Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

This same spring Karl Oskar and his family received their papers as American citizens. There were five of them to get such a paper — he, Kristina, and the three children born in Sweden. Each paper cost a dollar. It cost him and his family five dollars to become citizens of the United States. The American-born half of his flock were citizens as soon as they left the mother’s womb; because of this they saved three dollars.

Since they had left Sweden and were stricken from the Ljuder parish records they had not belonged anywhere; they had not had papers that they rightfully belonged in any country; they had in a sense been vagrants in the world. Now they had printed papers to prove they belonged to a new homeland.

When Karl Oskar a few years earlier had assured the court in Stillwater that he wanted to settle in America and become a citizen, he had been asked to forswear all allegiance to foreign rulers and potentates. Without a moment’s hesitation he had forsworn Oskar I of Sweden all obedience and allegiance. He forswore the Swedish king with an easy conscience since he could not remember that he ever had taken an oath to uphold that ruler.

In order to become a citizen of the North American republic you were also supposed to renounce your nobility status and all titles and prerogatives adhering to your status in the old country. Because in this country no one had greater rights and advantages because of his birth; counts and barons and similar lords were forbidden. In whatever mother-womb one had lain meant nothing here; it did not make one a ruler over other people, as in Sweden. But Karl Oskar need not renounce any patent of nobility or inherited rights; from his homeland he had only brought the title of farmer, and this he could keep in America as long as he wished.

Karl Oskar spent several evenings reading their citizenship papers; with the aid of his son Johan, who had learned English at school, he searched out the meaning of the words and interpreted them for Kristina. Their names were now incorporated in the official papers of their new country; they would forever remain recorded in official American records as citizens of the United States. They were now equal to the families who had lived here for a hundred years or more. And it was printed on paper that they had changed from Swedes to Americans.

“Are we no longer Swedish people?” wondered Kristina.

“We’re stricken out at home. We’re American citizens. We’re partners of America. We have renounced Sweden for eternity.”

“In case of war between the two countries — will you go out and fight against Sweden?”

He laughed. “I guess I must if I’m asked.”

“Never have I heard such craziness!”

“But the Americans have once and for all gotten rid of the English king and will never again fight the old country. They have better sense.”

Kristina eyed the citizenship papers without understanding a syllable. In her, America had acquired a citizen who never used the language of her new country. She kept to her resolution not to try to learn English. Yet Karl Oskar insisted that through these papers she had been turned into an American.

Kristina felt it couldn’t be that easy to change a person. This paper couldn’t change her, even though it was large and thick and decorated with stamps and ornaments around her name, which was printed in large letters. In this paper it stated that she was an American citizen: “Wife of Charles O. Nelson.” But what did this new name mean to her? It changed her neither inside nor outside. She was sure to remain the same as she had been since her birth: Kristina Johansdotter of Duvemåla, Algutsboda parish, Sweden. And however much her name was changed on American papers, she would continue to think as often and as longingly as before of her old homeland.

She had noticed that Karl Oskar had changed these last years. Not in clothing or external things but in his speech and his way of thinking. He accepted the customs here, he felt that Americans were clever and industrious, he approved of most of their ways and tried to ape them.

He himself testified to this change as he now asked his wife: Should he begin to use the name on the American citizenship paper, should he call himself Charles O. Nelson? What did she think?

“I don’t like it!” said Kristina. “You may renounce the Swedish king, but if you change your Swedish name I’ll laugh at you! For then it means you’re getting to be uppity!”

This was a clear reply and he said nothing more. Kristina was really right, he thought. And he continued to write his name in the old way; he was still Karl Oskar Nilsson.

— 3—

The powder smoke of the May festival days blew away, and plans for the new state’s government took its place. Liberty always brings with it great concerns and much trouble, and liberty is most troublesome to those who are unused to it. It now fell upon the shoulders of Minnesota’s inhabitants to agree on how to govern their state; they must prepare and agree to a state constitution.

In the old territorial days, Democrats and Whigs had fought for power. But in 1855 a new party had come into existence, founded in Michigan the year before. Its members called themselves Republicans. They promised great advantages to the settlers and wanted to give land free to newcomers. They became the party of the settlers. Alexander Ramsey, the territorial governor, previously the Whig leader, joined the new party and became its leader. The Democratic leader was Henry H. Sibley, earlier the government’s Sioux Indian agent. The Democrats were soon outnumbered by the fast-growing Republican party.

Republicans and Democrats met in St. Paul to work out a constitution for the state of Minnesota. But the differences between the two parties grew ever wider, and soon made it impossible for the delegates to work at the same table. It turned out to be very difficult to work out one constitution for the new state; on the other hand it was very easy to arrive at two. The two parties sat in different rooms and each made up a constitution. The two documents differed in about two hundred points.

In the Old World people shot each other when they disagreed about forms of governments, but Republicans and Democrats in Minnesota agreed on one thing: this must not happen among them! They must come to peaceful agreement. And after long and tiresome negotiations the two constitutions were finally fused into one, acceptable to both sides.

Now the young state must elect its first governor. But its inhabitants had come from countries in the Old World, where they never had been permitted to select their rulers, and their highest lord — the king — had always been appointed by God, who never asked their advice. The selection of a governor would be the first test of the people’s ability to govern themselves.

Both parties nominated candidates: Alexander Ramsey on the Republican ticket and Henry H. Sibley on the Democratic. A bitter campaign ensued.

In the Swedish settlement at Chisago Lake many immigrants who never before had participated in choosing representatives for governmental posts, must now for the first time in their lives learn to handle a ballot. To the Swedes, this participating in their own concerns, seemed a strange and novel business. Most of the Swedes at Chisago Lake wanted Ramsey. His party promised aid and easing of taxes, while the Democrats advocated raising taxes for farmers. And Ramsey’s personality and background inspired confidence. Born to poor people he had been orphaned at ten, from which time he had supported himself, often through manual labor. He had worked as a carpenter and forester and like themselves learned to get ahead in the new country. He was the right kind of governor for men who wielded the ax and the plow. In Sweden one must be born in a castle to reach such a high position, in America a log cabin sufficed. Colonel Sibley was a businessman, one of the higher-ups in the American Fur Company, the richest and most powerful business venture in the territory. Sibley, the Democratic candidate, had grown wealthy from dealing in furs; he would be a governor for money-men. About him his opponents said: Sibley is honest in this way, that he never makes any promises except those he won’t fulfill.