Unto a Good Land (4 page)

Suggested Readings in English

Compiled by Roger McKnight

About Vilhelm Moberg:

Holmes, Philip.
Vilhelm Moberg.
Boston: Twayne, 1980.

McKnight, Roger, “The New Columbus: Vilhelm Moberg Confronts American Society,”
Scandinavian Studies
64 (Summer 1992):356–89.

Moberg, Vilhelm.
The Unknown Swedes: A Book About Swedes and America, Past and Present.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988.

Thorstensson, Roland B. “Vilhelm Moberg as a Dramatist for the People.” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1974.

Wright, Rochelle. “Vilhelm Moberg’s Image of America.” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington 1975.

About Swedish Immigration:

Barton, H. Arnold.
A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans, 1840–1940.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994.

———, ed.
Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840–1914.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press for the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society, 1975.

Beijbom, Ulf, ed.
Swedes in America: New Perspectives.
Växjö: Swedish Emigrant Institute, 1993.

Blanck, Dag and Harald Runblom, eds.
Swedish Life in American Cities.
Uppsala: Centre for Multiethnic Research, 1991.

Hasselmo, Nils.
Swedish America: An Introduction.
New York: Swedish Information Service, 1976.

Ljungmark, Lars.
Swedish Exodus.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979.

Nordstrom, Byron, ed.
The Swedes in Minnesota.
Minneapolis: Denison, 1976.

UNTO A GOOD LAND

Part One

In Search of Homes

I

A SHIP UNLOADS HER CARGO

—1—

On the elongated island of Manhattan, in the Hudson River, the largest city in North America had sprung up, already inhabited by half a million people. Like an immense hippopotamus resting immobile in his element, Manhattan sprawled in the water, at the mouth of the Hudson. The hippopotamus turned his head toward the Atlantic, and back of his enormous snout lay the piers of the East River, where ships with emigrants from the Old World tied up.

On June 23, 1850, there arrived in the port of New York the brig
Charlotta
of Karlshamn—Christian Lorentz, Captain—carrying seventy passengers, emigrants from Sweden, nearly all of whom were farmers with their families. The
Charlotta
was several weeks overdue, delayed by contrary weather; this arrival completed her seventh voyage as an emigrant vessel. The brig tied up at the East River pier between a tall, coffin-shaped English bark and a low Norwegian schooner heavily loaded with iron. Besides the human cargo in her hold, the
Charlotta
also had pig iron and sundry items of freight.

One of Captain Lorentz’s first errands on American soil was to change his passengers’ money. During the last days of the voyage he had collected the emigrants’ cash and, carrying a leather sack, he now went to a bank on Wall Street to exchange Swedish daler and shillings for American dollars and cents. He did not accept paper money, only gold and silver coin; he knew nothing for sure about American bills, except that their value never was the same as the amount printed on them.

Sweating and puffing in the intense heat, he returned to his ship. Captain Lorentz had been in New York port during every season of the year; he was familiar with all North American weathers and disliked them all; this summer heat he abhorred. Down here by the docks there was at least some breeze from the Atlantic, but in the
Charlotta
’s
hold the air was unbearably oppressive. To be tied up near Manhattan this time of year was one of his most distasteful duties as ship’s commander.

In his tiny cabin the captain pulled out the passenger list. After each name he had noted the sum entrusted to him, and now he must figure out how much each passenger was to receive in American money. It was an annoying chore, a chore for shop clerks. He was not a counting man, he was a seaman; but a captain on an emigrant vessel apparently must also be a scrivener and a money-changer. Like a father with his children, he must look after his passengers and see to it that they weren’t cheated or robbed.

And having sailed these Swedish peasants across the ocean from one continent to another, Captain Lorentz now felt so great a responsibility for them he wouldn’t even leave them to shift for themselves after they had landed. Hardly had his ship tied up at the pier when all those who made their living from the simplicity and inexperience of immigrants flocked around the gangplank like rapacious dogs at slaughter time. These
runners
and
grafters
and
brokers,
and whatever they were called in the language of this new country, watched for every newly arrived ship. There were agents from freight companies which the captain knew were fraudulent; there were men from taverns and quarters of ill repute; well-fed and well-dressed men in funny little round caps with large visors; lazy men who avoided honest work and whose presence was repugnant to Captain Lorentz. He would always place an armed guard at the gangplank to keep such rascals off his ship, for once on board they would steal all they could lay hands on, down to a single nail or a piece of rope. The rogues came from all lands, but they preferred to rob their own countrymen. By talking the language of new arrivals they gained their confidence and made easy victims of them. All European nationalities, it seemed, plundered and defrauded each other here on American shores: English robbed the English, Irish swindled the Irish, Germans preyed on Germans—while Americans plundered the immigrants from all countries, regardless of nationality. In this respect at least, thought the captain, the Americans honored equality among men.

The authorities in New York were too lenient. Lost and unsuspicious immigrants enjoyed no protection against the scoundrels lurking at the landings.
¹

The passenger list stuck to Captain Lorentz’s rough, sweaty hands. His brain worked sluggishly in the infernal heat, and he lost himself in numbers as he figured daler into dollars. He was looking forward to evening, when he hoped to enjoy his supper and cellar-cool ale at Castle Garden. This tavern was conveniently close by, and it was the best eating place he knew of in New York—though not up to his standard in other ports. Its fare might do for the rich New York swine breeders who usually gathered there, but a man who sailed to Marseille, Bordeaux, and Barcelona had his own standards of good food. The Americans had lived such a short time in their country they hadn’t yet learned how to prepare their food properly. There were too many other things to attend to. For example, they were said to be particularly good at building churches; he had heard New York alone had a hundred and fifteen of them. And he recalled what he once had read in a book by a famous Frenchman: The French had one hundred different sauces, but only one religion, whereas the Americans had a hundred different religions, but only one sauce. Captain Lorentz had, unfortunately, not yet had the pleasure of tasting this sauce.

He could never reconcile himself to the strange customs and ideas he met in North America. Here people of many races mixed, and the classes were so turned about that one couldn’t tell which were the upper and which the lower. Lowly people considered themselves changed when they landed on American shores; they thought themselves equal to those of high birth and position. Every farm hand and servant wench assumed a conceited, disobedient, insolent attitude. Several times it had happened that able-bodied men of his crew had become so arrogant that they had boldly broken their contracts with him and had simply remained in America. Here, respect for authority and masters was disregarded, and consequently, the servant class was ruined. Here all felt at home, even those who smeared pork grease over their faces while eating, not yet having learned the use of a napkin.

The
Charlotta
’s captain counted and wrote numbers, and the sweat from his face dripped onto his paper. For each passenger he must deduct the landing fee—two dollars and a half—which must be paid to the city treasurer immediately on arrival; Captain Lorentz must rob each one of these poor devils of six riksdaler and twelve shillings. The emigrants themselves certainly needed every penny, but the money went to the lean purse of New York—which no doubt also could use it. Here landed thousands of impoverished wretches, and when completely destitute, they were forced to remain in the harbor until provided for by that lean purse. Europe emptied her workhouses and literally shoveled the inmates over onto America; how long would the Americans meekly accept these discards from the Old World?

Including these passengers on his latest voyage, Captain Lorentz had sailed five hundred of Sweden’s inhabitants to North America. A whole little town his brig had moved across the world ocean. Which one of the two countries ought to be more grateful to the
Charlotta
and her commander—the kingdom of Sweden or the North American Republic? Sweden got rid of her religious fanatics and other troublesome, law-breaking citizens, but at the same time she lost many useful and capable men. On every voyage, the
Charlotta
’s
human cargo was nine-tenths thrifty peasants. The lazy and useless ones, the rogues and the deserters, came mostly from other countries, on other ships. Also, of course, many enterprising Europeans found their way to New York; the captain had heard of some who immediately on arrival bought trunkfuls of guns and continued westward to seek a new way of living.

The gentlemen from the Commissioners of Emigration who pried about his ship as soon as it docked used to say that the North American Republic wanted healthy, work-willing, moral immigrants. But no one prevented the sick, lazy, immoral ones from landing, as long as they could walk ashore. The captain was responsible only for the incurably sick and was required to put up a bond. This time, he had to confess, the
Charlotta
’s
living cargo was badly damaged by seasickness, and scurvy too, after ten stormy weeks at sea. Some of his passengers, during their first weeks in America, would no doubt be unable either to work or to lead immoral lives.

And this time, on arrival in port, Captain Lorentz had been met by a new proclamation: Captains carrying passengers must keep them on board for three days after docking.

The
Charlotta
’s
gangplank was already lowered, and some of her passengers had gone ashore when the health officer arrived with the new order and sent them back aboard. His question indicated how things stood: Had there been cholera on board the
Charlotta
?

New York again was seized by the fear of cholera. Last summer the epidemic had frightened the inhabitants out of town, and this year, with the intense heat, it had flared up again. The authorities thought cholera was brought by emigrant ships from the Old World, and now every ship from a foreign port must be carefully inspected by health officers before the passengers were allowed to step onto American soil.

Crossed-out names on the
Charlotta
’s
passenger list indicated to the inspector that eight passengers had been buried at sea, but Captain Lorentz could assure him with a clear conscience that none had died of cholera. He once had had that Eastern pestilence on board his ship, and he knew well the signs of the sickness: severe diarrhea, violent vomiting, and a thirst which burned like fire. But his passengers on this voyage had been free from these symptoms. And the inspector himself looked at those still sick and ascertained that the Swedish brig was not bringing cholera to New York. But he warned about an English merchantman, the bark
Isaac Webb
of Liverpool, arriving the same day as the
Charlotta
;
on this ship the Oriental pest had raged so horribly that seventy-seven of the passengers had died.

Yes, Captain Lorentz had always known it, human beings were the most annoying and unhealthy cargo in the world.

There were now many additional troubles and complications in getting rid of this cargo. He must keep the passengers on board for another three days, for which he would receive no thanks from those crowded into the hold in this heat. Fortunately, now as always, the sick got well as soon as it was time to land; even the weakest wanted to look their best. Only one passenger caused him real worry and concern, a sixty-five-year-old farm wife from Öland. He had expected her to die before they reached port, he had been so sure of it he had made a mark after her name—like a small cross. He noticed it now as he read the passenger list: Fina-Kajsa Andersdotter. She had become a widow on the North Sea, where he had read the funeral service over her husband. The old woman was so weak from scurvy he had not believed she could survive. If she now were to be taken from ship to hospital, the commander of the
Charlotta
must post a bond of three hundred dollars with the mayor of New York.

Why in hell would a farm woman go out to sea at such an age? Why should the shipping company be expected to pay three hundred dollars for an old, worn-out hag-body? One way to avoid the bond, perhaps, would be to keep her on board as long as the brig remained in port. While they unloaded the pig iron and other freight, the old woman would no doubt die, and then the health officer would come and fetch the corpse, and the captain wouldn’t even have to think about the funeral.

It was always easier to get rid of dead cargo than living.

—2—

The passengers were now coming to the cabin to collect their money. A tall, husky man hit his forehead against the cabin ceiling as he came down the ladder. The captain said, “Look out for your skull! You might need it in America.”

An unusually large nose protruded from the man’s face; Captain Lorentz need not ask the name of this farmer, he remembered him well. One night during the voyage—while the worst tempest was raging—he had stanched a hemorrhage for this man’s wife. The peasant had thanked him and said that his wife owed her life to the
Charlotta
’s
captain.

He consulted the passenger list: “Karl Oskar Nilsson. Paid 515 rdr. bko.”

At the exchange rate of one dollar for each two and a half daler, the farmer had two hundred and six dollars coming to him. But from this sum the captain must deduct the exchange fee and the landing fees for man, wife, brother, and three children.

He told the farmer, “You have to pay thirty-seven and a half daler for six people.”

“Is that the entrance fee to America?”

“We might call it that. There is also the exchange fee. Four dollars—that is, ten daler.”

Lorentz counted and deducted: Balance to pay—a hundred and eighty-seven dollars. He counted out this sum in twenty-, ten-, and one-dollar coins, gold and silver, which he gave to the young farmer, who himself counted the money slowly and carefully. Then he put the coins, one at a time, into a homemade sheepskin belt which he carried around his waist under his shirt. The captain gave the hiding place a nod of approval.