| Summary: | Examines the accomplishments of Swedes in Texas, looking at the ways in which they adapted their customs to life in the New World. The Swedish Texans Larry E. Scott IIT@ I The University of Texas INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES at San Antonio Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scott, Larry E., 1947- The Swedish Texans / Larry E. Scott. - 1st ed. p. cm. - (The Texians and the Texans) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-86701 -044-4 1. Swedish Americans- Texas- History. 2. Texas-History. I. Title. I I. Series. F395.S23S44 1990 89- 16656 976.4'004397- dc20 CIP The Swedish Texans by Larry E. Scott First edition, second printing Copyright © 1990; 2000 The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio 801 South Bowie Street, San Antonio, Texas 78232 Rex H. Ball, Executive Director Production Staff: Sandra Hodsdon Carr; Jim Cosgrove; Tom Shelton; Alice Sackett, indexer This publication was made possible by grants from the Texas Swedish Cultural Foundation, SVEA of Texas, Linneas of Texas, the Gulf Coast Scandinavian Club, and the Houston Endowment, Inc. Printed in the United Sates of America Contents INTRODUCTION --- Chapter 1 1 - Texas in the 1850's 7 2 - The Great Migration 13 3 - Smaland to Govalle 23 4 - Everyday Life in Swedish Texas 29 5 - Life on the Prairie 41 6 - The Trailblazer 53 7 - The First Immigrant 67 8 - The Nomads 83 9 - The Pioneers 91 10 - Swedish Texans, Slavery, and Civil War 101 11 - The Settlers 109 12 - Swedish Institutions in Texas 119 13 - Swedish Texans and the Galveston Flood 145 14 - Swedes in the Cities 151 15 - Swedish Place-Names in Texas 181 16 - The Swedish Language in Texas 185 17 - The Swedish-Language Press in Texas 191 18 - Swedish Writers in Texas 211 19 - Two Swedish-Texan Colleges 227 20 - Swedish-Texan Cultural Groups 241 AFTERWORD 249 NOTES 251 BIBLIOGRAPHY 269 PHOTO CREDITS 280 INDEX 283 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 287 Introduction Swedish immigration to Texas began in 1848 as a result of the efforts of one man, Swen Magnus Swenson, who had himself emigrated from Sweden to the United States in 1836. Swenson had become a wealthy man in the ten years following his arrival in Texas, primarily from shrewd land purchases and revenue from his cotion plantation in Fort Bend County. In 1844 he had been joined by his uncle, Swante Palm, who helped him in his increasingly prosperous business ventures. Palm was the first Swede to immigrate to America with Texas as his specific goal. Swenson was a friend of General Sam Houston, who encouraged the Swede to send back to his homeland for more Swedish immigrants to settle the vast and sparsely inhabited interior of Texas. Swenson did just as Houston had suggested, returning to Sweden in 1847 to recruit families from his home parish of Barkeryd in northern Smaland. That first year only his sister accompanied him back to Texas, but the following year a group of 25 people, related to one another or to Swenson or Swante Palm either by birth or marriage, became the first group of Swedes to repeat the journey Palm had made a few years earlier. Initially they joined Swenson in Fort Bend County, but he soon sold his plantation (and its attendant slaves) and moved to a large sheep and cattle ranch east of Austin, which he named "Govalle" after a dialectal Swedish phrase roughly translatable as "good grazing." Govalle became Swenson's home for over 1 Swen Magnus Swenson a decade, during which time it was also the first home newly arriving Swedish immigrants would know in the New World. Swenson and his uncle arranged passage for the Swedish families from Smilland, and they, in turn, worked for Swenson in Texas to pay off the price of the ticket. Most of the early immigrants also bought land from Swenson-he owned some 100,000 acres in and around the Austin area-and settled down to farm cotton. The city of Austin thus became the home of the earliest and largest concentrations of Swedes in Texas. North of Austin, in Williamson County, some of the first settlers bought land from Swenson along Brushy Creek and formed the nucleus of what eventually became several contiguous rural colonies: Brushy Creek, Palm Valley, Hutto, Jonah, Taylor, and Round Rock. On the blackland prairie in northeast Travis County Swedes began to settle after the end of the Civil War, establishing the colonies of New Sweden, Manor, Kimbro, Manda, and Lund. All these areas were almost exclusively devoted to cotton production, a crop which was, of course, quite unfamiliar to Europeans but to which they quickly adapted. Swedes settled in Central Texas for a variety of reasons . First, many of them had to work off their passage on the Swenson lands in and around Austin. Second, they tended to buy land in 2 areas already settled by fellow Swedes whom they had known back home in Smaland. Finally, many of them were given favorable prices for land by Swenson, who wanted to attract as many of his countrymen to Texas as possible. Even though only about 150 immigrants had made the voyage to Texas before the outbreak of the Civil War, they were located in key agricultural areas of Travis and Williamson counties. When immigration to Texas resumed on a larger scale in the late 1860's, these "target" or "magnet" colonies which could attract Swedish immigrants in larger numbers were already well established. Swedes were neither the first nor the largest group of Europeans to settle in Texas in the years following the Texas Revolution. Indeed, even before 1836 Irish colonists had been granted land in Refugio and San Patricio counties. Germans-more than 3,000 of them-had bought enormous tracts ofland in Gillespie, Comal, and Kendall counties before 1850. A tiny contingent of Norwegians had settled in Norse in Bosque County; several Wendish, Czech, and Italian families had moved into Fayette County; and there were French settlers in Medina and Dallas counties. There were also Englishmen in northeast Texas, creating the basis for some of the great cattle empires of the 1880's and 1890's. Thus the very modest Swedish immigration of the prewar period should not be seen in isolation. The experience of the Swedish Texans parallels that of almost every other ethnic group on the Texas frontier. Their efforts in America were expended on three fronts: to survive, adapt, and succeed. Survival meant the literal struggle for shelter, food, and safety, an ordeal that proved too daunting for more than a few. Adaptation meant the task of learning the language, mores, habits, and skills of the new country and incorporating them as quickly as possible into their European frames of reference. And success-real economic achievement, as landowners and ultimately as persons of quality, the equals of native-born Americans-was their dearest dream. But survival, adaptation, and success were not to be perceived in wholly American terms. Preservation of ethnic identity became particularly important among the smaller groups such as the Norwegians, Swedes, or Wends. Maintenance of community identity was initially not as difficult in the tightly knit but far-flung colonies on the prairies: there, the ethnic tendency to cluster with fellow countrymen aided their sense of community identity. More 3 difficult to preserve were the customs, rituals, traditions, and folkways of the European homeland and, most importantly, its language. To keep these alive, something more than just a community was needed-and so developed the unique institutions generated by each ethnic group. Supreme among them were the ethnic churches. No other institution secular or profane did more to create a sense of self and identity in America, nor did any other institution do as much to carry the values of the immigrants down through the generations. Finally, as the principal bearers of immigrant culture, the churches were also responsible for the maintenance and nurture of the ethnic languages until the day came that each group, now thoroughly assimilated or "Americanized," felt that it was quite capable of doing without that now-embarrassing relic of grandfather's and grandmother's European roots. Picnic for members of the Philippi Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church of El Campo, late 1890's Churches, clubs, newspapers, athletic teams, fraternal lodges, pioneer societies, historical chapters, bands, choirs, and literary societies-these were part and parcel of ethnic life in Texas during the last hundred years. Swedes, like other Europeans, were forced to adjust to a new language, a new lifestyle, new crops, and a new climate. As their numbers increased, they founded new colonies the length and breadth of the state, from Stockholm near 4- Brownsville to Olivia on Matagorda Bay to Ericksdahl in North Texas. By the 1890's the sense of a Texas Swedish community had become statewide instead of being limited to Central Texas. At its peak in 1918, 80 years after S.M. Swenson's arrival in Texas, the population of the first- and second-generation Swedish Texans-the Swedish-born parents and their American-born offspring- numbered more than 11,000. In absolute figures, Texas ranked 26 among the 48 states in numbers of Swedish inhabitants. This is their story. 5 Ericksdahl • Ft. Worth •• Dallas • Palm Valley • Carlson Austin. • Decker Hou",onO J El C.mpo. G'lvc"on.~ • Brushy Creek New Sweden • • Manda Lund • • Kimbro __.M a nor @ Elg.i-n 6 1 Texas I• n the 1850's "A Land Most Suitable for Europeans" T he Republic of Texas, in which several thousand Swedes were eventually to settle, was a largely empty frontier territory where Indians were still a serious threat to settlement and where the discontent fostered by the revolution was still seething. The population had more than doubled between 1831 and 1836 (from 20,000 to 52,000), and it grew even more rapidly in the decade that preceded annexation. Europeans were arriving in ever-larger numbers, especially from Germany, and it was to the German colonies of Central Texas in 1853 that a Swedish writer of great distinction made his way. He was impoverished and exhausted, and he desperately sought employment as a journalist among the Germans of New Braunfels. His name was Carl Jonas Love Almquist, and, until his hasty departure from Sweden under a cloud of ignominy and suspicion (he was accused of forgery and attempting to poison a moneylender), he was one ofthe most brilliant Swedish novelists, poets, essayists, and social theorists of his day. His early career had been decidedly "Romantic;' but a few years before he was forced to flee Sweden, in a novel hailed as "the first novel of women's liberation ever written;' he pursued a revolutionary new, realistic style. But his abrupt flight from Sweden and subsequent wanderings in exile had sadly reduced him, and by the time he arrived in New Braunfels he was nearly a broken man. Almquist's 7 Carl Almquist idea in fleeing to America had been to resume his literary career among Swedish Americans and to inform the reading public in Sweden about the cultural attainments of countrymen in the vanguard of the pioneers engaged in taming a new land. Unfortunately for Almquist, he arrived too early to be able to write for Swedes in America - the first real "national" Swedish-American newspaper, Hemlandet, would not be founded until 1855 - so he sought out the German Americans. Writing pseudonymously for the Neu-Braunjelser Zeitunfj; he found in Texas the home he sought, even if it was only a temporary one.! His natural curiosity led him to explore the area of German settlement around New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, but he wandered far afield, traveling to the San Jacinto Battlefield, north into Comanche country, and south to Galveston. 8 Almquist was a careful and keen observer. Perhaps his own words serve best to describe the Texas that Swedes would soon be settling in larger and larger numbers. (The quaint English and its spelling are Almquist's own):2 The first view of the Texas coast affords nothing of interest, no picturesque and splendid Sceneries, no magnificent chain of Mountains, no remarkable point, which could attract the attention of the observer, or where he could repose his eye with joy, or immerge in the pleasure of delightful contemplation. The landscape all over is very low (scarcely 2-4 feet above the Waterline), the shore is bare; you will see no Wood, and very little marks of human industry. . . . The whole country . . . is a vast Prairie, with some small and sparse Groves of life-oak, chestnut, pine and willow . [A]ll around [we saw] nothing but an immense plain of grass and all over us the vast firmament, adorned with millions of Stars, forming brilliant and for the most part in Europe unknown or unseen Constellations. The night was delightful, the air being refreshed and cooled by pleasant breezes. . . . The land on the other side of Victoria grows handsomer, the region seems by degrees to ascend, the fertile soil abound with flowers and trees of majestic size and often fantastical forms, being overgrown with spanish moss, and resembling Giants, with grey arms, dark faces , and threatening aspect. . . . in the first summer, before the herbs wither and fade by the hot burning Sunbeams [the land is very agreeable] . Texas is no Tabel-Iand in the proper sense of that word. It can geologically be divided in three Regions. The whole country along the Mexican Gulph seems formerly to have been overflowed, the Ocean in earlier times probably approaching the Rocky Mountains or at least the Sierra Guadalupe, on the eastern side of the Continent. In that period all Texas was the property of Neptune, 9 who afterwards withdrew his empires, removed his waves, and made the World a present of this new land. The second or middle part of Texas commences by Austin, Bastrap and the old Nacogdoches-road. The country in that region is a kind of rolling land on alluvial bottom. The lower Texas, and some Countys of the south Boundary, and Sabine River, which divides Texas from Louisiana and Arkansas, you will find a great number of big Rivers, all discharging their currents in the Gulph, viz. Nueces, Guadalupe, Colorado, Brazos, Trinity and Neches. Their banks are settled and cultivated, they afford plenty of good water and abundance of woods, Cypress, Cedar, Walnut, Life-oak, Pine, Fig, Mulberry, Shadowtrees, etc.; but between them you will see nothing but immense Prairieland, almost bared from wood and without water excepting in some sparsed, artificial Wells. . . . The third part of Upper Texas is mountaneous, hilly and woody, fertile in the Valleys and conceiling mineral, inexplored riches in abundance. The last year (1852) massy Gold was rumored to have been found by San Saba, Llano, Pedernales and elsewhere in Gillespie and Travis Counties; but the report was nothing but Humbug; and the disappointed Gold-diggers went home again, discontented, but glad to have saved themselves from the Indian Tomahawk and the arrows of the Comanches. The Texas that Almquist saw, and to which more than 5,000 of his fellow Swedes would ultimately immigrate, was a land of enormous potential, waiting for enterprising hands to till the soil, tame the rivers, and build the cities. It is typical of Almquist's star-crossed life that he left Texas in 1855, after S.M. Swenson was comfortably established in Austin and where he surely would have been received with kindness by Swante Palm, who knew Almquist's early works well. But he left Texas without even hearing of the small Swedish colony that had been 10 established in Travis County. Nor had he realized, on a trip through Smaland just a year before his departure from Sweden in 1851, that people from one of the parishes he found most pleasant-Barkeryd Parish near Nassj6-would precede him to Texas, the land of his early exile. An unintentional immigrant, Almquist died in Bremen, Germany, in 1866, without ever seeing Sweden again. 3 Another Swedish writer, a native of Smaland, provided readers with a different view of Texas almost exactly contemporaneous with Almquist's. Unlike Almquist, however, J ohan Bolin of Vi:ixj6 had never seen the land he described in En beskrifning Ofver Nord-Amerikas FO"renta staterna (1853), nor did he want to. His guidebook was intended for potential emigrants, but he himself was never a victim of "America fever;' The cruel ironies of Almquist's life were compounded by the fact that no one was ever to read Almquist's eyewitness account of the geography of Texas, while thousands read Bolin's, which was culled exclusively from secondary sources. Yet even though Bolin had never been to America, his descriptions of its topography, crops, climate, and customs were fairly accurate. His section on Texas must have sounded almost unbelievably exotic to a Swede reading of its flora for the first time: [In Texas one finds] melons, watermelons, pineapples, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes, several kinds of cabbages, radishes, asparagus, peas, lettuce, parsley, spinach, artichokes, edible thistles, celery, purslane, wild strawberries, cayenne peppers, tomatoes, of which one wild variety, orchards of peach trees, figs, pomegranates, plums, mulberry trees, apricots, cherries, gooseberries, grapes, lemons, oranges, tamarinds, wild purslane, nut and almond trees, Spanish mulberry trees, black raspberries, wild cherries, wild plums, dwarf chestnuts, olive, hickory, black walnut, pecan, persimmon, cactus, cactus figs, magnolia, sassafras, Chinaberry, Seville oranges, wild vanilla, myrtle, laurel, locust, elderberry, sumac, many types of medicinal plants, many kinds of oak, cedar, cypress, ash, sugar maples, . . . linden, cottonwood, yew, balsam, wild stock, red 11 sage, purple thistle, begonias, clover, white anemones, as well as a myriad of other trees, bushes, flowers, plants, herbs, etc., both familiar and unknown. 4 If readers found the plants of Texas unusual, how much more unusual must its fauna have seemed when they read Johan Bolin's account: [There are] cattle, horses, sheep, goats, mules, donkeys, . . turkeys, guinea-fowl, geese, ducks, black and gray bears, American hart, fallow, moose, mountain sheep, antelope, bison, wild boar, jaguars, leopards, wildcats, muskrat, weasel, beaver, river otter, rabbit, hare, raccoon, opossum, squirrel, jackrabbit, silver fox , prairie dog and wolf. 5 Bolin points out that flocks of huge wild turkeys commonly numbered over 400 birds, in addition to flocks of ducks, swans, and pelicans. There were sandpipers, plovers, grouse, partridges, songbirds of all kinds "equal to the nightingale;' goldfinches, birds of paradise, larks, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, kingfishers, eagles, falcons and hawks, owls, and many other species of birds. The streams and rivers teemed with turtles, alligators, chameleons, crayfish, oysters, mussels, redfish, trout, eel, carp, and catfish. Bolin does not mention tarantulas and scorpions, only wild bees, flies, and grasshoppers, but he does add, rather ominously, that Texas has "an abundance of snakes in all uninhabited areas:' The deadliest of these was considered the water moccasin, followed by "two or three" species of rattlesnake, the corn snake, and the cottonmouth. All in all, Texas was not going to be much like SmaJand! 12 2 The Great Migration Swedish Immigration to the New World Between 1840 and 1915 nearly 1,250,000 Swedes left their homeland to resettle in the New World, nearly a quarter of the entire population. Only Ireland and Norway sent a higher percentage of their sons and daughters to America than did Sweden. 1 These Swedes were part of the greatest mass movement in history; during the course of what came to be called the "Great Migration," more than 30 million Europeans left their ancestral homelands to start their lives over and raise families in America, families that would know the old homeland only through the eyes of their parents. They came, to fill a vast and empty continent and to seek their fortunes in the new American republic. They came from every part of every country, every social class, and every occupation. They were young and old, rich and poor, men and women, young zealots and radical atheists, social reactionaries and outright anarchists, industrious skinflints and ne'er-do-wells. The tired, poor, huddled masses of whom Emma Lazarus wrote contained not a few scoundrels, thieves, cutthroats, and con artists, but they all added to the seething admixture that was becoming America. And certain patterns emerge if one examines the course of the Great Migration over more than a century. For example, the early pioneers tended to emigrate as families: their children would be American, but the Old World 13 would be forever in the hearts of those born there. And, while they represented every social class and profession, most of the emigrants belonged to the huge class of rural poor, created by the rapid increase in population after 1800 . Young people were seldom married before coming to the U.S.-they came seeking spouses and usually found them. Young men initially outnumbered the women, but by the tum of the century an equilibrium was attained as young girls, too, rushed to reach America to find jobs as maids in the houses of the well-to-do, while their male counterparts found employment in the mines, forests, factories, and shops of the rapidly growing nation. They were all hungry, often land-hungry; they were clever and resourceful, flexible and open-minded, ready and eager to provide a full day's work for a day's pay.2 -~:-~.~ . -, . {~j;~" "~;;;':~ .-,~. ". ~.' "> ~. ~=" -:::>". , • \. J~ c'., ~'.-'. t}G .,. " . 'i'''-'- • •• ~'::" ~". ~"'!~;~; . ~ ~,Al .:,~' . ',.J,. . "'"~.i".' '/:. ~ . . ,. ,_ . .,' '~';;';;"'~"" " "" -~" ~.:.~. . ~. .' .~ - Swedes and Native Americans 14 The first groups to arrive in America came by sailing vessels to New York or Boston, the traditional ports of immigrant entry since colonial days. The voyage was long, dangerous, and very expensive; few could afford even the one-way journey unless and until they had sold virtually everything they owned in Europe. Return journeys, of course, were out of the question, except for the very few who made money soon after arriving in America. With the end of the Civil War and the unprecedented Homestead Act of 1862, land in almost limitless amounts was made available to anyone hardworking enough to be willing to improve it. But even President Abraham Lincoln could not have foreseen how many millions of land-hungry Europeans would flock to American shores in search of their dreams, then embodied in 160 acres of virgin land, free to anyone who could settle, tame, and improve it. And after the farmers came the other folks: the watchmakers, carpenters, cobblers, cooks, farmhands, gamblers, ministers, editors, poets, boilermakers, hoopers, cartwrights, bartenders, wranglers, and hostlers. The dreamers, drifters, and entrepreneurs who raced to California in 1849 to search for gold (among them not a few Swedes) were but the vanguard of a vaster horde who took cheap passage on the fast new steamers of the 1870's, 1880's, and 1890's to seek a different (and stabler) kind of wealth in America's teeming new cities. Failed Experiment: New Sweden on the Delaware, 1638-1655 Actually, Swedish immigrants had been on American soil long before the Civil War, the Homestead Act, the California Gold Rush, or even the American Revolution. The first concerted effort to establish a Swedish presence in North America had been made in 1638. In March of that year two small Swedish merchant vessels, the Fogel Grip and the Kalmar Nyckel, dropped anchor in the Delaware River near the site of what is today Wilmington. The colonists on board-probably less than 100-quickly began to fortify the land which they bought from the Indians and which they named Nya Sverige, New Sweden. During the following decade and a half, with very little help from home, forts were 15 erected along the Delaware River to protect the tiny colony from incursions by the Indians and the neighboring Dutch and English colonists. Eventually New Sweden claimed an area slightly larger than the present state of Delaware, but it was a very sparsely settled area, almost impossible to defend. Only a few resupply ships ever sailed from Sweden, and a critical shortage of manpower remained the colony's most pressing problem. Despite effective leadership by such colorful figures as the 300- pound governor, Johan Printz (called "Big Belly" by the Indians), and Johan Rising, encroachment from without and disease and disenchantment from within took their toll among the colonists. Finally, in 1654, the colony had to capitulate to the forces of New Holland under Peter Stuyvesant, and New Sweden ceased to exist as an independent entity. But a few lasting accomplishments were achieved by the ill-fated venture. Swedish clergymen had accompanied the colonists in 1638, and there was never a time that the colony was completely without spiritual leadership, even when Sweden seemed determined to deny it all secular sustenance. For over a century after the colony's demise, moreover, the State Church of Sweden continued to send Lutheran pastors to the Delaware Valley to minister to the needs of their far-off flocks. These dispersed colonists in turn founded small Swedish Lutheran congregations which were served by the visiting clergy. Some of them, such as the so-called "Old Swedes' Churches," Gloria Dei in Philadelphia and Holy Trinity in Wilmington, are still alive and among the oldest Protestant churches in America. A few place-names and sites have also survived from the New Sweden period, such as Fort Christina on the Delaware and J ohan Rising's stone house. But perhaps the most important thing that New Sweden accomplished was to bring word of America to Sweden for the first time. The glowing reports of Governors Printz and Rising were full of enthusiastic descriptions of the excellence of the American soil, the abundant game, and the immensity of the wilderness. It is not an exaggeration to say that the "America fever" which swept Sweden in the 19th century had its origins in the 17th: America had been described as the land of promise and opportunity, and that description lingered and did not go away. 16 Swedish Settlement in the Early 19th Century The factors that "pulled" emigrants toward America were as various as those which "pushed" them from their homeland. The golden promise of America as the land of opportunity, of virtually limitless free land, and of a new kind of classless society, proved to be a mighty magnet indeed, whose power increased with each glowing letter home. Relief from the cycle of drought and famine became especially important after major crop failures in southern Sweden in the late 1860's. The Homestead Act (1862) was the key to the vast prairie lands of the Midwest: a farmer intending to become a citizen could claim 160 acres and improve it by cultivation. Although few in number, the earliest emigrants in the vanguard of the Great Migration of the 19th century-those of the 1830's and '40's-were extremely important. The colonies which they founded acted as focal points for subsequent inmigration, "pulling" the newly arrived Europeans to specific points on the advancing frontier. In the case of Swedish immigrants, early colonies were successfully established in Wisconsin (Pine Lake, 1841), Iowa (New Sweden, 1845), and Illinois (Bishop Hill, 1846). (Minnesota, that most Swedish of states, had, surprisingly, no substantial Swedish settlements until 1850.) At that time the frontier lay roughly along the Illinois-Indiana border and moved steadily westward year by year. Thus early Swedish settlement took place west of that imaginary line, and future settlement "leapfrogged" over the more established areas where available land had already become scarce and expensive. Finally, toward the end of the pioneering period, Swedish immigrants turned west and south in relatively large numbers to settle in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas-and even Texas, though none of these states would ever be "Swedish" in the way that Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa were later to become. Not all Swedish provinces (landskap) sent equal numbers of emigrants across the Atlantic-some, such as Skane or the northern provinces of Lappland, sent hardly any emigrants, either because the soil was rich enough to support all the people who cultivated it or distances were too great and information about America too sparse. From others, such as Smaland, Halland, and Varmland, disproportionately large numbers set out 17 for America, leaving behind poor soil, tiny farms, and deep forests for the promise of the New World.4 Politics and Economics in Sweden: The "Push" Factors behind Emigration For some potential emigrants, the increasingly rigid class system at home pushed them over the sea to the democratic freedom promised and practiced in America. The turbulent era of the Napoleonic Wars in Scandinavia ended in 1809 when Sweden lost a disastrous war with Imperial Russia. The result was the loss of Finland, for more than 500 years the eastern half of the Swedish-Finnish empire. The political repercussions of Prince Mettemich's despotic and reactionary imperialism were also felt in Sweden: King GustafIV Adolf was forced to abdicate in favor of his senile and childless uncle , who reigned briefly as Carl XIII . A new dynasty began in 1810 with the election of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's former field marshals, as crown prince and heir apparent to the Swedish throne. Shortly thereafter, through a series of energetic diplomatic maneuvers (including the threat of military intervention) , Bernadotte forced Norway into an alliance with Sweden to compensate for the loss of Finland . Irksome as the union between Sweden and Norway was, it lasted for nearly 100 years before finally being dissolved in 1905. Bernadotte ascended the throne of Norway-Sweden as King Carl XIV Johan in 1818 and ruled, with increasing despotism, for nearly 30 years. A liberal trend began in the Riksdag (Parliament) toward the end of the 1840' s in reaction to worsening economic conditions' especially among the poorer rural classes . A generation of peace, intense cultivation of the potato, and improved hygiene had produced an unprecedented growth in the population. Certain sweeping reforms were initiated-compulsory universal education to be provided through the State Church (the first such law in the world) and a bill prohibiting the division of a farmstead (hemman) more than four times (i.e . , into sixteenths) to prevent farms from becoming too small to support a family even at the subsistence level. But the first of these measures languished for years until it became practical to initiate it, and 18 the second had the effect of creating a huge, landless rural proletariat almost overnight, since it prohibited the younger children of a farm-owner (hemmansagare) from inheriting any land at all. This large class of hired hands, maids, sharecroppers, and laborers provided the first and most willing volunteers for the voyage to the promised land of America. A lesser but still disturbingly reactionary trend was that demonstrated by the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church, since 1542 the official (and only) Church of the Kingdom of Sweden. To maintain control over the doctrine of the faith and to ensure compliance with Luther's Catechism and other matters of dogma, the Church (the Second Estate of the Riksdag) promulgated the so-called Konventikelplakatet, or Conventicle Acts , in 1789 in the last years of the reign of King Custaf III. This law was to prevent the gathering of any group with the intention of receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion from the hands of anyone not an ordained minister of the Church of Sweden. In the early part of the 19th century, a number of dissenting groups had broken away from the State Church as a wave of pietism swept down across Scandinavia. In Norway the followers of H.N. Hauge and converts to Quakerism had left for America as early as 1825. In Sweden the pietistic movement found a natural leader in ErikJ ansson, whose messianic visions of a perfectionist, evangelical Christianity led him to burn all books other than the Bible and to proclaim himself an incarnation of deity. Jansson was arrested on numerous occasions for violating the Conventicle Acts . Finally, in 1844, he proclaimed that he would found a New Jerusalem in America and, like Moses, would lead his people out of religious bondage to freedom in the New World . This was the beginning of Jansson's and his followers' (" Erikj ansare" in Swedish, "J anssonists" in English) long and arduous journey across the Atlantic to their new homes in Bishop Hill, Illinois, the communistic religious colony on the prairie that marked the apex of emigration from Sweden for religious reasons. But there were other religious winds blowing in Sweden as well . Both Baptists and Methodists had made inroads in Sweden in the 1840's, and more and more people were defying the Conventicle Acts to join them. At last, in 1858, the laws prohibiting adherence to any Christian religious group other 19 than the State Church were rescinded, and ministers of other faiths were free to preach and to convert-one of the last barriers to full participatory democracy in Sweden had fallen. America was still largely unknown to the Swedish common people, but the first immigrants rapidly changed that. From Bishop Hill, Pine Lake, and New Sweden, the new colonists began sending letters filled with details about life in the New World to newspapers and friends in Sweden. These letters were often first passed from hand to hand; some of the published Amerikabrev ("America letters") were translated from French, German, or Norwegian. Guidebooks, specially written for the prospective emigrant, often by people who had never set foot in -.'';-.- -r .-::." : -f: ,.;: _h' N ' Bild 69. G",ta j S a n Anto n io. Commerce Street, San Antonio. From Nord-Amerika, published in Stockholm, 1880. 20 the New World, contained precise and occasionally even accurate descriptions of America- its geography, climate, transportation systems, crops, land prices, and sometimes even a glossary of English words with their Swedish equivalents and approximate pronunciations. One of these guidebooks was published in Christiania- now Oslo-Norway, by a Norwegian who had settled in Henderson County, Texas. Johan Reinert Reiersen's Veiviser for Norske Emigranter tiZ deforenede nordamerikanske Stater og Texas, 1844, (Pathfinder for Norwegian Emigrants to the United North American States and Texas), was the first guidebook written by a Scandinavian for Scandinavians intending to immigrate to the Republic (soon to be State) of Texas. So popular were these guidebooks that by 1880 most rural Swedes knew more about Chicago (then the second-largest "Swedish" city in the world, with more Swedes than Goteborg) than about Stockholm, their national capital. 5 These, then, were some of the reasons Swedes joined other Europeans in the search for a new home in a vast, new land in the West, where there was soil to be tilled and freedom from economic, political, and spiritual tyranny. Each emigrant, of course, had his or her own secret and personal reason for setting out on the long and dangerous voyage: a cuff from a sadistic master, perhaps, or escape from an unhappy love affair, or desire for fame and fortune in a new land where money was rumored to grow on trees, or the wish to raise children in a home that would never again know want. All of this America offered them, and they came, and they came, and they kept on coming. 21 o \ ) / . "l ;! ) . s : "1 /~. SWEDEN NORWAY \ ~ L r' ) / ) I Varmland GERMANY 22 Oq J .(.) .::: ~ ~ U.S.S.R. D Barkeryd • Forserum • Nassjo 3 SDlaland to Govalle No area in Sweden sent more of her sons and daughters to Texas than the parish of Barkeryd, J onkopings lan, or County, in the northern part of the province of Smaland. What was this homeland like that so many left behind for the distant plains of Texas? The area is not unlike the parts of southern Smaland known to readers of Vilhelm Moberg's epic tetralogy, The Emigrants. 1 Thick forests of pine and fir conceal the rocky, thin soil on which countless generations toiled and planted. Numerous hills and small lakes - one-seventh of the land area- break up the forests, adding variety to the landscape but isolating the small farms from one another. The church was the single and central community gathering place, the heart and focal point for the whole community. Barkeryd is first mentioned in surviving records dating back to 1301, indicating that the parish was even then well established. In the 16th century its church bells were hidden from the tax collectors of King Gustaf I Wasa (who wished to melt them down into cannon), and they have never been relocated. The medieval church - familiar to the early emigrants -was torn down in 1844, and a new church (designed along the lines suggested by Bishop Esaias Tegner ofVaxjo and therefore commonly if somewhat irreverently known as a "Tegnerlada;' or "Tegner barn") was erected on the site. Its high spire, wide, bright nave, 23 Church and cemetery, Barkeryd, Sweden, 1980's simple interior, and large, clear, arched windows make it an excellent house of worship but one sadly lacking in the irreplaceable quaintness that the ancient church must have possessed. 2 The church in Barkeryd has been the center of parish life and culture for nearly 800 years. Long before 1674, when the church was rebuilt in stone, a wooden "stave" church had stood on the spot. Beginning in 1350, the Black Death ravaged the landscape like the scourge of God; in 1355, thankful for their deliverance, the local people rebuilt the old church on greater, grander lines. In its final form, it lasted nearly 400 years. Under the floor still repose the bones of the finer folk of the parish - the Ribbings of Ribbingsniis, the von Gertens of Boarp, the various families who have owned Langasa over the centuries, the faithful Fovelins, for a hundred years the ministers and pastors of Barkeryd parish. Their gifts - chandeliers, candelabra, and crucifixes-were transferred to the new church and tended carefully over the years. Their coats-of-arms adorn the walls, symbolizing the class-structured society which the emigrants later rejected. 3 In 1844 Barkeryd parish consisted of 3218 mantal, or taxble farmsteads. Of these, however, 15 (or nearly half) had already 24 been reduced by at least one-half through inheritance; one or two were only one-eighth of a full farm. As the century wore on and the population proliferated, the number of divided farms also continued to increase. Below one-eighth mantal was considered to be below the level even of basic subsistence agriculture. But the continuing population growth, accelerated, as Bishop Tegner put it so succinctly, by "peace, potatoes, and [smallpox] vaccination;' soon made such small divisions among the area's younger sons inevitable. In 1850 forests covered nearly half the remaining land, as indeed they do again today. At that time Barkeryd parish consisted of some 1,400 people, the overwhelming number of whom lived by subsistence farming. 4 The crop failures of the early 1860's sent many a discouraged farmer off onto the paths of the pioneer settlers in the New World. And, when the railroad link came, not to Barkeryd but to its smaller neighbor to the east, Nassjo, in 1864, the parish quickly began to decline. Nassjo is now a bustling railhead city of 18,000, while Barkeryd is little more than a parish church, a community cemetery, and a tiny museum of local culture. Its population (1,200) is smaller now than it was in the mid-19th century. Although the railroad was built a few fatal kilometers distant from Barkeryd, it was not difficult for villagers to get to jonkoping, for instance, or to the expanding metropolis of Nassjo and from there either north to Stockholm or south to Vaxjo, Kalmar, and the Continent. The nearest station was (and still is) Forserum, from whence 100 pioneers set out for Texas in 1867.5 Patterns of Migration and Settlement Early Swedish emigration to Texas was of a special kind known as a "chain migration." This means simply that, because of several factors, individuals from one locale in the home country emigrate over time to a single area in the new country. In the case of the Swedish emigrants to Texas, the home locale was centered in Barkeryd parish in SmaJand. S.M. Swenson, the parish's most famous son, was the first to immigrate to Texas, and, on 16 return trips made over half a century, he personally kept the "Texas fever" alive in his home parish. A number of Swedes returned to Barkeryd from Texas to visit, but even more wrote 25 Relatives oj a Swedish-Texan jamily, Barkeryd, c. 1900 home to their families about their increasing prosperity in the Lone Star State. The migration proceeded almost exclusively through families: Swenson, then his three uncles Swante, Anders, and Gustaf Palm, the four Hard brothers and their families, the five Forsgard brothers and their families, all moved directly from the Barkeryd area to Texas. Geographically, the number of emigrants decreased directly with the distance from Barkeryd.6 And this point of origin held remarkably steady for over 40 years. From 1848 to 1861, for example, more than 75 percent of the immigrants to Texas came from Barkeryd and nearby Forserum parishes. And, even as late as the period 1895-1914, Barkeryd parish sent more Swedes to Texas than any other place in J ankapings lan. 7 Later Swedish migrants came not from Sweden but from the northern United States. This pattern began rather suddenly in 1870 and ended equally suddenly about 1900. These Swedes were lured to Texas largely by promises of abundant cheap land 26 made by land agents. By the time they migrated to Texas, most of these northern Swedes had been in America for some time and were more or less used to American agricultural methods. They had learned some English, and most had even saved a bit of money. Unlike the direct emigrants, these Swedes came from all over Sweden, although Smaland was still the province providing the most emigrants to the New World and, on a smaller scale, to Texas as well. Swedish migrants from the North came principally from Illinois and Iowa, from the regions settled earliest by Swedes. Henry County, Illinois, and Swedes Point (Madrid), Iowa, were two typical areas. There were relatively few Minnesota Swedes among those who moved south into Texas. 8 Settlement patterns in Texas were related to the familial nature of the early immigration and the personal involvement of S.M. Swenson. Swedes in Texas settled near relatives on adjoining plots of land, to live much as they had done in Barkeryd.9 In fact, the early Swedish colonies in Texas were all located within 20 miles of one another, centering on Austin (site of Govalle, S.M. Swenson's large ranch), north to Brushy Creek and Palm Valley, and east to Manor. Later Swedish in-migration spread to Round Rock, Decker, New Sweden, and Georgetown, but even in the 1880's (when migration from the northern states accelerated), 75 percent of the Swedes who had immigrated directly to Texas all lived in "a relatively small contiguous area in south central Williamson County and northeastern Travis County."l0 This "stock effect" pattern of settlement lasted until the ceasing of immigration in the 1920's. 11 Initially, S.M. Swenson's ranch near Austin provided the first home in America for newly arriving Swedes. For most, if not all of them, Swenson had paid their passage and, in return, expected up to a year of labor to repay the ticket. He was, of course, also related to most of the early immigrants, either by blood or by marriage, and he usually gave them generous terms when they were ready to buy land of their own from him. In addition to settling on Swenson's ranch (and without wishing to get too far ahead of the story), immigrants could also proceed north into Williamson County where Swenson's several uncles, nephews, and brothers-in-law had established themselves as early as 1852. The valley along Brushy Creek would become 27 almost exclusively Swedish as arriving families settled down next to one another, much as they had lived in Sweden. They began to clear land, raise cotton and corn, and build homes, churches, and businesses. Barkeryd had arrived in Texas. 12 Lutheran parsonage with church in background, Palm Valley, c. 1885 28 --.-~- .;".- Everyday Life in S-wedish Texas Swedish Religious Diversity 4 T he pattern of emigration from Smruand to Texas paralleled the general pattern of Swedish emigration to the United States. But another factor that shaped the lives of Swedish Texans diverged somewhat from the norm. This was the unusual diversity of their religious affiliations, which, again, depended almost exclusively on where they came from in Sweden. J 6nk6pings Ian in the 19th century was one of the nation's centers of religious dissent and remains today one of the areas with the highest percentage of non-Lutherans in all of Sweden. Particularly active were the Missionsvannerna (Mission Covenant Church) and the various Baptist and Methodist organizations. Because confirmation in the State Church of Sweden required competence in reading and writing, albeit at a simple level, virtually all Swedes-including potential emigrants-were literate. It was, in fact, because of their literacy that the early religious dissidents were able to achieve their initial successes. The great,wave of pietism that swept over Sweden in the 18th century was, thanks to the countereffects of rationalism, largely spent by 1750. But at that time, especially in Smaland, a new interest in individual Biblical interpretation began, which earned its adherents the sobriquet lasare, or "readers," because of their insistence on 29 the primacy of personal scriptural analysis. 1 One of the primary tenets of the lasare was strict temperance and a puritanical disavowal of secular celebrations, such as dancing at weddings, cardplaying, and "pagan" holidays like Midsummer. The Swedish "readers" and those affected by them, even if they remained in the state church, became a pious, stern, hard-working people. 2 Thus it is not surprising that the habits of the homeland became even more ingrained when transferred to America, since such habits were not only admired by the American community but had strong" survival value." A hard-drinking immigrant was not only on the road to Hell but also to financial ruin, while a churchgoer, be he Lutheran, Methodist, or Baptist, remained on the proper path, in all senses of the word. The high percentage of non-Lutherans (36.5 percent of the immigrants who came directly from Jonkopings Ian to Texas) perhaps exaggerates the basic religious orientation shared by virtually all the immigrants.3 And the monopoly of Augustana Lutherans among the later immigrants from the northern United States simply reflects their common experience in an area where that church was predominant. 4 The Swedish Family The early immigrants who came to Texas directly from Sweden before 1880 and those who arrived after that date from the northern states differed somewhat from both the homeland societal makeup and from the average American social structure. The ratio of men to women, for example, was 94.3 to 100 on the whole in Sweden, while it was 149 to 100 among the Swedish immigrants to Texas, about the same imbalance found in Swedish immigrant communities elsewhere in the United States. 5 This meant, of course, that there were few single girls among the immigrants and that women had the luxury of delaying marriage and having a mate of their own choosing. Thus many of these women married rather older than they would have in Sweden. Because 30 Anders and Anna Larson with their 12 children, Carlson Community, c. 1914 of their scarcity on the frontier, women came to have greater independence and higher status than they had had at home. Families tended to be large-10 or 12 children were not uncommon- as they had been in Sweden, where many farmhands were needed and infant mortality had traditionally been high. Initially, then, because of tradition and because cotton cultivation (the standard crop in Central Texas) was so labor-intensive, Swedish families in Texas tended to remain large. But as Swedish farmers retired to the towns and villages, their urban-dwelling offspring were often fewer, and the size of Swedish-American families shrank to match that of the American-that is, four to five children in the 1920's.6 Traditional Swedish families were monogamous, stable, and patriarchal, with wives and children willingly deferring to the head of the family. The family was the center of social life; both in Sweden and in Texas the momentous events of family lifebirths, baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and funerals-were also the most important social events. Only in magnitude and intensity 31 did wedding parties in Texas differ from similar festivities in Sweden. The austere life on the frontier prohibited the extravagant four- and five-day parties common in Smruand, and religious temperance, of course, forbade any form of alcohol. Coffee, the ubiquitous, universal Swedish social pastime, quickly took its place,7 Divorce rates among the Texas Swedes were low, as they were in the homeland 100 years ago. The process was painful and shameful, although not prohibited by the clergy, and it remained equally shameful when translated to America. As late as 1930 Texas Swedes divorced at a lower rate than Americansthree to four per thousand marriages as compared to a national average of seven to eight per thousand.8 Equally uncommon, at least until the very close of immigration, were marriages between Americans and immigrants. Only in the early days, when there simply weren't any fellow immigrants to marry, and after 1930 or so, when it no longer made any difference, were intermarriages more common than marriage within Wedding of Josephine Johnson and Walfred Morell, Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church, Manda, December 28, 1906 'i,) the ethnic group. This pattern held true throughout Swedish America, as it did for almost every immigrant group. Englishspeaking third- and fourth-generation Swedish Americans were as prone to marry outside their group as within it. 9 Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church outing, Austin, 1890's Attitudes The unusually strong religious ties among Texas Swedes meant that virtually everyone had an identity outside the home and within a larger Swedish shelter organization. Indeed, so strong were the ties between church and community that it was rare to find a Swede in Texas who did not belong to a church. 10 This was in stark contrast to northern Swedish areas, such as Moline, Illinois, where sometimes less than half of the Swedish population had official church affiliations. This meant, too, that the church was the center of social as well as spiritual life . The importance of the Swedish minister can scarcely be overemphasized. Not only was he usually the best-educated man in the community, but it was he who presided over virtually all the events in community life. No birthday surprise party, political rally, patriotic evening, young people's 33 camp, anniversary, or ice cream social was conceivable without a clerical blessing, prayer, or speech. Much more than weddings, baptisms, and funerals thus came under the direct purview of the Swedish pastor, no matter to what denomination he belonged. And, while Swedish Baptists may have had little to do with Lutherans, Free Churchers , or Methodists socially (and vice versa), the patterns of behavior and the dominant role of the clergy was the same for each. Patterns oflife also followed religious dictates. All groups severely disapproved of any activities other than religious ones taking place on Sunday. This helps explain, for example, the dearth of Swedish baseball or basketball teams in Texas. 11 Games would necessarily have been played on Saturday, an important workday, or on Sunday, which was unthinkable. Another moral precept shared by all the Swedish religious groups in Texas was the almost universal abhorrence of alcohol in any form . This was, again, a natural reaction considering the importance of tern perance in Smaland just prior to the emigration. But this was also a sentiment shared by migrating Swedes from the northern states. Indeed, next to his general opposition to slavery, no issue was as close to the average Scandinavian immigrant's heart as was his opposition to alcohol. 12 Social Life and Holidays Despite this somewhat puritanical fac,:ade-which also included taboos against all forms of tobacco, card-playing, and dancing- Swedish Texans were a sociable people. There being no proscriptions against eating, Swedish gatherings were characterized (as they still are today) by enormous amounts offood. Most often the menu was American or Texan; barbecues were especially popular. But the ubiquitous strong coffee-after some years, even imported directly from Europe-and the provincial varieties of Wienerbrod (coffee bread) and smilkakor, (cookies) stamped these events as thoroughly Swedish. Christmas gave Swedes a chance to indulge in religious and secular delights at the same time. 13 Traditions of the Christmas season were among the best-remembered and longest-lived 34 Afternoon coffee, El Campo, c. 1900 Old Country customs practiced by the immigrants-some are still honored today. Hulda Anderson related to researcher Folke Hedblom how, as a young immigrant housewife in Brushy Creek in the 1870's, she prepared for Christmas. First, she lutade fish, that is, soaked salted, dried fish in lye to leach out the salt. Her father salted pork and boiled fish, including catfish. Other meats were smoked over oak bark or hung to dry. Calves were slaughtered to prepare for kalvsylta, a kind of Swedish head cheese. And Hulda's pride were her cheeses, for which she and her women friends were completely responsible. She milked and churned and baked ostkaka (the Smaland specialty dessert made of curdled milk, quite unlike its American counterpart, cheesecake), week in and week out. At the Christmas service, everyone brought cheese as ajulrffer (Christmas offering) to the minister, who stood behind the table on which the offerings were placed, taking note of who had contributed what!14 In spite of the distance from other areas of Swedish settlement Christmas in Swedish Texas meant traditional Swedish foods. The great Christmas ham (julskinka), brown beans (bruna biJnor), and rice pudding (risgrynsgrot) were served alongside American specialties such as sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and turkey. In many homes a cedar tree replaced the Swedish fir tree (julgran), but the evening reading of the Nativity story in Swedish by the head of the family remained the same as in the homeland, as did the custom of celebrating on Christmas Eve instead of the more American tradition of Christmas Day. 35 Julotta, the Swedish early morning worship service on Christmas Day, in which the church is lit only by candlelight, meant as much to Swedish Americans as it did to Swedes back home. Virtually every Swedish church in Texas once held some kind of special Swedish service early on Christmas morning, and many still do, often the only time during the year that the former ethnic origin of the congregation is emphasized. In addition to the exclusive use of lighted candles as the source of illumination, a Swedish sermon was (and is) preached, and the best-loved Swedish Christmas hymns were sung. Chief among these in popularity were "Var halsad skana morgonstund" ("Greetings, Lovely Morning Hour"), "Stilla natt" ("Silent Night"), "Betlehemsstjernan" (" The Star of Bethlehem"). Sometimes the congregation liked to sing the two most popular Swedish hymns, even though they had little to do with Christmas: "0 store Gud" ("How Great Thou Art") and "Tryggare kan ingen vara" ("Children of the Heavenly Father"); almost any "Swedish" occasion was a good time to sing these old favorites. Lucia program spomored by SVEA of Texas, Houston, December 9, 1990 36 The present-day celebration of Sankta Lucia, while quite common in Swedish America, has only recently become equally popular in the homeland. (The tradition was once typical only of Viirmland.) Most of the Swedish churches and clubs in Texas have some kind of Lucia celebration, often together with julotta or a smijrgasbord, the full-fledged Swedish hot and cold buffet. Generally, a young girl of the congregation is chosen to wear a crown of lighted candles and to preside over the singing of Swedish Christmas carols, the eating of lussekatter ("Lucia cats," special cookies), and the consumption of gallons of coffee. Originally a Catholic remembrance of the young Sicilian saint who, in the 4th century, chose martyrdom rather than abjure her faith, Lucia has come to represent the coming of Christian light to a benighted pagan Scandinavia as well as a harbinger of spring in the midst of the profound winter darkness. Sometimes she is accompanied by stjiirngossar, or star boys, who carry star-tipped wands symbolizing the Christmas Star and wear tall, pointed "magicians' " hats harking back to the Wise Men of the Orient, the Magi. By moving the event from the home (where the eldest girl of the house traditionally served coffee and cakes before sunrise on December 13) to the church, it has become a public affirmation of ethnicity without denominational overtones in which all Swedish-American families can partake. One last note of a more secular nature concerns the origins of the Texas version of Santa Claus. According to an article written for the next-to-the-Iast edition of Texas-Posten) Santa Claus was imported to T exas by none other than S.M. Swenson himself. 15 The idea is hard to credit, but the custom of honoring jultomten) the Swedish version of Father Christmas, literally, the "Christmas elf," seems to have entered Texas with the first Swedish immigrants of 1848, who were recruited by Swenson himself. At that time, jultomten, or nissen) was a tiny old man with a long white beard who lived in or around every peasant family's barn. To keep him happy (and to avoid such disasters as spoiled or spilt milk or open barn doors and wandering livestock-all potentially his doing), one placated the little gnome with a dish of porridge (julgrO"t) every Christmas Eve. Nowadays he has had to shoulder greater responsibility, such as distributing presents to children, and has consequently greatly increased in size, so that he does resemble Santa Claus or Father Christmas. 37 The climate of Texas mitigated against the fervent celebration of Midsummer which, in Sweden, was as festively celebrated as Christmas, if not more so. But the Dionysian aspects of Midsummer intoxication (literal and figurative), as well as its possible pagan origins, made Midsummer a much less popular holiday in Texas. Although it was celebrated in the Austin settlement, complete with maypole and dancing (a 1900 newspaper account reports that the Swedes partied until 2 a.m. !), 16 it has, for the last 75 years, been equated with the commemoration of the arrival of S.M. Swenson in 1838 and the first group of immigrants a decade later. Texas banbrytareforeningen (Texas Swedish Pioneers Association) has celebrated this historic moment since 1912 17 (see Chapter 20). Swedish-Texan Architecture The supposition that Swedes were the exclusive importers of the log cabin to America has generally been discredited. Yet small one-room timbered houses were extremely common on pioneer farms and ranches in Swedish settlements from Minnesota to Texas. 1S In the unusual climate of Texas there was no need to build stout buildings with massive walls to support steeply pitched roofs strong enough to withstand heavy snowfalls. Instead, the problem was usually the heat, with its attendant dust and discomfort. Swedes quickly adopted local techniques and patterns for their architecture, styles well suited to the environment of Texas. Many of these styles were, of course, to be seen in Sweden as well, but there they were the franchise of the upper classes, even of the aristocracy. For example, no Swedish farmer (at least in the 1860's) would have dreamt of building the grandiose frame houses with large windows, verandas, and ornamental woodwork in which his Texas counterpart felt most at home. So far did this "Americanization" of architecture go that researcher Carl Rosenquist stated flatly 19 "there was no attempt made by the Swedes of Texas to set up any of the old-country 38 Mrs. Carl Gustaf Palm behind log cabin, originally located at Govalle, in which her husband's family lived during the 1850's, Austin, c. 1934. (See p. 248.) physical arrangements when they organized their communities." The American grid pattern of rectangular 640-acre, square-mile sections did not encourage development of "cluster" communities like the Old World villages which centered on the parish church or a central square. According to Rosenquist, "in no case known to the writer do the . buildings built by Swedes in Texas show any trace of Swedish influence whatever." 20 Yet there may have been just a hint of Old World design in some of the later frame farmhouses, the modest '( American' , homes that replaced the cruder and intentionally temporary log structures. One such design was the typical "dog-trot" house, quite common throughout eastern and central Texas and parts of the southern United States, from which area it had been imported. Typically such a structure consisted of two "pens" or rooms under a common gabled roof, with an open breezeway between the rooms. Usually a long porch was built along the south side of the building. This type of structure was easily created out of an existing log structure and had the added advantage of providing the maximum ventilation during Texas summers. A number of such houses were built by Swedish farmers in the New Sweden community.21 39 Another variation on this architectural theme was the so-called "double-pen" house, which consisted of two symmetrical ground-floor rooms under a common roof. Similar structurescalled megaronhus or parstuga-are uncommon in Sweden but not altogether unknown. The Andrew Palm House, built in Palm Valley in 1873 and moved to downtown Round Rock in 1976, is a good example of a framed and sided version of a double-pen house built by Swedish Texans. Annie Branham mentions living in such a house near Coupland just before World War I. 22 Andrew Palm Jamily in front oj their residence, Palm Vt:zlley, 1900's In summary, life for the Swedish set tlers in Texas was hard but not significantly different from that of other pioneers. Confronted primarily with the necessity of adapting to new conditions of agriculture and climate, the Swedes of Texas also faced the obstacles that all other non-English-speaking immigrants faced: the language barrier and the preservation of their own Old World values in the multicultural arena of the frontier. They were aided in these twin tasks of adaptation and preservation by the institutions they brought with them and the new ones they created when they got here; these will be examined in detail in the last third of this book. But before the chronicle of Swedish settlement in Texas is presented, the vivid firsthand account of the Bergman brothers of Lund will fill out the story of life on the prairies of the Lone Star State. 40 5 Life on the Prairie The Letters of Carl and Fred Bergman Narrative accounts of actual experiences by Swedish immigrants to Texas are extremely few. Swante Palm's incomplete autobiography ceases with his arrival in Fort Bend County. Fredrik Roos af Hjelmsater's diary similarly stops with his departure for Texas from New Orleans in 1852. Vilhelm Moberg based much of his account of pioneer life in Minnesota in his Emigrants tetralogy on the journals kept by Andrew Peterson, who left careful and vivid descriptions of immigrant life in Chisago County over the course of half a century. While Texas produced no Andrew Peterson, it did serve as home to two brothers from Ostergotland, Carl J ohan and Claes Fredrik Bergman, whose letters home to their sisters in Sweden give almost as colorful an insight into rural life in the Swedish settlements of Texas as Peterson's do for Minnesota. Carl J ohan Bergman was born in 1858 at Ijemfriden, a tenant farm dependent on the larger farm Lilla Anestad a bit south of Linkoping, Ostergotland. His younger brother, Claes Fredrik ("Fred" in America), was born three years later. Their three elder sisters, Maria Christina (1847-1870), Mathilda Sofia (1850-1923), and Hanna (1855-1915), remained in Sweden after Carl and Fredrik emigrated, but reciprocal letters crossed the Atlantic at regular intervals for nearly 50 years. In Sweden Carl had experienced the bitterness of bankruptcy in the fi
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