The emigrants of the preceding year (1844) ... wrote home ... and told of the fertility of the soil, the cheap prices of land and of good wages. In a letter which I received from Iver Hove, he writes that there they raise thirty-five bushels of wheat per acre, and the grass is so thick that one can easily cut enough in one day for winter feed for the cow. Such things fell to our liking, and many looked forward with eager longing to the distant West, which was pictured as the Eden that loving Providence had destined as a home for the workingman of Norway, so oppressed with cares and want.
Of those here cited, Nattestad was from Numedal, Luraas from Telemarken, Menes from Sogn, while Sandsberg came from Ryfylke. But the conditions were the same also in other provinces. In 1844, Hans C. Tollefsrude and wife emigrated from Land. Of the cause of his emigrating and that of early emigration from Land in general, his son Christian H. Tollefsrude of Rolfe, Iowa, writes me:
The causes were, no personal means and no prospect even securing a home in their native district, Torpen, Nordre Land (letter of July 27, 1904).
Rev. Abraham Jacobson of Decorah, Iowa, a pioneer himself, writes:
Reasons for emigrating were mostly economic, very few if any religious.... Wages here were at the very least double that in Norway, and generally much more than that.
Of the emigration from Ringsaker, I may cite Simon Simerson of Belmond, Iowa:
The causes were economic. In the case of my parents, they came here to create the home that they saw no chance of securing in the mother country. (Letter of Oct. 12, 1904.)
Similar evidence might be adduced for other districts and for all the older settlements throughout the Northwest. At a meeting held at the home of Ole O. Flom in Stoughton, Wisconsin, on July twenty-eighth, 1908, when the present writer read a paper on “Early Norwegian Immigration,” testimony to the same effect was given by old pioneers there present. There is no need of further multiplying the evidence.
A highly developed spirit of independence has always been a dominant element in the Scandinavian character,—I have reference here particularly to his desire for personal independence, that is, independence in his condition in life. Nothing is so repugnant to him as indebtedness to others and dependence on others. An able-bodied Scandinavian who was a burden to his fellows was well-nigh unheard of. By the right of primogeniture the paternal estate would go to the oldest son. The families being frequently large, the owning of a home was to a great many practically an impossibility under wage conditions as they were in the North in the first half and more of the preceding century.
Thus the Scandinavian farmer’s son, with his love of personal independence and his strong inherent desire to own a home, finding himself so circumstanced in his native country that there was little hope of his being able to realize this ambition except in the distant uncertain future, listens, with a willing ear to descriptions of America, with its quick returns and its great opportunities. And so he decides to emigrate. And this he is free to do for the government puts no barrier upon his emigrating. This trait has impelled many a Scandinavian to come and settle in America; and it is a trait that is the surest guarantee of the character of his citizenship. Here, too, a social factor merits mention.