Vilhelm Moberg - The Emigrants

But Karl Oskar Nilsson had his whole family around him, and he himself stood there, healthy and sound and filled with deep satisfaction that they had all traveled safely over the sea.

He did not worry about the journey over land, where all lay firm under his feet. For the landing he had polished his splendid high boots, tried on for the first time the last evening in their old home. With the fat from a large pork rind he had greased the leather until it was shining black. His boots were of the best leather, made from oak-tanned ox-hide. He was well shod — they knew how to make fine boots at home. In this footgear he was well prepared. If the roads of America were poor, he would get through with these boots on his feet.

Otherwise, he, along with his fellow passengers, was poorly equipped. When their ship at long last landed, the emigrants were shabby and worn in faces and clothing. They must now go ashore in the same garments they had worn during the long voyage, and these did not resemble the clothing one wears to festivals. Men and women alike looked like molting hens. And when they had gathered together their possessions — chests, bundles, baskets, and boxes thrown together in a pile on deck — then the ship looked like a large high-loaded gypsy wagon. When they had driven to the harbor town of Karlshamn, Jonas Petter had likened the emigrants from Ljuder to a pack of gypsies. At their disembarkation this comparison was even more appropriate than then.

But however shabby and weak they seemed, however wretched and poor they were — North America admitted them.

It was time to go over the gangplank. The pier was high and their small ship was low — the gangplank became a steep uphill. But Kristina used all her strength, and walked onto land by herself. And little Harald was let down from Karl Oskar’s arms at last, and walked on the plank at his father’s side. Even the youngest in the Korpamoen family walked on his own legs into America.

But at the very first steps on solid ground Karl Oskar stopped still: his head swam — he felt dizzy. The ground under him rolled exactly as the deck had done. Giddiness made him stumble a bit. Never once at sea had he felt this way. Now when he stood on firm land dizziness overtook him and his legs were wobbly. He could not understand it. Perhaps he had forgotten how to walk on solid ground, perhaps he must begin anew, as he must with his whole life. But in this unknown new land, which he now entered, he must stand firmly on his legs. That much he knew.

It was on Midsummer Eve, in the year 1850, that the brig Charlotta of Karlshamn tied up at the pier in New York, after ten weeks’ sailing from her home port. Precarious, insecure, and unstable were the first steps of the immigrants on American soil.

The Emigrants is the first volume in a planned trilogy.

Monterey, California, August 1949

V. M.