Until 1840 emigration from Sweden was restricted by law, and during the first years of the 1840's only a few, rather wealthy pioneers sought new opportunities in North America. The great wave of emigration from Sweden started around 1845. The early emigrants came from a farming background and they settled mostly in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Later on a larger number of Swedes found work in cities like New York and Chicago. At the turn of the century there were so many Swedes in Chicago that it was called "Sweden's third largest city".

The first immigrants came in groups, usually with their closest family and friends. They were mostly farmers and religious dissidents. Later on, when the cost of crossing the Atlantic had gone down, farmhands and maids left Sweden in hope of a better life. In the 1840's a farmhand or maid needed almost a full year's pay to be able to buy the ticket. At the end of the century the prices had almost halved. Many found contacts in America and made deals to work in exchange for ticket money. That was however a risky business. Quite a few were cheated and had to work under much harder circumstances than they ha anticipated. On the other hand,since Swedes were regarded as honest and clean, many found work with better conditions than they could have ever hoped for in Sweden.

Early emigration from Kisa

In 1835 the apothecary Carl Gustaf Sundius arrived in Kisa and received permission to take over the pharmacy. Sundiu was dedicated to helping simple, ordinary and poor people who lived under the tyranny of those in power. 

During his studies in Germany and Denmark he had come in contact with radical ideas of a society free from oppression. Like many others at the time, he saw America as the country of freedom. When the first wave of emigration from the Kinda area started in the mid 1840's, Sundius' pharmacy became the starting point for many who wanted to leave for America. In fact, it could be considered the first inofficial emigration office in the country.

Life in Kisa and the surrounding countryside

In the middle of the 19th century Kisa and the surrounding area was overpopulated and the taxes were higher than in any other port of the province. Families were very big and there was a lot of poverty and misery, especially during the second half of the 19th century when crops failed and resulted in famine in many parts of the country in the 1860's.  Drinking was also a big problem.

At the time Sweden was actually one of the poorest countries in Europe paired with social, economic and religious oppression. Sweden was a very hierarchical society and a farmer, farmhand or maid had very little possibility to change his or her life for the better.

Sundius meets Peter Cassel

Apothecary Sundius' talk of seeking freedom in a country on the other side of the Atlantic was in the beginning considered a mere fantasy. But one day Sundius met a person who shared his ideas. The story goes: One dark and bitterly cold Winter afternoon a man enters the pharmacy to buy some medicine for one of his daughters. Sundius strikes up a conversation which he, after a while, finds very interesting - so interesting, in fact, that he forgets other customers and even his coat and hat and follows the man home. Sundius tells him all about his radical ideas of freedom and the land across the sea. The man is the farmer Peter Cassel.

Cassel is very dissatisfied with the social and political situation in Sweden. He has read positive newspaper articles about America and letters from a captain Polycarpus von Schneidau, who has emigrated to Chicago, to his half sisters who live outside Kisa.

Emigration

Sundius and Cassel continue to meet and discuss and in 1845 Cassel, at the age of 54, decides to sell his farm and emigrate together with his family, some relatives and friends. The 23rd of May 1845 a group of 21 people, adults and children, leave Kisa for Gothenburg and  eventually New York. This is the first organised group to emigrate from Sweden, and you could say that it is the starting point of the Swedish emigration wave. 6 000 people would eventually leave the Kisa area and a total of 1,3 million left Sweden for North America. between the mid 1800's and the beginning of the 20th century.

The group had intended to join a Swedish settlement in New Upsala, Pine Lake, Wisconsin. But when they landed in New York on August 11th, after almost eight weeks sea voyage, they were told that the best farmland in Wisconsin was already taken. They were given the advice to go to Iowa instead. They decide to follow this advice and a group of now 40 people traveled by train, boat and on foot until they arrived in Lockridge Township, Jefferson County in Southwestern Iowa in mid September. The found a deserted log house they called New Stockholm where they spent the first Winter. This is the location where they created New Sweden, the first enduring Swedish colony in the Midwest.