#cw lapp slur

[norsesuggestions]

english translation of: the saami in central sweden [Skogssamerna i de mellansvenska skogarna]. written by Anna Skielta

published by the saami parliement in swedens website samer.se. original at http://samer.se/4049

the forests of Dalarna, Hälsingland, Gästrikland and Västmanland are rich in lichen, the staple of reindeers diet. in these forests, it is very likely that the saami, who were the ancestors of the “parish saami”, had their reindeer herds grazing lands.

The saami who lived in the area today called central sweden, primarly lived of hunting, fishing and reindeer herding. in the middle of the 17th century, the swedish state started their project to chase them from their homes, with the goal of deporting them towards the north, to the area which the state has decided was the “the saami lands” [=lappmarken]. the attempt to force relocate the saami of central sweden to the north, would be ongoing for almost 200 years.

the first attempt to deport the southernmost saami started in Järvsö, Hälsingland. the the year of 1645, the local political unite, the landsting, gave the order to all länsmän [translator note: länsmän a title which was held by local farmers who had been given the responbility by the state to make the states laws, policies and orders practical reality] to deport all saami who existed within their rural area locality [=socken].

this political order is followed with several similiar orders in other Hälsingland rural area localities. In söderhamn, the swedish farmers are told to rapport all sightnings of saami people, to the länsman.

there are several attempts to force deport the southernmost saami, but they are not very succesful. therefore, in the year of 1720, the tone gets even sharper with the declaration of a royal issued law that states  that “all saami which are located outside the state drawn border of ‘the saami lands’ shall be deported with no delay.” this law was renewed in 1723 .

this law, was also pretty ineffective in practice. the saami who lives outside the state drawn borders of the “the saami lands”, remains living in their ancestral lands. they have reindeer, and keeps living as saami, just as their ancestors did. but now, a climate of anti - saami prejudice rises among the non - saami people in central sweden. the competition for hunting the wild animals of the region is increasing steadily. the saami, who primarly makes a living from hunting, therefore becomes a target from swedes who want to deport them, so they can get their hands on all the profit from hunting. at the same time, the church gets more and more vocal about that the saami should become “proper christians”.

the year of 1729 the head of the län Dalarna [admin note: then called Kopperbergs Län], Danckwardt writes to all the local authorites in Dalarnas Län that “all the saami in Dalarna shall be collected into one group, and then be deported farther north via Gästrikland”.

at the same time, the anxiety of the saami of the region increase. several saami contacts the authorites about that they “can’t see a future for us within the state drawn borders of ‘the saami lands’”. the reason for this, that they tell the authorities is that they have never been there, they don’t own anything there and foremost of all: because of this they see no possibility to make a living within the borders of the state  issued ‘saami lands’“.

They are not without support, many swedish farmers in Dalarna protests against the proposal to deport all saami from Dalarna. Many swedish farmers in Dalarna had a mutually benefical cooperation with the saami of the region. the skills and knowledge of the saami in Dalarna, was interwoven in the lifestyle of the Dalarna farmers, in such a way, that a loss of the saami via forced deportation, was considered a horrific concept in the minds of many farmers. therefore the farmers goes to the local authorities time and time again, and begs that “please do not deport all of them. at least some of them, must be allowed to stay”.

Hälsingland is a sharp contrast to Dalarna. In Dalarna many of the swedish farmers were on the saami side, and argued for that the saami should be allowed to stay in Dalarna. But in Hälsingland the view among the swedish farmers was that the saami of Hälsingland should be forced deported, and if it is not possible to deport them, they should become personal servants of the swedish farmers.

that the socio - economic lives of the saami and the swedish farmers of central sweden was closely interwoven could not by denied by the authortites. therefore, the authorites finally decide to comprimise with the farmers. they do this by demanding that the saami of central sweden should become settled, that they should raise their children according to the swedish lutheran faith, and the saami should only hunt as much as the swedish state allowed them.

an effect of this, is that during the 1750s, the saami of Hälsingland and Gästrikland more and more stops being semi - nomadic, and become settled. some got forced to become what is called “a parish saami”. these “parish saami” keeps up small scale reindeer herding. but, during the 1830s the reindeer herders among these “parish saami”, is discountined. Despite that they stopped with reindeer herding, they do not stop being a part of the ethnic group of saami. these saami keeps being an ethnic group, that lives side by side with swedish farmers. these “parish saami” made their living from art and crafts, and with doing the labour swedish farmers refuse to do, like slaughtering horses.

and like that, the “parish saami” made their living, until the start of the industralisation of sweden.

x

[two saami people, with unknown names, visiting the the store of Lars & Anders which was located in Västpågårn at Kils in Storhaga, Ljusdal, Hälsingland. sometimes during the early 20th century]

admin note: this was a complicated article to translate, because it filled with legal terms from historical sweden, which are hard to know how to translate and/convey the meaning off, in english. so, some mistakes must likely made, which i say sorry for. but, i find this an important article to spread outside the swedish language it is orignally written in.

also i translated “lappmark” to “saami lands” for the simple reason i did not wanted to have a slur for saami (lapp) to be constanstly repeated in my translation. the same thing is true, of my translation of “sockenlapp” to “parish saami”. the swedish state used a slur originally for both these concepts. but it is the swedish state created concept of “lappmark” the state wanted to force deport the saami living in central sweden to.

the “lappmark” has different borders during different times but this is an approx of its borders in 1796

x

and here, so one can understand all these places mentioned in this text, is a modern map of the landskaps in sweden. not the exact borders these landskaps had during the events of the translated text, but to get a general idea of the area they are talking about. the landskaps talked about in the translated text, as exemples of central sweden landskap with a history of saami people, and also a history of the authorities trying to deport these saami people from the landskaps, are Dalarna, Hälsingland, Gästrikland and Västmanland.

sources

http://samer.se/4049

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landskap_i_Sverige#/media/File:Sverigekarta-Landskap_Text.svg

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lappmarken#/media/File:V%C3%A4sterbottens_l%C3%A4n_och_svenska_lappmarken_1796.svg

[norsesuggestions]

english language versions of the saami council in swedens website about the saami people

I thought i would share some excerpts to shine some light on it. i highly rec reading the texts at samer.se. it is a very good website, full of info about saami people, written by saami people. and it got lots of information in english! including the text excerpts shared below.

quoted from samer.se text about sapmis history, found at this link: http://www.samer.se/4535

The first written sources

(qouted from http://www.samer.se/4535)

Foreign people were already writing about the Sami hundreds of years ago. Most had never met any Sami themselves, but simply wrote down hearsay. The Sami were considered to be a fascinating and exotic people. For example, it was considered remarkable that both men and women hunted.

Germania The first written document to mention the Sami is believed to date from 98 AD. This is when the Roman historical writer Tacitus, in his book 'Germania', wrote about a people he called the Fenni: "They eat herbs, dress in animal skins and sleep on the ground. The only thing they trust are their arrows with bone tips. Men and women follow each other and support themselves on the same hunt.''

 [.....]

the struggle between the countries begins

(qouted from http://www.samer.se/4539)

When Sápmi was drawn in earnest into the sphere of interest of the surrounding nations in the Middle Ages, the region was viewed as a barren wasteland. There was no state here, the Sami lived in sijdda societies and had no common king or state apparatus. Each of the nation states wanted to gain control of this land and is riches. For several hundred years they disputed who actually had the rights to the land in the north.

Territorial claims Just as in other parts of the world, the churches in the Nordic region and Russia have supported their national governments in their endeavours to gain power in new areas. They assumed the right to condemn the beliefs of the Sami in the name of God. In this way the church supported the various countries' territorial claims in Sápmi. In Vadsö in northern Norway, a church and a fortress were both erected at the beginning of the 14th century. Mission The Church in Sweden began its missionary work in earnest at the beginning of the 17th century, when churches were built in several locations in Sápmi. The Church's goal was to convert the heathen Sami to Christianity. The intention of the Swedish Crown was to expand Sweden's territory to the north. Karl IX wanted to gain access to the fish-rich Northern Arctic Ocean, with the importance this would have for trade. In order to show the neighbouring countries that he should have preference here, he called himself `the King of the Lapps in the northern land'. Rights to the land Sweden was collecting tax from the Sami in this region, admittedly, but this was not sufficient to claim rights to the land, as Denmark/Norway and Russia were also collecting tax here. The best way of being able to say that the land was Swedish was for Swedes to live there, but it was difficult to get Swedes to move to the region. And the people who already lived there, the Sami, were not Swedes, Norwegians nor Russians. However, if the Sami were converted to Christianity and paid tax to the Swedish Crown, they could be counted as Swedish subjects and the land they inhabited could be called Swedish.

The Colonization of Sápmi

(qouted from http://www.samer.se/4543)

Despite being taxed and forcibly converted to Christianity, the Sami were viewed as unpredictable by the Swedish state. Their mobility as nomads was threatening and they could not safeguard the state's claim to the territory in the north.

For the state there was only one way out: Swedish farmers would have to move to the wilderness and cultivate it. With a settled farming population, they knew what they had, and this meant that they could claim territorial rights to the land. Claim territory However, there was little interest among Swedes in moving north. As long ago as the 16th century, King Gustav Vasa had been interested in encouraging people to move to the wilderness in the north. However, the event that really awakened the interest of the Swedish state in colonising the Sami region was the discovery of silver in Nasafjäll in 1634. With a silver mine in the Sami region, it became even more important to claim it as Swedish territory. The Lappmark Proclamation So what should be done to attract settlers to the north? The solution was the Lappmark Proclamation of 1673. This stipulated that anybody who settled in the Sami region would be granted tax exemption for 15 years and would not have to serve as a soldier in any war. The latter offer was a very attractive promise, because Sweden was often at war at that time. As the Sami's contribution to the public treasury was considered to be significant, it was stipulated that settlers were not allowed to disturb the Sami in the exercise of their trade, nor to colonise land in their Lapp tax lands, but only land that was considered to be unused. Sami forced back The Lappmark Proclamation was renewed in 1695. In this new version it was emphasised that the settlers should clear arable and pasture land, and that excess burn-beating should not occur. In Kemi Lappmark, the influx of settlers had entailed major problems for the Sami. That was the destination for the majority of the settlers, and they burn-beat the land as they advanced. Hunting and fishing were still the most important trades for the Sami in Kemi Lappmark, and burn-beating caused the game to disappear. The Sami complained time and again in the courts, and as the lay assessors were still Sami at this time, their complaints were met with understanding. The settlers were fined and ordered to cease with the burn-beating, but this did not help. During subsequent centuries, the Sami in Kemi Lappmark were consequently forced off their land. The Lappmark Regulation The state eventually realised that it was necessary to clarify the division of trades between settlers and Sami. The Lappmark Regulation therefore followed in 1749. In this it was determined that the settlers should primarily devote themselves to farming and the keeping of livestock. To ensure that they did not encroach too much on the Sami's trades, they should not spend too much time hunting. However, they were entitled to fish in the Sami fishing waters. The hunting and fishing rights extended for a radius of 5 km around the colony, although hayfields could be owned further away. The colonial rights were now also opened up to the Sami. The people in power thought that since the Sami and the settlers were supposed to use the lands in different ways, they could live side by side. In reality it wasn't possible to survive only by cultivating the soil in this harsh climate. Strong position Historically the Sami had a good reputation, especially the Vasa kings liked them because of their contributions to the public treasury. The Sami hade their own representatives in the old Swedish Riksdag, in the yeomanry, and they could exercise influence on their own trades. Up to the middle of the 18th century the position of the Sami in the Lappmark areas was fairly strong. The majority of the lay assessors could be Sami and their was both understanding and knowledge about the situation in the courts. In court disputes with settlers on land use, the Sami usually won. Reindeer herding was considered an important trade, alongside with agriculture and stock-raising.

The same rights All inhabitants in the Lappmark area had the same kind of rights up to the 19th century. Then colonization of the lands really took off and the Sami had to accept encroachment in the Lapp tax lands. More settlers resulted in more conflicts, especially about fishing lakes. The authorities' view on land properties gradually changed. More often the Sami lost court cases on land disputes.

Industrialization The industrialization changed everything. Water power plants and mining caused devastation of reindeer grazing grounds and hunting grounds. The state took the language, the lands and the common law from the Sami. Ideas about lower and higher races spread, Sami heads and bodies were measured in the name of racial biology and the extinction of the Sami people was merely a matter of time. Reindeer herding and Sami culture was a burden to the society. The Sami were supposed to settle down, assimilate and pursue other trades and occupations.

[image from samer.se at: http://www.samer.se/4641]