Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Page 46

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LE NORD
that emigration assumed the largest proportions in those parts
of the country where the population has increased most. During
the i9th century the population of Northern and Eastern Ice-
land increased by 85 p.c., that of Southern Iceland by 69 p.c.,
and that of the Western parts of the country by 41 p.c. Though
exact figures are not available, it is certain that the overwhelm-
ing majority of the emigrants came from the Northern and
Eastern districts. These were also the parts of the country which
suffered most from the hard winters in the 1880’s.
The more the population grew, the more difficult did it be-
come for the individual to become economically independent at
home, and it is therefore not to be wondered at that people
should have listened eagerly to the often highly-coloured reports
of the wonderful climate and inexhaustibly rich lands of America,
where anyone could have a farm of his own for the asking. The
hopes which had been aroused in many Icelanders by the growth
of European Liberalism about the middle of the century had
not been fulfilled. The prolonged, and often embittered consti-
tutional conflict with Denmark had caused many to lose courage
and to despair of a struggle which appeared to be interminable.
At one time, an agitation was even openly set afoot in certain
circles for the wholesale emigration of the whole Icelandic
population to America, with the object of founding a new com-
munity there. It is difficult to determine what share political
discontent had in the emigration movement, but it is certain
that it was extensively exploited as an argument in favour of
leaving the country.
As hinted above, the year 1870 may be taken as the starting
point of Icelandic emigration to America on any larger scale.
The first small beginnings of the movement, however, go back
to somewhat earlier times. Nevertheless, if the abortive attempts
at an Icelandic colonization of the Atlantic seaboard of America
in the nth century are left out of account, it is not till the
1850’s that we have any record of Icelanders leaving for that
country. Two Icelandic journeymen had been converted to Mor-
monism in Copenhagen, and on their return they began to work
as missionaries. They baptized some of their fellow-countrymen,
and about a dozen of them emigrated to Utah in 1855 and the
following years. Nothing much came of this, however, and it
was not until some 20 years later that a number of Icelanders,
both Mormons and Lutherans, again left for Utah. The first