Holand concluded from La Vérendrye’s and Catlin’s observations that the “superior intelligence and ability” of the Mandan could only be attributed to their partial descent from Scandinavians.66 “Swedes and Norwegians are of the purest Nordic stock and a relatively smaller number would have been sufficient to transmit the physical peculiarities for which the Mandans were noted than if any other nationality had been represented by these early culture bearers.” The members of Paul Knutson’s expedition not only possessed a vastly potent and superior biological makeup; they possessed superior cultural and moral traits. Holand argued that if the Mandan in the eighteenth century still exhibited cultural traits they had absorbed from the Norse nearly four hundred years earlier, it is proof that these early white strangers had “great tact, intelligence and force of character.”67 In Holand’s mind, the “ardent” religiosity of the remnant members of the Knutson expedition had left an indelible mark on the culture of the Mandan people. For Holand, it is only the presence of Nordic blood and Nordic Christian virtue that could have enabled the Mandan people to be “the most intelligent, well-mannered and hospitable of all the tribes of the north.” Their “superior civilization” and “peaceful disposition” were for many centuries an “oasis of comfort and gentleness in a desert of savage and warring Indians.”68
Similar to his mentor Rasmus B. Anderson, Holand appealed to notions of Scandinavian pride in this narrative. While Anderson simply argued that Scandinavians should be accepted as Anglo-Saxons because of their similar origins, Holand used North American Indians as a foil in order to praise Scandinavian virtue and racial superiority. As Michlovic and Hughey have observed in their reading of Holand, “the self-esteeming mythology of one’s group often feeds off the excoriation of another.”69
Rune Stone Rejection: Constructing Modern Scandinavian-American Identity
Despite Holand’s best efforts, Scandinavian Americans were never unified in their endorsement of the Kensington Rune Stone. Many of them were simply not persuaded by his rhetorical defense, and some were embarrassed and even angered by his pseudoscientific, filiopietistic writings.70 Some saw the dubious artifact as a potential threat to the social status of Scandinavian Americans, and by declaring it a hoax they were able to produce, or at least preserve, accumulated social capital for their groups. Thus, the rune stone enthusiast became a useful foil against which to define modern, Scandinavian-American identity.
One of the first and most persistent critics of the artifact’s authenticity and the theories of Holand was Johan A. Holvik, a professor of Norse Studies at the Norwegian Lutheran Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Holvik focused his research on the circumstances of the stone’s discovery. He pointed to discrepancies in the affidavits signed by Ohman and his neighbors in 1909 regarding exactly where the stone was discovered (either five hundred feet or five hundred yards from Nils Flaaten’s house) and when the stone was discovered (either in August or in November). Holvik also noted the varying estimates among Ohman and his neighbors about the age of the tree whose roots had held the slab of stone (ranging from ten to seventy years).71 Holvik concluded that these inconsistent testimonies indicate deception, and he took direct aim at Olof Ohman’s character. He obtained a letter from the local postmaster, who said that Ohman had once told him that “he would like to figure out something that would bother the brains of the learned.”72 The postmaster said that Ohman’s neighbor Sven Fogelblad was known for similar resentment toward intellectuals and likely worked with Ohman to produce a practical joke. Holvik offered the following hypothesis: the discrepancy in the dates of discovery indicated that the stone had been unearthed two times: first when Ohman discovered a blank stone tangled in the roots of a tree, and the second time after an inscription had been carved into it. Holvik maintains that Ohman and his neighbors had dug the stone up, carved the inscription, reburied it, and later unearthed it a second time in November 1898.73
Holvik’s outspoken opposition to the Kensington Rune Stone has been described as an “obsession.”74 Holvik opposed the controversial artifact on the grounds that it had the potential to be an embarrassment to his people. His fear was that it might one day be proved a hoax, thereby making Norwegian Americans to look like fools.75 Holvik had strong credentials as an advocate for Norwegian-American culture. Born in South Dakota in 1880 to parents who had recently arrived from Norway, he was educated at Norwegian schools in the United States and Norway. He later played an important role in organizing the Norwegian-American Centennial celebration in 1925, an event that commemorated the arrival of the first Norwegian immigrants to the United States. The Norwegian Centennial celebrated Leif Eriksson as the true discoverer of America but made no mention of the Kensington Rune Stone. Holvik likely played an important role in keeping references to Holand’s stone out of the event materials. The rejection of the controversial artifact by Holvik and other Centennial boosters does not mean that they abandoned their desire to integrate their ethnic brethren into America’s sacred myth of origin; it simply means that they endeavored to craft an image of modern Norwegian Americans as sophisticated and intelligent enough to resist what they saw as pseudoscientific hucksterism.
Site of the discovery of the Kensington Rune Stone, circa 1910. From left to right: Edwin Bjorklund, Nils (Olaf) Flaaten, and Olof Ohman. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.
Theodore Blegen was another early and vocal critic of Holand and his rune stone. A major figure in the field of Minnesota history during the middle of the twentieth century, he was also an important Norwegian-American historian. Born in Minneapolis to Norwegian immigrant parents, Blegen became one of the founders of the Norwegian-American Historical Association (NAHA) in 1925.76 One of NAHA’s main goals was to replace myths about Norwegian Americans with verifiable history. They endeavored to use historical methods that were considered credible among the leading American historians of the day. Blegen and other young Norwegian-American historians challenged the filiopietist writing of the older generation. These scholars saw themselves as descendants not of Leif Eriksson, but of nineteenth-century immigrants from Norway. In 1931, Blegen published his own version of immigrant history, Norwegian Migration to America, 1825–1860. Unlike Holand’s De Norske Settlementers Historie, Blegen wrote in English, used proper historical methodology, and avoided uncritical veneration of his ethnic peers.77
Soon after founding the Norwegian-American Historical Association, Blegen took direct aim at one of Holand’s historical claims about the Kensington Stone. A few years earlier, Holand had written that there were no white settlers in Douglas County prior to 1865. In making this claim, Holand attempted to show that the tree under which the slab of stone was found had existed prior to the arrival of Scandinavian immigrants. In his 1925 article, Blegen challenged Holand’s claim by citing census data indicating that there were 195 residents in Douglas County in 1860 and more than 1,300 persons of Scandinavian descent living there by 1870.78 This would be the first of many efforts by Blegen to challenge Holand’s inaccurate and often deceitful historical methods.
Even the great Norwegian-American booster Rasmus B. Anderson refused to endorse his former student’s rune stone. In a 1910 article titled “The Kensington Runestone Is Fake” published in a Norwegian-language newspaper, Anderson argued that the inscription did not match the runic language used in the fourteenth century. Later that year, he published another article in the Minneapolis Journal where he gave an account of a conversation he had with Andrew Anderson, brother-in-law to Olof Ohman. He described Ohman’s relative as a man of “great intelligence and education” who had extensive knowledge of runic writing. After their conversation, he claimed that Andrew Anderson had strongly implied, but not directly stated, that he had something to do with creating the inscription.79 Rune stone enthusiasts did not take kindly to Anderson’s rejection of the stone’s authenticity and Holand accused him of being the first to “tarnish the names of Ohman and Fogelblad by . . . accusing them of having perpe
trated a fraud.”80 Who are we to believe? Holand is not the only one with something at stake in the Kensington Rune Stone debates. Anderson built his career on developing a historical narrative of Viking discovery that centered on the presence of Norsemen in New England. Perhaps he saw the Minnesota artifact as deviating from his well-established script, which appealed to America’s cultural elite. Anderson seemed especially troubled that the runic inscription stated that both Goths and Swedes accompanied the exploration, given, as he claimed, that only men from Norway went on voyages of exploration.81 Anderson may have seen the rune stone as a threat to the Norwegian–Swedish rivalry from which he benefited.
The Kensington Rune Stone: Beyond Ethnicity
Although there were lingering anxieties among some Swedish and Norwegian Americans in the 1920s about their place in American society, most enjoyed the privileges of political and cultural power in Minnesota, especially in comparison to immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Lovoll says that Norwegian immigrants were typically characterized by native-born white Americans as “hardworking, thrifty and law-abiding,” and there were “few examples of direct discrimination” against them.82 Immigrants from Sweden and Norway enjoyed more immediate acceptance via immigration policies because they were better able to fit the mold of what looked to be “American” in the eyes of those who held power.83
This cultural privilege helps explain the early political success of Scandinavian Americans. By 1892, Norwegian immigrants could boast that one of their own, Knute Nelson, had become governor of Minnesota. Just a few years later, Nelson was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1923. By the 1920s, it is evident that Norwegian Americans wielded significant influence over national politics. Of the numerous speeches given during the Norwegian-American Centennial celebration, none was more anticipated than that by newly elected President Calvin Coolidge. Addressing a crowd of more than eighty thousand people, Coolidge acknowledged their claim that the Norwegian explorer Leif Eriksson had discovered America many years prior to Christopher Columbus. A local journalist characterized the response of the crowd: “The great roar that rose from Nordic throats to Thor and Odin above the lowering gray clouds told that the pride of the race had been touched.”84 Coolidge had won the 1924 election with the support of Minnesota, and he took this opportunity to praise Norwegian-American voters as “good and trustworthy citizens.”85
Just as Norwegian Americans reached this pinnacle of social status, appeals to ethnic identity began to weaken. Lovoll argues that the Norwegian-American Centennial of 1925 marked the “final mustering of strong Norwegian ethnic forces.”86 He tracks the decline of participation in the bygdelag movement following the event and the decline of Norwegian-language publications during this decade.87 Fewer Swedes and Norwegians emigrated to the United States. As a consequence, the percentage of foreign-born in Douglas County, Minnesota, dropped from around 29 percent in 1905 to approximately 15 percent in 1930.88 National crises such as the Great Depression and the world wars fueled the trend away from ethnic self-identification. By 1946, many churches, such as the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America, had dropped the term “Norwegian” because “it was no longer felt to be a natural qualifier for its members.”89
Although the need for Scandinavian immigrants to prove their “Americanness” declined in the first decades of the twentieth century, the popular appeal of the Kensington Rune Stone continued to surge.90 However, the continued devotion to Viking discovery narratives had little to do with the need to bolster ethnic virility or soothe immigrant dislocation anxieties. Like other white Minnesotans in the early twentieth century, these children of Sweden and Norway were haunted by a violent past. The landscape on which they had made their home was once occupied by someone else. The rune stone inscription spoke directly to this concern.
Chapter Two
Knutson’s Last Stand
Fabricating the First White Martyrs of the American West
“This vast stretch of beautiful land was to be his—yes his—and no ghost of a dead Indian would drive him away!”
—Per Hansa in Ole Rølvaag’s novel Giants in the Earth
Although the inscription on the Kensington Rune Stone makes no reference to how the ten Norse travelers ended up “red with blood and dead,” to Holand and other white Minnesotans at the turn of the twentieth century the answer is obvious: they were killed by Indians. In an article in Harper’s Weekly in 1909, Holand claimed that the reason for their deaths “is so plain that it scarcely needs an explanation,” yet he offered a rich, dramatic narrative to do just that. As Holand told the story, the Norsemen camped near a fishing lake in Minnesota. Some members of the expedition went across the lake to go fishing. Those who remained at the campsite were suddenly “attacked by a ferocious band of savages.” In a “desperate” struggle of hand-to-hand combat, “the whites are overcome one by one.” The fishing party returned later in the day and “they discover, to their horror, the mutilated bodies of their comrades now stiffened in death.” Holand went on to describe the reaction of the surviving Norsemen: “Breathing a fervent prayer to the Virgin Mary to save them from this unknown enemy, and throwing a rough burial mound over their friends, they hastily leave the sad spot. They take refuge upon an island in a lake a day’s journey away. Here they find this stone, suited by nature for an inscription, and amid the ominous silence of a savage wilderness, they carve their tragic story upon it.”1
With the Harper’s Weekly article, the Kensington Rune Stone extended far beyond the Norwegian-speaking audience Holand addressed in his first publication, De Norske Settlementers Historie. As noted earlier, Holand used the story of the dead Norsemen to show that nineteenth-century Scandinavian Americans were not alone in the sacrifices they made to settle the American West. Their ancestors from the fourteenth century had done the same. The Harper’s Weekly editors recognized that the Kensington Rune Stone was not merely an ethnic curiosity of interest to a minority immigrant group. A story of primeval Viking sacrifices at the hands of Indians appealed to a broad American readership.
Pre-Columbian Norsemen in the Yankee Imagination
Interest in the notion of pre-Columbian Nordic visitors to the northeastern United States flourished during the mid-nineteenth century, and not just among Norwegian-American immigrants like Rasmus B. Anderson.2 Henry Wheaton’s History of the Norsemen (1831), Carl Christian Rafn’s Antiquitates Americanae (1837), and recent English translations of the Norse sagas found large audiences in New England. By the 1850s, new historiographies about New England began to include Nordic history.3 As noted earlier, a statue of Leif Eriksson was installed in Boston in 1887 and the Viking explorer became known as the city’s “other founding father.”4 Viking history found its way into popular writings. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Skelton in Armor” (1841) was inspired by the discovery of a supposed “Viking grave” in Massachusetts during the 1830s.5 In a series of letters known as the Biglow Papers published in the spring of 1862, Massachusetts poet James Russell Lowell tells the fictional story of a minister who discovers a rune stone outside the mythical town of North Jalaam.6 Reverend Homer Wilbur sent copies of the runic inscription to “learned men” for translation, but he later discovered that he could read the runes if he turned them upside down. The runes told a story about a character in the medieval Norse literature named Bjarna who had been lost at sea but stopped in New England to smoke tobacco with the Indians. It is apparent that Lowell is poking fun at rune stone enthusiasts, but it is an indication of the degree to which “Viking mania” captivated the imaginations of white New Englanders in the mid-nineteenth century.7
Viking discovery narratives satisfied several cultural desires of New Englanders. First of all, they played an important role in soothing anxieties caused by shifting trends in immigration. Historian J. M. Mancini observes that New England’s cultural elites of the late nineteenth century embraced a trend of “racialized history”:
At a moment of increasing fe
ar that the nation was committing race suicide, the thought of Viking ghosts roaming the streets of a city increasingly filled with Irish, Italian, and Jewish hordes must have been comforting to an Anglo-Saxon elite whose political power, at least, was decidedly on the wane.8
Second, Mancini observes that Viking myths conveyed regret over the plight of Indians in the nineteenth century. Rasmus B. Anderson portrayed Vikings as the first Europeans who sacrificed their lives in an attempt to Christianize New England. Crafting a narrative of white innocence, Anderson implied that Christianity in the Americas
had been born not in the brutal conversion and decimation of Aboriginal peoples but in blood spilled by European Vikings upon the shores of Massachusetts. In thus offering victimized Vikings as the true colonizers of New England, Anderson offered a salve to Americans’ . . . increasingly guilty conscience about “the future of the Indian,” whose degradation and disappearance were becoming causes célèbres . . . and whose fate was frequently pondered by defenders of the Viking theory of New World discovery.9
The notion of a pre-Columbian presence in North America by Norse or other exotic visitors appealed to white, English-speaking Americans for other reasons. In 1773, Boston minister Samuel Mather wrote a book called An Attempt to Shew, That America Must Be Known to the Ancients, which claimed that America was first settled following the worldwide flood described in the book of Genesis. These first settlers were followed by Northern Europeans and, later, Phoenicians, who were among the many people who greeted Columbus and other explorers. In effect, Mather crafted a “providential history” that placed America in “a biblical past and redeemed future.”10 Mather shared his writings with Benjamin Franklin, who became persuaded that Swedes, among others, had reached America prior to Columbus. This alternative origin story had the effect of decentering Britain’s role in American history and shaped a new national narrative as Americans tried to sever ties with their colonizers.11
Myths of the Rune Stone Page 5
