Vilhelm Moberg - The Emigrants

Their speed up the bay was good — now, during the last stage of this long voyage, the wind was with them, and their sails were full as women’s skirts in a breeze. Innumerable ships filled the passage, sailing ships, sloops, steamers, vessels of all sizes and kinds. The brig Charlotta had long traveled alone on the ocean, now she was in great company.

Little by little the land threw off its morning shroud. Slowly the naked shores arose. And soon a populated stretch of land jutted out in the path of their ship, like a large peninsula. Here the clearing mist gradually uncovered a multitude of clustered roofs, long rows of houses could be seen, and high above the roofs stretched spires and steeples, exactly like the church steeples at home. Before them lay a town, greater than any they had ever seen before. When full daylight broke through, they could see their harbor: New York.

Robert and Arvid stood in the prow, as immobile as people can stand on a moving deck. Next to them stood the second mate, the Finn, who had taken part in every one of the Charlotta ’s voyages to North America. He told them that the land they saw was only a large island. It was originally called Manna-Hata, which was an Indian word — the name of a favorable god among the Indians, he had heard. The god had lived on this pretty island of Manna-Hata for thousands of years, until it once was flooded by the river and he had been forced to move. Now it was mostly people who lived here, but the Finn had never been to any church while in port so he was not sure which god — if any — lived on Manna-Hata nowadays.

The Charlotta steered toward a shore which seemed to them made up of fortifications and piers. But above these rose also a large, round, yellow-gray building with a tremendous round tower. Robert wondered what this could be.

“That’s called Castle Garden. It’s a kastell ”

Robert did not know what a kastell was, he had never heard the word before, but he didn’t wish to ask. Instead, Arvid asked the mate.

“A kastell is the same as a prison,” said the Finn.

Robert looked at him with wide-open eyes. That yellow-gray house with the large round tower was a prison? There were then imprisoned people in the house called Castle Garden. He had not imagined that the first house he saw in America would be a prison, a house where people were locked up when they lost their freedom. And he said that he had hardly expected to find any prisons in the United States of North America, where all evil and criminal people were exterminated.

The mate then explained that Castle Garden was no longer used as a prison. There were no prisoners there any more — it was instead a hell of a good place, a saloon. He knew, he had been there himself. The fare was good, and the ale of first quality. One could eat there to one’s satisfaction, and get good and drunk too. On Sundays the saloon was crowded, people sitting on each other’s knees while they ate and drank. Castle Garden was indeed a damned good saloon, a place where one was free to do as one pleased, use one’s knife in a brawl and all other kinds of entertainment.

Then it was really as Robert had thought it would be: the prisons in America were actually not prisons with prisoners, as was the case in Sweden, but rather fine inns with guests who there could enjoy and entertain themselves as best they pleased. No doubt about it, America was a land with a kind government.

— 4—

Only a short time elapsed before all of the Charlotta ’s passengers were gathered on deck. Those unable to crawl up by themselves were carried: America was visible, and all wanted to see. They saw houses, churches, embankments, piers, streets and roads, people and carriages. But the eyes of the emigrants missed something — they looked in vain for something which the shores of America as yet had not shown. Their eyes had been searching for it during the whole passage up the bay — at last they found it, on the outjutting tongue of land over the prow: behind the big house with the round tower the morning mist was lifting, uncovering a grove of trees — large leaf-trees with thick foliage, and grass on the ground around the trees. The shore they had left at Karlshamn had been a dark shore — here a light shore greeted them. Bushes and trees grew there, leaves and green boughs, herbs and grass: at last they could see the green earth.

The long-drawn-out voyage with all its storms, sufferings, ills and troubles — the confinement on the ship during endless days — all this had gnawed hard on the emigrants’ lives and spirits. Scurvy and ship’s fever had lowered their resistance. From the monotonous life on board they had grown depressed and downhearted, and many had ceased to care what life and fate would bring them. But now this new vision unfolded before them, a bit of living ground near them — and they knew they had safely crossed the sea, and were here with the earth lying before their eyes again.

They stood crowded together on deck like a herd of cattle — shackled in the narrow stalls of the byre during a whole long winter, and at last stretching their necks and turning toward the door when it began to smell of spring and fresh grass and meadows: soon they would be let out, soon their imprisonment would end. And in this moment a new energy and ambition seized the emigrants. They felt cheered, encouraged, born anew, as if a fresh spirit were blown into their breasts.

The scurvy-sick feel now that they will recover. The weakened ones come to life again, a new strength enters them. Fresh power comes to the tired ones, initiative returns to the depressed, boldness to the timid. The spirit of indifference flies away from their minds, as the mist and fog this morning had lifted from the earth.

It was land-frenzy that overtook the passengers on the Charlotta. The life at sea had undermined their bodies and souls. The land-frenzy was bringing them new strength. They had again seen the green earth. As seekers of new homes they had come sailing from the earth — now they were back on the earth, and felt life returning.

— 5—

The little Swedish vessel had anchored at the pier. The gangplank was lowered, and the passengers had begun to disembark. A burning-hot summer day met them in the new land.

The family from Korpamoen had gathered in a group, waiting their turn. On one arm Karl Oskar held his youngest son, with the other he held his wife around the waist. Kristina wanted to walk down the gangplank on her own legs. Many passengers had come on deck for the first time in a long while today, and some were so weak that they must be carried ashore. But Kristina told Karl Oskar she did not wish it said that she had been unable to walk onto land in America on her own legs. It would not be a good omen if she were carried ashore. Her limbs were weak, however, and she leaned heavily on her husband. Robert looked after Johan and Lill-Märta, and stood there holding one child with each hand. The children were not yet quite awake, and were troublesome and complaining, frightened by all the noise and jostle at the landing. Little Harald wanted to get down from his father’s arms. He, too, wanted to walk on his own legs.

The children were pale and gaunt, and the flesh hung loosely on their limbs, but they would soon improve with fresh food on land. A fourth child was still slumbering in its unconsciousness within the protection of the mother. This unborn life would be the first one from among the Charlotta ’s passengers to gain citizenship in the North American republic.

Of the sixteen people who had emigrated from Ljuder Parish and gathered at Åkerby Junction a bleak morning in early April, fifteen had arrived at the threshold of a new continent. One was missing. Of the seventy-eight people who had embarked at Karlshamn, seventy had arrived. The Charlotta had given up eight of her passengers to the ocean.