.jpg) Sámi reindeer herder Ellen Sara holding her baby sister Berit. Alaska, circa 1906. | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 945[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Alaska · Midwest • California | |
| Languages | |
| English · Sámi languages · Norwegian · Swedish · Finnish · Russian | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity · Sámi shamanism |
Sámi Americans areAmericans ofSámi descent, who originate fromSápmi, the northern regions ofNorway,Sweden,Finland, and theKola Peninsula ofRussia. The termLapp Americans has been historically used, thoughlapp is consideredderogatory by the Sámi.
Most Sámi emigrants came to the United States to escapeethnic discrimination,religious persecution, and/orpoverty.[2][3] The traditions and culture of these immigrants were further repressed by pressure to assimilate withinAnglo-American society. As a result, very few Americans of Sámi descent are aware of their ancestry and many traditions have not been preserved outside of small communities.[3] In 2000, a total of 945 American residents self-reported Sámi ancestry on theircensus.[1] Although the actual number of Americans of Sámi descent is unknown, it is estimated that approximately 30,000 people of Sámi ancestry live inNorth America.[4][5][6]
The majority of Sámi immigrants to the United States were documented based on theirnationality, rather than theirethnicity.Ship manifests documenting the ethnic origins of their passengers to the United States often labeled Sámi migrants by their national origins, and when these migrants were processed on arrival to the United States, most were then marked as ethnically Norwegian, Finnish or Swedish.[2][3] Because of this, it is unknown how many came to the U.S. during the late 19th and early 20th centuries along with otherScandinavian immigrants.[2][3][7]
The majority of Sámi immigrants originated from Norway, Sweden, or Finland, though a small number came from theKola Peninsula in Russia. Most came to the United States as single family units, which were often of mixed nationalities, where one spouse had a different Nordic nationality than the other. There is some speculation that some Sámi women who immigrated to the United States alone weremail-order brides, asoral histories record the efforts of women to avoid exploitative work.[2]
The majority of Sámi migrants to the United States are believed to have immigrated from the late 19th to the early 20th century, like otherNordic American immigrants. The driving factors behind their emigration, however, appear to differ from other Nordic ethnicities.[2] Though documentation of the phenomenon is limited, based on oral and written accounts by Sámi Americans it is believed that many Sámi were driven to emigrate because of discrimination and national claims to their territories. Many were also driven by religious factors, asLaestadians were persecuted in Sweden and Norway.[2][8]
Initially, Sámi populations were drawn to the United States by employment opportunities in mining and logging industries. Sámi immigrants are first recorded to have arrived in the United States in the 1860s, when a number were recruited to work in theKeweenaw Peninsula copper mines. The majority of these miners were from northern Sweden and Finland. A community of Laestadians with Sámi origins later moved to the Peninsula as well. The most well documented case of Sámi immigration was to Alaska in the 1890s, when a comparatively small number of Sámi herders were recruited by the emergingAlaska Reindeer Service.[2]
InSápmi, Sámi peoples were often discriminated against and increasingly subject toforced assimilation until the later 20th century. In the United States, however, most Americans were either unaware of the existence of Sámi as a distinct ethnicity or didn't distinguish them from otherNordic immigrants. Sámi Americans were and continue to be classified asWhite Americans by the United States government.[9] Although within Nordic migrant communities they have faced discrimination against their culture and ethnicity. In order to avoid discrimination and conform to Anglo-American cultural norms, very few first-generation immigrants were open about their ethnicity.[2] In many cases, Sámi immigrants actively repressed their ethnic identity. The traditions of these immigrants were quickly lost to later generations.[3][7]
Much of the spread ofLaestadianism in the Americas is attributed to Sámi-American immigrants who formed religious communities in the United States.[2] Sámi immigrants, along with ethnic Finns, began founding their own congregations in the United States as early as the 1870s after an established Norwegianpastor denied a number of Laestadians theeucharist.[10] The movement's founder,Lars Levi Laestadius, was a scholar ofSámi shamanism and had been principally concerned with preaching to Sámi populations. Although Laestadianism has since spread beyond Sámi populations, it is still closely associated with Sámi heritage because of its origins.[11]
A movement in the late 20th century which sought to revive Sámi identity in North America yielded two publications which aim to connect Sámi Americans to their past:Árran andBáiki.[12][4] TheSami Siida of North America was also formed as a network connecting Sámi descendants in North America. These organizations have made efforts to reconnect with surviving Sámi populations in northern Scandinavia, and to revive traditional Sámi art forms, such asstorytelling.[13]
In the mid 19th century, the United States government began efforts to teachreindeer husbandry toAlaska Natives as their traditional sources of sustenance through seal, walrus, and whale hunting had become insufficient due to overfishing.[4][14] InitiallyChukchi herders were brought over, but animosity between the Chukchi and the AlaskanIñupiat made their working relationship unviable. Instead, theSámi were encouraged to emigrate toAlaska at the invitation of the Alaskan Commissioner of Education,Sheldon Jackson. As the Commissioner of Education, Jackson also introduced policies which effectively sought to re-educate the Alaska native population and repress cultural differences. With the advent of a significant Sámi population in his jurisdiction, these repressive policies came to apply to Sámi immigrants as well.[3]
At the time, many Sámi herders inSápmi had lost their traditional livelihoods, as they had been gradually pushed out of lands used fornomadic pastoralism into more defined regions with inflexible borders. This likely encouraged some to make the arduous journey to Alaska. The first group of herders made the three month journey in 1894, fromFinnmarksvidda, across North America, toTeller Reindeer Station. According to the New York Times, there were only sixteen in the group, and they were under a three-year contract for $27.50 per month plus boarding.[15] By the turn of the 20th century, many of these first families returned to Sápmi after their contracts expired. Some, however, remained in Alaska and continued herding reindeer.[3]
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The government was once again forced to find new forms of food in Alaska, after the discovery of gold and theKlondike Gold Rush brought more people to the region than the already strained and sparse infrastructure could sustain.[2] Sheldon Jackson once again recruited more Sámi to immigrate to Alaska, this time in greater numbers. In February 1898, a group of 87 Sámi headers and their families embarked for Alaska. With them, they brought 537 reindeer, 4000 sacks of moss feed, and 418 reindeerpulks. By the time the arrived in Seattle, however, the U.S. government had decided that the situation in Alaska was not dire enough to warrant immediate action, and had reallocated all of its ships to fighting in theSpanish–American War. The group was forced to wait in Seattle until ships were made available for their journey north. By the time the expedition arrived in Alaska in April, reportedly only 200 of the 537 reindeer had survived the long trip. This group was contracted for a two-year period, after which 26 returned to Sápmi. Many of those who remained in North America stayed in Alaska as miners, while others resettled in Washington and the Midwest, where large Scandinavian populations existed.[15]Samuel Balto, a Sámi explorer who had temporarily moved to Alaska during this era, sent a letter detailing his experience toFridtjof Nansen, which read in part,
...We came to Alaska July 27, 1898. [...] We travelled seven miles upriver where we built seven houses and a big three-story farmhouse. [...] Up to the time when we started building, we received, according to our contract, "good and sufficient" food. In November the Superintendent began to sell our provisions to the Eskimos, and he put the money in his own pocket. For us [Sami] there was less and less each month. Finally there was hunger among us and many came down with scurvy. Now we are all free men, having left government service. We have travelled 200 miles westward from the station to the place where there have been many gold finds, Anvil City [Nome].
— Samuel Balto, Letter toFridtjof Nansen (translated from Norwegian),
Anvil City, Alaska, 9 September 1899[16]
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In 1937, Sámi and all other non-Native Alaskans were banned from owning reindeer through TheReindeer Act. The act was passed by theU.S. Congress and signed into law byPresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt on September 1 of that year. It effectively prohibited the ownership ofreindeer herds in Alaska by non-Native Americans and was intended to provide for Alaskan natives and to allow them to establish a self-sustaining industry.[17] Authority to promulgate rules regarding the ownership and maintenance of reindeer herds was delegated to theBureau of Indian Affairs via theSecretary of the Interior, who banned most transactions to non-natives.[18] The act was modeled in part on Norwegian and Swedish policies on the ownership of reindeer by the Sámi ofSápmi. Many Sámi had recently arrived in Alaska to manage the reindeer in the 1930s. As a result of the act, Alaskan Sámi were required to sell their herds to the government at $3 per head. Many left Alaska after doing so, in search new ways to support themselves.[19][20] While many became scattered across North America and forced to integrate, a significant number settled on theKitsap peninsula in Washington, where a community of Norwegian immigrants already existed.[21]
WHITE [...] A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe