accompanying settler discourses about her significance (Øverland, 114)
• Øverland is referring, here, to Theodore Blegen, “Guri Endreson, Frontier Heroine,” Minnesota History: A Quarterly Magazine 10, no. 4 (December 1929): 425—30. Will request via UiO.
• Also, the collection, Fra Amerika til Norge, and specifically this volume, may be useful. There are 24 results when searching for “Indianerne” and 12 for “Indianere” and a few more for “Indian” and “Indianer”

Jacob Hilton Letter(s) (1880s-1890s)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Øverland (2004), Øverland (2006)
• Jacob/Jakob Hansen Hilton – who migrated to the United States to Iowa, and then to the West, wrote letters back home that appear in the untvandrerbrev collections. According to Øverland, Hilton took on an identity as white when he arrived in New Mexico - “I New Mexico his main identity is no longer Norwegian but white. He is one of the white people . . . To be identified as a non-British immigrant was to be identified as a foreigner. To be identified as white, however, was to be on the inside with all those identified as non-white on the outside. By becoming white Jacob Hilton made America his home. By the same criterion Native Americans were made foreign in their homeland (Øverland 2006, 116).
• 17 April 1881
• https://www.nb.no/items/d1e750cdf27ae7975f962b42cb391b2a?page=349
• This letter is used by Øverland (2006) to discuss Hilton’s growing affinity for/identification with whiteness. Also discusses land prices, weather, other Norwegians coming from Wisconsin
• 26 June 1881
• https://www.nb.no/items/d1e750cdf27ae7975f962b42cb391b2a?page=355
• Also used by Øverland (2006), where Hilton discusses the lack of law-and-order in the West, the use/carrying of firearms.
• 7-28 August 1881
• https://www.nb.no/items/d1e750cdf27ae7975f962b42cb391b2a?page=361
• Used by Øverland (2006), about conflict with Indians. Describes how Gus Hilton survived, and how Jacob Hilton rode to save him. Witnessing the casualties of Native attack. Calls the Natives “Disse Røde Djævle” (362). Attacks/mocks the sympathies that folks in the eastern states had for Natives.
• 5 March 1882
• https://www.nb.no/items/d1e750cdf27ae7975f962b42cb391b2a?page=389
• Letter to family, while in New Mexico
• 3 September 1882
• https://www.nb.no/items/d1e750cdf27ae7975f962b42cb391b2a?page=407
• Another letter to family, while in New Mexico. Describes some of his journeys from Chicago, to Kansas City, to Socorro (New Mexico). A bit on the inhabitants, climate.
• 29 February 1885
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=77
• 11 June 1885
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=89
• 6 August 1886
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=137
• 8 November 1886
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=155
• 10 July 1887
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=187
• 21 August 1888
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=269
• 6 October 1889
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=323
• Notes that he had a son. Promised to send a photograph as soon as possible.
• 15 December 1892
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=483
• Sent a photograph of his two children (Annie and Joseph). Contemplates at the end, how he would like to sell things and take the whole family to go back to the Norwegian coast. Nostalgia—from both him and his wife—for Norway. Tensions between that and ties in the States.
• 13 December 1893
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=521

O.E. Rølvaag, I De Dager – Fortelling om Norske Nykommere i Amerika (Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co., 1924-25; 1940).

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000)
• https://www.nb.no/items/a84c8ec3432e573f90465ec213655f97
• Noted for its fictional accounts of fears of Indians, tracing it to 1862 rebellion. Bergland is working with translation, but NB has digitized the original Norwegian text (though, 1940 edition).
• Øverland, in Immigrant Minds, American Identities (2000) mentions that Rølvaag was very involved in Norwegian-American heritage works in the 1920s. He was concerned that Norwegian-American children were being too thoroughly anglicized and Americanized. He proposed “to have courses ‘in pioneer history, that is the history of Norwegian immigration’ taught in Norwegian-American schools. This would open ‘the eyes of our own youth to the fact that we really do have a part in the history of America.’” (Rølvaag, being quoted and discussed in Øverland, Immigrant Minds, American Identities, 36). And again, according to Øverland, “Pride [Rølvaag and his contemporaries] thought, was essential to the creation of a strong group identity that again would be the basis for a collective entry of the group into American society” (Øverland, Immigrant Minds, American Identities, 39). Later in book, Øverland argues that Rølvaag “became the most prominent promoter of the Norwegian-origins-of-America story” (Øverland, Immigrant Minds, American Identities, 172)
• Another space where Fredrick Jackson Turner and the frontier thesis is relevant is in relation to Rølvaag.
• Sverre Mørkhagen, Det Norske Amerika: Nordmenn i USA og Canada 1900—1975 (Gyldendal, 2014).
• https://www.nb.no/items/151751b7b97fe1f39ca745f7c497131d?page=211&searchText=%20%22frontier%20thesis%22
• Regarding Rølvaag’s Giants in the Earth, “Litteraturprofessor Percy Boynton fra Chicago var blant dem som påpekte at amerikansk litteratur nå for første gang hadde fått et verk som bar fram historikeren Fredrick Jackson Turners ‘Frontier Thesis’ i kunsternisk form” (203)
• Øverland, in his article “Norwegian Americans Meet Native Americans” (2006), also notes that Rølvaag may have coined the term “land taking” in his Giants in the Earth (1927)
• There, he depicts landscapes as dotted with evidence of Native past presences – and includes depictions of friendly encounters. In all, portrays Norwegians as “not only accepted by welcomed on the land of the Native American, who never returns to disturb the peace of these breakers of the sod and tillers of the soil” (Øverland 2006, 111-112). This is in stark contrast to actual encounters.

Gulbrand Fingalsen Rundhaug Letter (1891)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned by Øverland (2006).
• 10 February 1891
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=409
• Øverland discusses how Rundhaug reports back home in the weeks following Wounded Knee. In Øverland’s translation, “We now live in constant fear of the Indians since they have begun to kill the whites. They have already killed and scalped many white people. They burn them alive in the most horrible manner. The soldiers are out to stop them and they slaughter many, and all here in Dakota who do not have rifles are given rifles by the government. They are really awful people. They are red as blood and worse than wild animals” (Øverland 2006, 118).

Iver Andersen Lee Letter (1891)

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned by Øverland (2006)
• 2 March 1891
• https://www.nb.no/items/2683ed83bf501e0c481aa1b396698250?page=413
• Describes fishing and trading with the Native Americans he encountered. Describes their housing, how they are “rather nice people to visit” (“Indianerne var noksaa hyggelige Folk at komme til” [413 in linked text]), and admired their fireplaces. Øverland (2006) quotes this at length. Reminded himself of home in Norway. Humanized them.

Norse-American Centennial: 1825—1925, Souvenir Edition (Augsburg Publishing House, 1925).

• Kommentarer

• https://www.nb.no/items/70e1b278bb2163f96449fcc1905a9165
• This is a phenomenal source, largely regarding the celebration of the 1925 centennial of Norwegian immigration to the United States. It has lots of essays by contemporaries, interpreting the meaning of Norwegian experience in America, as well as images of commemorative items, and a complete program of the events in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region (though I believe it took place largely in St. Paul). This includes the pageant that both Øverland (2000) and Bergland (2021) mention, which depicts the land-taking in a very positive light, and Native Americans as inevitably vanishing from the land. Great source, available within the NB Nettbiblioteket.

Jacob Neumann, “Bishop Jacob Neumann’s Word of Admonition to the Peasants,” Studies and Records 1 (1926), 95—109.

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000)
• This is a primary source, in translation. Unable to find original copy in NB database so far, but I suspect it may yet be there. In the meantime, requested translated copy via UiO.

Ole Munch Ræder, America in the Forties, translated and edited by Gunnar J. Malmin (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1929).

• Kommentarer

• Mentioned in Bergland (2000), Fur (2014) Bergland (2021)
• According to Bergland (2000):
• speculated on the Chinese origins of Natives (331) - focused on Wisconsin Natives (332).
• Made comparison to Sami and Northern Norwegians (332) especially regarding clothing for Sami, credit-debt for Northern Norwegians, especially regarding that relation between Bergen and Northerners. Ræder, according to Bergland, “offers a folk sense of justice based on fair exchange, as he further allies Indians with the people of North Norway” (332)
• In general, “convey[s] both an informed and a sympathetic view” (333) but also rather grotesque caricatures of Natives searching for scalps (333)
• According to Fur (2014):
• Makes the case that Ræder’s mentions of tomahawk-armed natives looking to scalp people was an allusion to James Fenimore Cooper (Fur, 60), but he is also relying on Bergland (2000) for quotes from Ræder.
• According to Bergland (2021):
• Mid-upper class – reported encounters and were generally empathetic – also “seemed to support the racial contract. Ræder defended Indian policy as just, and Dietrichson rationalized federal policies as necessary and inevitable due to Indians’ lack of civilization” (22) - Ræder and Dietrichson as aligned with the state (22) - “In short, Ræder and Dietrichson assist naïve/clueless immigrants on the nature of the racial contract—and to see the world wrongly” (22) - help migrants “embrace an ‘epistemology of ignorance’” (22)
• https://www.nb.no/items/11122b8d7674bf16a6ea2e743627e184
• Letters from Norwegian government representative, that were published in Den Norske Rigstidende circa 1847-1850. Bergland uses this translation, which is now digitized at NB. However, this does appear to be a book that is not full-text searchable for some reason. Bergland notes that there are many mentions to Native Americans here, though.
• NB also has access to Den Norske Rigstidende. I managed to track down one of the Ræder letters, as it was originally published, discussing Native American encounters and observations about their settlements:
• 18 February 1848, page 2: https://www.nb.no/items/63f74dc49289dcad19f25fbee34b1680?page=0&searchText=Indianer
• Presumably the other letters are there as well, but searching for “Munch Ræder” as he appears here doesn’t turn up anything. Taking a closer look at how the text was automatically transcribed, it looks like it picked up Ræader in the 18.2.1848 edition as “Barber,” which led me to one more listing on 12 November 1947: https://www.nb.no/items/13606ef9f7d656236a5bfe66770cebae?page=0&searchText=Barber

Willard Fleming Dillman, Pageant of the Northmen and the Story of the Pageant, unpublished manuscript, held in Norse-American Centennial Papers, Norwegian-American Historical Association, Northfield, MN.

• Kommentarer
• Mentioned in Bergland (2021)
• This looks really useful for understanding the pageant in 1925. Written by the pageant’s writer. Will reach out to see if a digital copy is available. https://www.nb.no/items/2518b3943b27dcc1b92749a7fb329eec?page=0&searchText=The%20American%20Transition.

Vigleik Rosseland, The Uprooting: Cleng Peerson and the Norwegian Immigration of 1825 (stage play, 2014-2015; 2018).

• Kommentarer
• https://www.nb.no/items/4ae180d9abcb937c33fecef245fbc3d0
• Stage play about Norwegian immigration to the United States. Written by Vigleik Rosseland [is there any relation to Guri Rosseland?]. Rosseland died in 1972, and the play was discovered in his personal papers in 2012. Play first produced in 2014, published first in 2015. This is the 2018 edition, which has been digitized by the National Library.
• Mentioned in Leonard et. al. (2020)
• Gwen Westerman notes that, when watching a production of the play on a 2017 conference, “What struck me most about this production was my realization that those Norwegian immigrants had no idea where they were going or exactly how the land in the Great Plains had been ‘opened up’ for them. The Russian Jews were resettled in agricultural communes across North Dakota, as Ekstrom explains, after they ‘had fled persecution and pogroms in Russia.’ These immigrants were not coming with the specific goal to steal Indian land or to settle on Devil’s Lake [same as Spirit Lake] Reservation; they were coming to America” (59)
• I think that Bergland (2021) would really push back on this. I would tend to agree, given that while Westerman has a point, we are dealing with her perception of a 2017 production of a play written in the mid-twentieth century. There are several possible layers of memorialization, idealization, etc. at play here. It is a good reminder about the scholar’s responsibility to exercise care regarding subjects’ intentionality. But this seems potentially very caught up in the same issues of memorialization and tropes that Bergland identified in (2000) and (2021). Should read over the play and see.
• In a brief reading through for “Indians” - it looks like he actually reproduces some of the same myths that are perpetuated in Rynning!
• Pages 37-38 there is a discussion of Native Americans/Indians (pages 5-6 of actual play transcript).
• A character asks, prior to leaving, “how is it with the Indians now? Are there such people there where we’re going to live? Are they just as wild and dangerous as they have been before?” To which Cleng Peerson (a real figure, fictionalized) responds: “Well, to be sure, there are Indians in America – many of them, too. But they have migrated farther and farther west. Now there are no Indians left in the East. They depended on hunting and fishing for their survival. And so they move on to new frontiers once land becomes cleared for farming and cultivated. Nowadays, they can be found mostly west of the Great Lakes, much farther west than the communities where we are going to settle and make our homes. So we don’t need to have any fears about the Indians – even though they can be dangerous enough for those Europeans who have settled far west in America.” This all comes just after characters raise concerns about wild animals and diseases, too. All resonates with Rynning’s account. This is followed by other questions by immigrants – might be worth looking to see if they correspond with Rynning.