From the second half of the 19th century onwards the land sales legislation was used by the Norwegian state authorities as a means in the nationality policy in northernmost Norway. The Land Sales Legislation of 1902 has hitherto been considered as having had its main influence in prohibiting the sale of land to people lacking proficiency in Norwegian. This paper places this language clause in a wider context, viz the leasehold system, and proposes to study the leasehold system as a whole in order to grasp the influence of the legislation on ethnic relations in Finnmark.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. The Land Sales Legislation up to 1902
3. The Nationality Question in the Land Sales
Legislation up to 1902
4. The Land Sales Act of 1902
5. The Policy of Norwegianization
6. The Language Clause
6.1. A Sámi Protest
6.2. The Land Sales Commission and the Language
Clause 1902-1913
6.3. The Initiative of 1913
6.4. After 1913
7. The Leasehold Rule
7.1. The Citizenship Provision
7.2. The Residential Obligation
8. Public Criticism of the Land Sales Commission
9. Conclusion
10 Sammenfatning
Note on characters
Footnotes
References
- Printed
- Newspapers
Not printed
Abbreviations in the footnotes
The present study sets out to shed light on some aspects of the Land Sales Legislation (i.e. the act and the regulation) and the way it was put into practice. First of all the background will be shortly sketched as to the economical considerations behind it, and how the «national question» was a motive power in the preparatory process. Afterwards I shall discuss how the practical implementation of the legislation assumed its form.
I shall primarily concentrate on the years before 1915. By then the foggy issues of the legislation had been clarified through legal practice. I am going to trace the establishment of this practice through cases found in the files of the Ministry of Agriculture, and partly through the public debate. The County Governor (amtmann) of Finnmark sent cases to the Ministry for settlement. But up to 1932 the Ministry of Agriculture had to approve all deeds of conveyance as well. This makes it possible to observe the cases where the Ministry objected to the County Governor's understanding of the legislation. It was the Ministry of Agriculture's Forest Office which handled these matters. I have used the files of this office for my investigation. The files of the County Governor and the Land Sales commission have not been used.
In 1913 the Ministry of Agriculture instructed the County Governor of Finnmark to adhere more strictly to the so-called language clause. The reactions which followed and the resulting meeting demonstrate the local and central attitudes behind the Land Sales Legislation in a very revealing manner. My material does not permit me to form any firm opinion of what consequences the meeting had on the practice followed by local and State authorities, but after the meeting of 1914 we may assume the implementation of the law to have been fairly standardized. With the evidence I possess, I will primarily examine how the local land sales authority, the Land Sales Commission, practised the provisions of the Land Sales Legislation. At times I have been able to establish that the Ministry of Agriculture disagreed with particular decisions, or with the Land Sales Commission's understanding of the provisions of the legislation. The relationship between the various administrative bodies in the sales procedure is, however, not my main concern. My main concern lies with the question of how those provisions which regulated the sale of land to persons of «foreign nationalities» were practised, namely that the purchaser had to be a Norwegian citizen and that the Norwegian language should be in daily use in his home. Moreover I will discuss the Land Sales Commission's attempts at moulding the existing mode of subsistence among the Sámi by use of the Land Sales Legislation. Due to the limitations that lie in the fact that I only have looked into the files of the Ministry of Agriculture, my conclusions regarding this practice are bound to be tentative.
The paper concludes by questioning the prevailing view of how the ethnic groups, the Quains (descendants of Finnish immigrants) and the Sámi, were affected by the Land Sales Legislation. In their book Den finske fare (The Finnish Menace) Eriksen and Niemi stress how the language clause was practised more strictly against the Quains than against the Sámi:
«It seems to be clear, however, that few Sámi were denied land because of the language clause in the act. Both Isak Saba and Kristian Nissen, who both were against the language clause, stressed this... In 1918 Nissen went so far as to say that not a single Sámi had been denied land because of the language clause. In his opinion the provision was aimed at the Quains.» (Page 127, my translation.)
Eriksen and Niemi do not mention other aspects of the legislation in their evaluation of the consequences of the legislation for the ethnic groups.
Gudmund Sandvik holds the same view in the Sámi Rights Committee's first report:[1]
«A quick examination ... of the files of the Land Sales Office in Vadsø gave me the impression that discrimination of Quains was practised at least until 1930, and that Sámi were not discriminated against.» (My translation.)
Sandvik too focuses on the language clause and how it was used. I shall argue that this is too simple a picture, and shall instead suggest a thorough study of the consequences of the Land Sales Legislation with the leasehold system as a point of departure.
The 1863 act had introduced an auction system. If more buyers than one were interested in the same piece of land, the highest bid would get it. The intention was to make sure that the ablest farmers would get land in Finnmark. But with the 1902 act the auction system was abandoned. In the eyes of the local landsales authorities the auction system had worked counter to the intention behind it. In some cases, they said, able farmers were prevented from getting land. There had been instances of speculation in land. Therefore the 1902 act left it in the hands of the Land Sales Commission to decide to whom Crown land should be alienated. The legislator was greatly concerned with the colonization of Finnmark. The goal was partly to improve the economic conditions in the county.
Several municipalities (kommune) protested against the prohibition.[4] In 1895 the sale of land was permitted in all municipalities in Finnmark because the citizenship legislation was now considered a sufficient means of regulation. Crown land could only be sold to Norwegian citizens, and after 1888 citizenship depended on whether the applicant mastered the Norwegian language. But the provision soon proved unsatisfactory. The Ministry of Agriculture collected statistics showing alarming figures on sales to the «foreign nationalities» during the years from 1896 to 1901. A new Land Sales Act for Finnmark was therefore prepared. The Ministry of Agriculture thought this necessary also because in 1900/1901 there existed a bill not yet discussed by Parliament which proposed to make the requirements for obtaining citizenship less strict.
When somebody wanted to buy Crown land in Finnmark, he had to apply for it. The application had to go through a detailed procedure before any decision was made:
- The application was to be sent before February 1st to the lensmann in the district in which the applicant wanted land. The lensmann in the home district was to verify citizenship, nationality, place of birth and knowledge of the Norwegian language.
- The lensmann and the local member then examined the applications.
- Then the applications were sent to the Commissioner who could either
a) order the whole commission to measure out the land, or
b) get permission from the County Governor for the «little commission» (i.e. the lensmann and the local member) to do the measuring out. In the last resort it was the commission which decided which piece of land could be alienated. The commission had another alternative: It could offer a leasehold contract. If the application was turned down, the applicant could complain to the County Governor, and if that did not help, to the Ministry of Agriculture.
The authorities wanted the farmers to be of Norwegian stock. In order to make the Norwegian element stronger, a language clause was provided in the Land Sales Regulation, section 1c, reading:[5]
«Sales may take place to Norwegian citizens only, and with a particular view to furthering the settlement of a population that is suitable for the district, for its cultivation and for its utilization in other ways, that can speak, read and write the Norwegian language and that use it for their every day tongue.» (My translation)
It was not only the requirement that the buyer had to master and use Norwegian which influenced the nationality issue. We notice that the requirement was linked to another one, that of citizenship, and to the wish to promote the cultivation of land. Cultivation was promoted through other measures, too, such as by economic aid to settlers. As early as in the 1775 resolution the Crown tried to improve the economy of Finnmark. It was only during the second half of the 19th century that the land policy became anything more than economic policy. Although the nationality question became more important then, the consolidation of Finnmark's economy still was a goal in itself. The authorities wanted the Sámi to quit their old mode of subsistence, a migratory farming system with extensive use of the resources, and to adopt a modern form of farming. The Finnish immigrants were regarded as good farmers, even though they were a potential menace to Norwegian sovereignty in this part of Norway. The problem of controlling the foreign nationalities did not prevent Sámi and Quain settlement.
Economic measures were also used to serve the goal, e.g. for cultivation of new land. The 1902 Land Sales Act for Finnmark had likewise economic bearings and fitted into this policy. Norwegians were preferred for a variety of offices in the Civil Services. Combined, this was a clearcut policy of colonization.
The policy had many aspects. The best known measures were those in the school sector. The use of the Sámi and Finnish languages was gradually reduced between 1860 and 1900. This was done by regulating the language use in the classroom, and by preferring Norwegian teachers in Sámi and Quain schools.
The minority policy was not influenced by security policy considerations only. Cultural sentiments which existed between 1870 and 1940 also had their say. In Norway, as well, imperialist ideology got its audience. The idea of the superiority of Western cultures was applied to Sámi, and to a lesser degree to the Quains. Together with nationalism these ideas played an important role in the constitutional struggle which led to parliamentarianism in 1884. Also the splitting of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 strengthened nationalist sentiments.
Thus in the last years of the Swedish/Norwegian union several measures were brought into effect in the minority policy, partly as a consequence of Norwegian nationalist sentiments. The 1902 Land Sales Act was only one of these measures.
«Sales may take place to Norwegian citizens only, ... that can speak, read and write the Norwegian language and that use it for their everyday tongue.» (The Land Sales Regulation, section 1c)
In this part I shall examine to what degree the Land Sales Commission applied the language clause in order to turn down applications to buy Crown land in Finnmark.
But first I shall refer to the protest that the leaders of the newly born Sámi political movement raised against the 1902 Land Sales Legislation. Their protest was directed just at the language clause.
«Who is more entitled to the land here in Sámiland, the Norwegian who arrived here as a tramp and evil-doer, or the Sámi, the aboriginal? In our opinion that question is very easy to answer.» (My translation)
The editor argued that the Sámi were tax-payers and thus ought to have the same rights as other Norwegian citizens.[9] This should not be understood as an appeal for mercy, but as a demand for justice. And if one regarded the «rights of the peoples», then these did not indicate that the Norwegians were more entitled to the land in Finnmark than the Sámi.
We should note that the demand was to be equal with the Norwegians. As far as arguments of aboriginal rights or prescriptive rights were employed, they aimed at consolidating this claim. In the articles written by editor Larsen in Sagai Muittalægje this is clear enough. Saba did argue in the same manner, but he seems to have thought that the Sámi were more entitled than the Norwegians to the land in Finnmark.
As a Member of Parliament, Saba raised the matter during the debate in 1907 about the Land Sales Commission's budget.[10] He stamped the language clause as inhuman. But he did not believe that the provision always was followed; it could not be followed. But it existed, and invited to arbitrariness in the treatment of applications for land. The language clause had been used, and Saba was able to refer to specific cases.
I have not been able to record that Saba raised the issue any more. As with the other items in his special Sámi programme, Saba became isolated in the Parliament. Most likely he saw no use in promoting hopeless causes, causes which were counter to the official policy of Norwegianization. In matters which were not that controversial, Saba was more succesful. But these matters were considered «local» and not «Sámi».
In the files of the Ministry of Agriculture I have found annulled deeds of conveyance originally issued to Sámi who did not speak Norwegian both in Unjárga/Nesseby (October 20th 1905) and Deatnu/Tana (August 21st 1908 and May 30th 1911).[12]. The deeds of conveyance were annulled for various reasons, but mostly because the purchaser could not afford or did not want to pay. The deeds of conveyance nevertheless demonstrate that the language clause had not been used in these particular cases.
The attitude in the Ministry of Agriculture was not clear until 1913. In connection with the approval of deeds of conveyance from Unjárga/Nesseby in 1905, the question about sales to Sámi and Quains was raised internally in the Ministry.[13] The sale to a Sámi who did not seem willing to use Norwegian in daily life was approved. The clerk who dealt with the matter thought that it did not matter if Sámi who did not do any harm by promoting their mother tongue, were allowed to buy Crown land. He would be more reluctant to sell to Quains who more actively had their fellow Norwegians to turn to Finnish.
Among the deeds of conveyance there was, however, one drafted to a Quain and this was also approved. Somewhat resigned the clerk remarked that in Unjárga/Nesseby there were so many Quains already that one more or less did not matter. It did not matter because Unjárga/Nesseby was not considered to be a border region. Had it been, the attitude might have been another.
On May 29th 1913, however, a border municipality was on the Parliament's agenda. It was Kárás~johka/Karasjok.[14] Following a proposal from the vicar in Kárás~johka/Karasjok, Kristian Nissen, the Parliament's Committee for Agricultural Affairs had proposed that the Crown should alienate farm land free of charge in the valleys of Kárás~johka/Karasjok and Anárjohka. The proposal was motivated by the wish to clear up complex tenure conditions in the township. Nissen hoped that if the youth were offered land free of charge, they would leave their parents' farms. The small farms had become joint properties because of the local common law of inheritance. Each owner had the usufruct in turn. If there were seven owners, each utilized the land every seventh year.
The Parliament assented to the proposal.
The wish to promote the agriculture of Kárás~johka/Karasjok played a central part in the debate. The nationality question was not touched. It is characteristic that in the opinion of the Committee of Agricultural Affairs only those territories most distant from the township ought to be alienated to outside people. The committee and the Parliament thus wanted to regulate local affairs.
In connection with the Ministry of Agriculture's attempt to reinforce the language clause (cf. section 6.3.), Land Sales Commissioner Kloumann made a statement where he also accounted for how the Land Sales Commission had understood the language clause.[15] He too had interpreted earlier statements by the Ministry of Agriculture to mean that the language clause should not be adhered to without exceptions.
These examples present so complex a picture that a recapitulation may be needed. On the local level Land Sales Commissioner Foosnæs in the beginning tried to apply the language clause strictly. But already in 1905 he had let go the reins. I have referred to three cases that year where Crown land was alienated to Sámi. At the same time the Ministry of Agriculture looked into the matter without protesting. The practice of the Land Sales Commission was thus accepted in silence. Nor did the debate in Parliament in 1913 bring signals showing that the language clause was to be applied.
In Deatnu/Tana 28 Norwegians, Sámi and Quains presented a signed appeal to the municipal council requesting that the council demand that the language clause should be abolished. The municipal council carried such a resolution unanimously on February 28th 1914.
The Members of Parliament from Finnmark, Hagb. Lund, Joh. Gjetmundsen and H. Finstad, reacted too in a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture dated February 5th 1914.[19] They stressed that the Ministry was now attempting to alter the current legal practice. They referred to the preparatory works for the Land Sales Act, according to which the administration had the right to act according to its own discretion in specific cases. The language clause was not intended to be applied without exceptions, they held. The Members of Parliament still wished the administration to use individual judgment in these cases, as in all other land sale cases. Further they stressed that it would be unreasonable to demand that Sámi and Quains living far away from Norwegians should be forced to speak Norwegian. As long as the work of Norwegianization had been neglected in the past, the government had to accept the consequences, namely that Finnish and Sámi still were living languages. With reference to the Parliament's debate on the Kárás~johka/Karasjok case in 1913 (cf. section 6.2.) the three Members of Parliament also stressed that the State authorities until recently had accepted the state of affairs: The Parliament did vote for alienation of Crown land free of charge to the population of Kárás~johka/Karasjok, viz Sámi. In informal conversations with the chairman of the municipality of Sør-Varanger, vicar le Maire, at the County Parliament meeting in Vardø in March 1914, the chairmen of the municipalities of Finnmark seem to have agreed that the language clause ought not to be applied to the Sámi, who were the indigenous people of Finnmark. On the other hand the chairmen held that the language clause could be maintained without danger against the Quains, who were immigrants. After repeated requests, le Maire felt impelled to be a spokesman for the Quains. Justice had to be done to the Quains as well as to the Sámi, he held. Like the Members of Parliament from Finnmark, le Maire maintained that the authorities had to wait until the schools had succeeded in Norwegianizing the Quains and Sámi before the language clause could be applied.[20] In his statement on the matter Land Sales Commissioner Kloumann warned against enforcing the provision. It might work counter to the intention, it might be an invitation to hostile agitation against the Norwegians.
Thus the stricter enforcement was met by an almost unanimous opposition. There was some disagreement on how the Quains were to be treated. There was, however, no disagreement that the Sámi should be allowed to get land.
The attitudes differed on two questions. The one was whether the language clause should be abolished or not. The higher officials, the chairmen of the municipalities and the county's Members of Parliament wanted to keep the provision. They thus accepted the policy of Norwegianization. As we noted, in Deatnu/Tana and Unjárga/Nesseby people had little understanding for this particular measure of Norwegian nationality policy and wished the language clause to be removed.
The other question was what rights the Quains had. In this question the difference in attitudes went deeper down in the social hierarchy. The Quains themselves surely argued that they had the same rights as the rest of the population, but they lacked unanimous support. In Unjárga/Nesseby, for example, the mass meeting had argued that the Quains should not have the same rights as Norwegians and Sámi. In Deatnu/Tana the Quains participated in the appeal and thus influenced its form.
In spite of these remarks, the conclusion is that in the concrete question whether the language clause should be applied to the Sámi and the Quains, the people of Finnmark agreed. The answer was «No».
- The language clause could be retained.
- The language clause could be abolished, but the Land Sales Commission is instructed to prefer Norwegians to Sámi, and Sámi to Quains as buyers.
The PM did not draw any conclusion. The language clause was however kept. We can therefore suppose that the Ministry of Agriculture decided for the first alternative, and that the letter of December 28th 1913, which triggered the whole affair, was not revoked.
Maybe the decision in a case in 1917 from Kistrand was a result of the stricter enforcement.[21] In this case the language clause was used against a Quain who had applied for supplementary farmland. In spite of recommendations in favor of selling from the two local members of the Land Sales Commission, the County Governor, the Director of Schools (who had a strong influence on the nationality policy in Finnmark), the Inspector of Reindeer Breeding Affairs, and the official in charge in the Ministry of Agriculture, the Land Sales Commissioner got support from Knudsen, the combined Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture. The application was turned down because the applicant was Finnishspeaking.
In the 1920s the practice seems to have been that at least the Sámi were allowed to purchase Crown land in spite of their lack of knowledge of Norwegian. I have found annulled deeds of conveyance which show that land has been sold to Sámi ignorant of Norwegian in Kistrand (July 6th 1917), Álaheadju/Alta (June 28th 1922), Hasvik (October 23rd 1922) and Sør-Varanger (August 20th 1924).[22]
Through my quick examination I have not come across any Quain in this material, except one in Kistrand in 1923. I would not attach too much importance to this. There are many reasons why the deeds of conveyance were annulled, and the material hardly permits conclusions ex silentio as to the Land Sales Commission's practice.
In the following I shall concentrate on two main reasons why sales were denied. Firstly we have the cases where the applicant was not a Norwegian citizen. The second reason had to do with the commission's preferences regarding the sort of farming to be promoted in Finnmark. These preferences lay behind cases where the commission refused to permit farmers to purchase land parcels situated some distance apart.
Leasehold was also offered to the Finnish citizen Isak Möksä in a case from Deatnu/Tana in 1905, in spite of the fact that he had lived in Deatnu/Tana for 25 years.[25] Möksä contacted the Land Sales Commissioner in 1904 requesting land so he could escape the tenant farmer's life. Commissioner Foosnæs now even doubted whether the legislation warranted leasehold in such cases. He seems to have denied leasehold to foreign citizens when he wrote that on his journeys in Finnmark there had been several cases in which he had to regret that such a possibility did not exist.[26] Möksä made another move in 1905, this time to the Ministry of Justice. The case was put before the Ministry of Agriculture which again proposed leasehold if Möksä could not become a Norwegian citizen. The Ministry pointed out that to foreign citizens leasehold was in general to be preferred to sale.[27]
In 1905 some deeds of conveyance from Deatnu/Tana were sent to the Ministry of Agriculture for approval.[29] The County Governor and the Ministry corresponded concerning the two Sámi applicants. One of them had applied for 18 ha of meadow, the other for 15 ha for residence. The County Governor thought that even the latter did not intend to settle on the land, so he recommended a three year leasehold for both with possibility for alienation if the land was cleared and cultivated by that time. The Ministry agreed. I have earlier referred to the case from Kistrand in 1917 where an application was turned down because the applicant spoke Finnish. Maybe the fact that he applied for supplementary land was taken into consideration when the Minister of Agriculture only wanted to lease out the land.
This practising of leasehold to Sámi (and Quains) provoked a sharp reaction when Henrik A. Henriksen from Lávvonjárga in Deatnu/Tana came in touch with the system. Henriksen, a Sámi, had for a long time been a well-known person in Liberal dominated Deatnu/Tana. He had some time ago been the chairman of the municipality, and was later reelected. He thus had the qualifications to question the administration's work.
In 1923 Henriksen got a deed of conveyance of a landed property of 70 mål (approx. 1200 acres) in Birkestrand. As early as in 1919 he had applied for supplementary land in Lille Lerpol, but was instead - in 1922 - offered a leasehold contract. Even though it is not verified in the documents, it seems that Henriksen had sent in two applications in 1919, and that both were settled in 1922. Henriksen was not satisfied, however, and complained in 1923 to the Ministry of Agriculture.[30] He argued that he needed supplementary land because the 70 mål (approx. 1200 acres) in Birkestrand were barren, whereas the piece in Lille Lerpol was excellent but too small for settlement. In order to verify that he was a serious applicant he told of his involvement in public affairs, and of his efforts at making the farm pay. Henriksen criticized the Deatnu/Tana Land Sales Commission's manner of settling applications. There was much talk of promoting agriculture and that there was an abundance of land in Finnmark. But as Henriksen maintained, this was not the opinion of the Deatnu/Tana Land Sales Commission. He held that his case was a typical instance of the work of this commission. The Ministry of Agriculture asked the Land Sales Commissioner to give his view. The Commissioner referred to the Land Sales Regulation which provided that «summer farms» (seter) could only be leased. But the Commissioner also had other fundamental reasons to deny alienation:
«It is usual among the Sámi population here in Finnmark that they try to acquire many properties dispersed over a whole municipality, instead of getting one bigger farm. This is something I have considered it my duty to prevent.» (My translation.)
The Ministry of Agriculture did not formulate any refusal of its own, but passed the Commissioner's utterance as the Ministry's own refusal of Henriksen's complaint.
These few cases give an indication that the land sale authorities all the time kept a restrictive line in the cases where the applicant owned land in advance. The claim was in the early years formulated to hold out the prospect of alienation if the land was cleared and cultivated. But later the wording became more restrictive so that when the land was cultivated and the leaseholder applied for alienation, he was met by the claim that he had to settle on the land. This may have been a real restriction but it is also possible that the latter wording was a better formulation of existing practice. The outcome was anyhow that the land policy had (or got) a negative attitude towards traditional Sámi farming where many resource areas were utilized. This mode of subsistence with seasonal migration between the resource areas existed in some places far into this century. The migration pattern allowed other resources such as sea fishing to be used, but it had the form of some sort of «summer farming». The cattle followed in migration. Therefore scattered landpieces were a necessity. When the Land Sales Commissioner considered it his duty to prevent Sámi from having scattered land, he was counteracting this mode of subsistence.
The Deatnu/Tana Farmer's Association made a broadly conceived request in 1928 to MP Steinholt from Finnmark and asked him to contact the Ministry of Agriculture in the matter.[34] The association accused the Government of making money on land sale. The prices were so much increased that the sale had stopped completely. And it was not certain that the applicant would be given land after having waited for a very long time to have his application settled. The Sámi in particular were subjected to this. «It is much easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for us Sámi to get land parcelled in our own native country of Finnmark», the Deatnu/Tana Farmer's Association wrote.
Steinholt raised the issue in Parliament during the debate concerning Finnmark Forest Fund. He referred to the fact that security was required for payment of both the land purchase money and of part of the parcelling costs. The Deatnu/Tana Farmer's Association had gathered information showing that in Deatnu/Tana alone there were 50 unreleased deeds of conveyance amounting to a sum of NOK 6,163.24. The Minister of Agriculture promised to look into the matter but remarked that until then the Ministry of Agriculture had received no complaints that the land was too expensive. Steinholt was also dissatisfied because the parcelling took such a long time. He could refer to documents presented to the Parliamentary Committee for Agricultural Affairs in 1926 which told of cases from the Sámi dominated Lágesvuotna/Laksefjord where the Land Sales Commission had needed twelve to fourteen years to settle applications.
The other Member of Parliament from Finnmark who spoke was County Governor Hagb. Lund. It is worth noting that the Sámi from Deatnu/Tana did not ask him to be their spokesman. They knew Lund from his many years in Deatnu/Tana as County Justice (sorenskriver). Lund accused the Sámi of Lágesvuotna/Laksefjord themselves of having caused the long time needed before they received the deeds of conveyance. But Steinholt corrected Lund and in turn accused Lund for manipulating facts. Lund was concerned, as the Land Sales Commissioner had been in 1924 (cf. section 6.2.), about the inclination the Sámi had to want many scattered land pieces, and held that this ought to be counteracted.
The Land Sales Commission seems to have used the possibility to lease out Crown land instead of alienating it. Refusals to sell may consistently have been accompanied by an offer to draft a leasehold contract. This would mean that the enforcement of the various provisions (of language proficiency, citizenship and residence) is manifested in the number of leasehold contracts drafted. This is a hypothesis I have not attempted to pursue.
A refusal to sell accompanied by a leasehold offer was particularly the rule in two cases, namely when the applicant was not a Norwegian citizen and when he did not intend to settle on the land. In the first case no exceptions seem to have occurred. Finnish citizens were not permitted to buy Crown land. In the latter case there may have been more exceptions. If a man applied for supplementary land, the chance to get land was smaller if the land was some distance away from his dwelling. If the language clause could be employed, the chances decreased further.
The complaints that the Land Sales Commission made extensive use of the possibility to lease out, were not ill-founded. A survey of the number of deeds of conveyance and leasehold contracts drafted can be found in the preparatory works of the new Land Sales Act of Finnmark from 1965. The figures are presentedhere in a somewhat altered mode.
Leasehold and Sale 1904 - 1930
Drafted
---------------------
Five year Deeds of Leasehold
period conveyance contracts
---------------------------------
1904-1909 487 730
1909-1914 397 904
1915-1920 334 640
1920-1925 625 556
1925-1930 669 646
Source: The table is an adaptation of figures presented in the document accompanying Ot.prp. No. 48 (1963-1964). The material of 1915 and the years after 1930 is lost.
The figures show clearly that in a period there were drafted many more leasehold contracts than deeds of conveyance. Only after 1920 did the number of deeds of conveyance equal the number of leasehold contracts. Thus the leasehold system has been much used, but the figures do not tell us how many leaseholders later received a deed of conveyance.
Because it is the language clause which has been focused on when the Land Sales Legislation's place in Norway's nationality policy has been studied, I too have discussed it separately. But it should now be clear that in my opinion the language clause ought to be studied as part of what I name the leasehold rule. This system had ethnic relevance, and the language clause was only one of its' elements. But the language clause is indeed important because it was and still is considered the very prototype of Norwegian nationality policy. The language clause had its value as a symbol, a symbol which the Sámi could attack from an ethnic basis. It would not be that easy to mobilize a protest against the Land Sales Commission's discrimination of the traditional Sámi farming. If the protest should be aimed at such discrimination, it had to be connected to a protest against absurdities of the land sale felt by all the ethnic groups. Henrik A. Henriksen attempted such a coupling in his complaint in 1923, and the Deatnu/Tana Farmer's Association did the same in their letter in 1928 to Member of Parliament Steinholt.
The professional literature has mainly occupied itself with the practicing of the language clause. It is a widespread opinion that the Quains were harder discriminated against than the Sámi. I have in these pages accounted for my suspicion that if the evaluation is based on one criterion only, the answer to whether the Quains or Sámi were hardest discriminated against will differ according to what criterion you choose. The Quains seem to have been subjugated by the citizenship provision, the Sámi were indirectly discriminated against through the attack on their mode of subsistence.
Finally, mention ought to be made of another possibility the Land Sales Commission may have employed. The detailed sales procedure could in normal cases last for two to four years. The case of Lágesvuotna/Laksefjord suggests that parcelling in Sámi dominated areas could be prolonged intentionally. A time of twelve to fourteen years before parcelling was done, if this really was the rule in Lágesvuotna/Laksefjord, strongly indicates that this was so.
Faglitteraturen har til nå konsentrert seg om bruken av språkklausulen i nasjonalitetspolitikken. I artikkelen argumenteres det for at dette ikke er tilstrekkelig for å forstå jordsalgslovgivningas konsekvenser for de etniske minoriteter inord.
Materialet artikkelen bygger på, er henta fra undersøkelser i Direktoratet for Statens Skoger, hvor arkivet for den departementale saksbehandlinga befinner seg. Lokale jordsalgsmyndigheters arkiv (på jordsalgskontoret og hos fylkesmannen i Finnmark) er ikke benytta.
Ved et tilbakeblikk på jordsalgsreguleringene før 1902, dvs. jordutvisningsresolusjonen av 1775, jordsalgslova av 1863 og de reglementene som ble gitt i medhold av 1863-lova, blir to ulike motiver bak jordsalgslovgivninga av 1902 skilt ut. Det første var det behovet som fantes for å styrke Finnmarks økonomi ved å regulere jordbruket, et gammelt problem. Det andre problemet ble de sentrale myndighetene konfrontert med da den finske innvandringa (kveninnvandringa) til Øst-Finnmark skjøt fart på 1860-tallet. Nasjonalitetspolitikken fikk heretter sikkerhetspolitiske overtoner og stilte myndighetene ovafor utfordringen å styrke norsk suverenitet i nordområdene. Nasjonalitetsspørsmålet ble sentralt i utforminga av jordsalgslovgivninga (lov og reglement) av 1902.
Jordsalgslovgivninga var bare ett av flere økonomiske og kulturpolitiske tiltak for å styrke norsk språk og nasjonalkjensle på bekostning av kvensk og samisk språk og kultur. På denne bakgrunnen tas praktiseringa av jordsalgslovgivninga opp til drøfting. Det ser ut som søkere som fikk avslag på søknader om å kjøpe statsgrunn, som regel fikk tilbud om å forpakte jorda i stedet. Jeg har fulgt tre årsaker til at folk fikk avslag på søknader om avhendelse.
De som ikke fikk kjøpe pga. språkklausulen. Slike saker finnes bare i de første par år etter 1902. Fra 1905 ser regelen ikke ut til å ha vært etterlevd. I 1913 innskjerpa stats- og landbruksminister Knudsen språkklausulen. Innskjerpinga møtte lokal motstand. Særlig var det enighet om at regelen ikke skulle anvendes ovafor samene. Holdninga mht. kvenene var mer varierende blant de som uttalte seg i saka. Resultatet ble at heller ikke i åra etter 1913 ble regelen brukt, muligens med enkelte unntak hva angår kvener.
Derimot synes statsborgerklausulen å ha vært strengt etterlevd i hele undersøkelsesperioden. Dette ramma kvenene, fordi de ofte ikke hadde det norske statsborgerskapet i orden selv om de hadde bodd lenge i landet.
I formen var bopliktsregelen en regel som skulle fremme effektiviseringa i jordbruket. I realiteten fikk også denne regelen etnisk relevans fordi den først og fremst ramma det tradisjonelle ikke-stasjonære samiske jordbruket. Denne driftsforma innebar flytting mellom to eller flere sesongboplasser. Dette ga samene muligheter til å utnytte flere ressurser. Sesongflyttinga ble motarbeidd av jordsalgsmyndighetene. I 1924 ga jordsalgskommissæren uttrykk for at han så dette som en av sine hovedoppgaver.
I den offentlige debatten kom forpaktningspraksisen tidlig under kritikk. Den samiske stortingsmannen Isak Saba (1906 -1912) kritiserte språkklausulen på Stortinget. Jordsalgskommisjonens tendens til å velge bortforpaktning i stedet for avhendelse kom under kritikk fra flere hold. Det samme gjaldt den lange saksbehandlinga og den kompliserte saksgangen. I 1928 beskyldte stortingsmann Steinholt fra Finnmark jordsalgskommisjonen for bevisst å dra ut saksbehandlinga i rene samiske områder som Lágesvuotna/Laksefjord. I stedet for de «normale» to til fire år, kunne han dokumentere tilfelle fra Lágesvuotna/Laksefjord hvor saksbehandlinga hadde tatt tolv til fjorten år. Landbrukslaget i Deatnu/Tana som opprinnelig tok saksbehandlingstida opp med Steinholt, mente kommisjonens virke i Deatnu/Tana spesielt ramma samene.
Forpaktningsmuligheten ble mye nytta. Før 1920 var det faktisk flere tilfelle av forpaktning enn av avhendelse. Hittil har forskernes oppmerksomhet vært retta mot praktiseringa av språkklausulen. Tesen har vært at språkklausulen ramma kvenene, og at samene ble lite berørt. Denne artikkelen viser at språkklausulen bare var en av jordsalgslovgivningas bestemmelser med etnisk relevans. Statsborgerklausulen ble brukt mot kvenene, og samene på sin side fikk mest føling med bopliktsregelen.
Framtidig forskning på feltet bør derfor ta utgangspunkt i forpaktningssystemet. Her vil man finne en bedre nøkkel til å forstå hvordan jordsalgslovgivninga av 1902 i praksis ble brukt i nasjonalitetspolitikken.
1986 © Regnor Jernsletten
Acta Borealia 1986:1, pp. 3-20. ISSN 0800-3831.