Finns in Minnesota

Early Emigration from Finland

6  people oF minnesota In fact,few ethnic groups of similar size have displayed such diversity—and turmoil—within their ranks. What other small Minnesota group has produced a Republican congressmanandgovernor ,thenation’sfirstCommunistmayor, and a four-time Communist Party of America candidate for U.S. president? Perhaps Finns do represent “America’s largest dysfunctional family.”2 This book begins with a brief summary of Finnish migration to North America before 1864 and follows with a discussion of factors that led several hundred thousand Finns to leave over the next half century. Most of the volume features the 1864–1945 period in Minnesota,although an overview of the post–World War II years is also provided . Since Minnesota has included numerous Finland Swedes—people born in Finland who speak Swedish—the book concludes with a portrait of this unique group. Because Finnish migration began in the far northern reaches of the Nordic world, a Finnish Sámi (Lapp) presence has also been evident in Minnesota.While it is estimated that thirty thousand Sámi immigrated to America, most from Norway and Sweden, an accurate count cannot be determined since they often hid their identity to avoid discrimination .Therefore,the number of Finnish Sámi who settled in Minnesota is unknown.3 Early Emigration from Finland Significant emigration from Finland occurred during the 1500s and 1600s when more than ten thousand Finns,most from the eastern region of Savo-Karelia, departed for the uninhabited uplands of Värmland and west-central Sweden . Several hundred of these “Värmland Finns” assisted in establishing Sweden’s Delaware River valley colonies throughout areas of present-day Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,and Maryland from the 1640s to the 1660s.4 Two centuries later, during the Russian era of Finnish the Finns  7 history,Alaska emerged as a destination for some ambitious and adventurous Finns, including two naval officers who served as the czars’ governors. America’s miniscule midnineteenth -century Finnish population was augmented by adventurers who departed after hearing of the 1849 California gold rush and sailors who left their ships at Pacific and Atlantic ports during the 1850s.5 Among the small but steady flow of Finns who began arriving in the United States from 1864 to the 1880s were at least five hundred whose birthplace was northern Norway; more than fifty settled in Minnesota, and at least another hundred left via Norwegian ports. Other early Finnishspeaking immigrants departed from the Swedish side of the Tornio River that separates Finland and Sweden. (No political boundary divided northern Finland and Sweden , but the Tornio became the official border following the Russian annexation of Finland.) Wherever their origins ,Finnish-speaking émigrés typically expressed fidelity to Finland. Decades after reaching Minnesota during the mid-1860s,an elderly Finnish woman from northern Sweden compared her compatriots’ sentiments to those immigrants who had arrived directly from their homeland: “Finland is as dear to us as you others,”she emphasized.6 TheWhy andWhere of Immigration “America fever” (Amerikankuume), which gripped much of Finland by the early 1870s, was generally spurred by the same factors that led to the departure of tens of millions of Europeans between the 1820s and 1914.Although many people claim that Finns settled in Minnesota “because it looked like Finland,” the major reason was economic. These“rural proletarians left to escape moneyless circumstances ,” and Minnesota’s forests, farms, mines, towns, and cities offered employment opportunities during the Finns’ major period of migration.Also of importance was 8  people oF minnesota a nineteenth-century population explosion caused by improvements in Finland’s medical and health situation. When the number of Finns expanded from fewer than one million in 1800 to three million in 1914, the area of cultivated land failed to provide an adequate food supply for the “surplus population.” The growth rate of the crofter or tenant farmer class exceeded that of landowners by two times, while the landless peasant group grew fivefold. As conditions became increasingly precarious,many peasants and crofters sought work by moving from farm to farm in Finland.7 During the mid-1890s, political oppression was added to the list of factors contributing to Finnish emigration. The 1835 publication of Finland’s folk epic the Kalevala had already inspired a nationalistic awareness that led to Russian recognition of the Finnish language in 1863.When the Finns’ political and cultural awakening grew throughout the 1890s, however, Czar Nicholas II eliminated Finland...