Småland is the homeland the emigrants leave behind and carry forward in memory and material possessions. The novel presents it as a countryside shaped by population growth and increasingly fragmented farms, while its familiar roads, household objects, and remembered landscapes make departure more than a change of place: it is a break with a rooted way of life.

Land and livelihood

In Ljuder Parish, within Konga County, population growth pressed against the limits of a divided agricultural landscape. By January 1846 the parish had 1,925 inhabitants, nearly three times its population a century earlier. The number of people without assessed property or stable household standing—including servants, cottagers, retired people, and those without permanent homes—had grown fivefold over the same period. These figures give social weight to the novel’s image of families increasing as their plots diminish.

The pattern of landholding made that pressure tangible. Forty-three original homesteads had been divided among 87 owners by 1750; by 1846, further division had produced 254 independent farms. Two-thirds were no larger than one-eighth of an original homestead, while only four holdings still included more than one homestead. Småland’s rural economy also depended on agriculture, cattle raising, and some handicraft. Grain prices were so low that peasants distilled and sold brännvin to make farming profitable; in the 1840s, the parish had about 350 stills.

A homeland unsettled by emigration

The departure for America begins in a region imagined as ancient and resistant to change. News of fertile land overseas travels through cottages and hamlets by rumor and shared information, gradually disturbing familiar habits. The prospect of a place where land might be available to those willing to cultivate it gives urgency to the contrast between growing families and shrinking holdings. Yet the ocean and destination remain unknown: pictures and reports prompt argument, hesitation, and competing views across generations and between men and women.

For the emigrants, the movement from Småland becomes a chain of practical decisions rather than a single leap. Karl Oskar and Robert arrange passage on the Charlotta through a firm in Karlshamn, paying a deposit of one hundred daler for six people. Spring offers a narrow practical advantage: the voyage should be less cold and stormy, and an early arrival would leave time to till and sow before winter. Robert also offers to secure passage for Danjel and his household if the ship has room, linking one family’s plans to another’s. At Åkerby Junction, the travelers gather into a company of sixteen emigrants—nine adults and seven children—before continuing toward the port.

Objects carried from home

Småland’s continuity survives in the things its emigrants select for the crossing. The Nilsson family’s black, solid-oak clothes chest has passed from father to son across generations and served households at weddings, baptisms, and funerals. After years in a dark attic corner, it is brought down and chosen as a strong packing case, five feet long and three feet high, reinforced with broad iron bands. An heirloom associated with major family transitions becomes luggage for a migration that will separate the family from its home.

The Korpamoen chest is packed for work as well as survival. Karl Oskar places iron and steel tools, including an adz, hatchet, chisel, drawknife, plane, hammer, and auger, beneath hunting equipment; he takes apart his muzzle-loader to make it easier to pack. Robert brings fishing gear, while Nils contributes an old bleeding iron. Kristina packs wool cards, knitting needles, sheep shears, and a swingle painted with red flowers by Karl Oskar, along with warm clothes and supplies for mending. Her loom and other familiar implements must stay behind because they take too much space. The chest therefore records both what the family hopes to continue doing and what it must relinquish.

Food and bedding make the journey’s practical limits equally clear. The bridal quilt, sheets, mattresses, and bolsters are packed into two large sacks; eating utensils and cups go into a knapsack. For six people Kristina prepares a lidded willow basket with rye and barley loaves, salted butter, honey, cheese, smoked meat, and herrings, supplemented by coffee, sugar, dried apples, and seasonings. Soap and lice salve, together with brass combs for the children, are included in the emigrants’ preparations. These provisions reflect uncertainty about both the ship’s food and the distances to be traveled before and after the crossing.

Departure, memory, and destination

At the departure from Korpamoen, the landscape divides those who leave from those who remain. Karl Oskar turns back toward his parents on the porch: his father stands stooped on crutches, his mother beside him. The image remains fixed in his memory, the parents appearing like stones or tree trunks rooted in the ground as the wagon disappears along the road. The travelers also watch familiar places recede—the brook where they once swam and the meadow where lilies of the valley had bloomed—conscious that these sights belong to a youth they are leaving behind.

Småland remains present aboard ship through the emigrants’ objects and comparisons with home. Måns Jakob and Fina-Kajsa carry a homemade knapsack and a grindstone intended for their son, who has taken a homestead in Minnesota. His account of the destination describes deep topsoil, extensive fertile plains, and a climate he considers suitable for farmers from Småland and Öland. The story prompts Karl Oskar to ask about the soil rather than the prospect of gold. Robert cannot identify Minnesota in his description book, but Karl Oskar remembers the name. America is still uncertain, yet the emigrants’ idea of a future there is framed by what they know from home: the land they have worked, the tools they use, and the possibility of securing a farm.

The connection to Småland reaches its most solemn form in the shipboard burial ritual. At a sea burial, the captain takes earth carried from the homeland and scatters three small scoops over the covered body. The soil gives the emigrants’ point of departure a place in a ceremony far from shore, but the ritual cannot preserve it intact: loose earth slips from the cloth and falls into the sea. In this image, Småland is at once a remembered home and a fragile material presence, carried across the water but never made equivalent to the land left behind.