Briefly told, a posse of 35 adult Sami men and women and 22 children under the age of 13 ganged up and killed the sheriff and the merchant and badly beat up the subparish priest in the town of Kautokeino. The leaders and several members of the posse were imprisoned, and the leaders were sentenced to death and executed in 1854.Both the actual events and the reasons for the revolt has been subject of much controversy, and there are several differing opinions on these subjects. It is the only known incident of conflict between Samis and non-Samis in Norway that has led to loss of life.
The group responsible for the uprising was part of a religious sect adhering to teachings of the Swedish preacher Lars Levi Læstadius. The sect held that theirs, not the official Church's, was the true faith. Læstadianism appealed to the Sami population for several reasons. For one, unlike the State Church, it was not seen to be representing an oppressing colonist government. Secondly, it got rid of some serious social problems such as drunkenness and reindeer theft in the areas where it had large followings.
Læstadianism was not agressive in nature, but there had been situations of commotion with its followers in the Kautokeino area before the uprising of 1852. The preceeding years, sect members had been acting threatening towards non-converts. On one occassion a confirmation-service in the town of Skjærvøy had been cancelled because of trouble with Læstadians. As a result, several of the responsible were sentences to forced labour sentences. This included some of those involved in the later 1852 uprising.
In November 1852, a group of Sami Læstadians had gathered in a reindeer herding camp just outside of the town of Kautokeino. On Sunday, November 7, the group broke up, and left for Kautokeino, which the angry crowd reached the following morning. The main object for their anger was a local merchant of Swedish Nationality, mr Carl Johan Ruth, who had made a fortune on others' misery by selling booze. The anger was also directed at the local Sheriff, Lars Johan Bucht, and the subparish priest, Fredik Hvoslef, both seen as representatives the colonist State power.
When the group, led by mr Ole Somby, reached Kautokeino, they were met by mr Ruth and mr Bucht. Fighting broke out immediately, and one of the Sami leaders, Aslak Hætta, clashed together with the Sheriff. The Sheriff was brought to the ground, and in the fighting mr Hætta bit off his nose. Hætta got hold of the Sheriff's knife, and stabbed him. In the meantime, the merchant, mr Ruth, was clubbed down. The women in the crowd jumped on him, and hit him several times in the head with sticks, leaving him lifeless on the ground. The merchant woke up a little later and tried to escape, but was stabbed down by Aslak Hætta.
The Sheriff was brought into mr Ruth's house. Even though he was dying from his wounds, Ole Somby's brother and also one of the leaders, Mons Somby, found it best that he was to be stabbed to death. As Aslak Hætta remarked, "the Anti-Christ was somewhat recilient." After the posse had stabbed Bucht to death, they set the house on fire and rounded up the priest, Hvoslef, and his family outside. The priest was whipped badly. Only his wife, eight months pregnant, was spared.
The uprising was finally brought down with the help of other Samis from the neighboring town. Five members of the group were later sentenced to death, of which only two, Mons Somby and Aslak Hætta, were actually executed.
The explanations for the uprising are numerous, amongst them were hate, desire for revenge, and religious fanaticism. One of the most credible explations is from the Dutch sociologist, Nellejet Zorgdrager. In her book "The Struggle of the Just - Sami resistance against Norwegian colonialism," based on her Ph.D thesis, Zorgdrager contends that the Kautokeino uprising has its roots in the court sentences after the commotion in Skjervøy the year before.
The 22 Samis involved in this had been given - at least in their own opinion - harder sentences than necessary, and on top of the forced labour were also deemed to pay the cost of the lawsuit. The only way to collect that kind of money would have been to sell off all but the entire herd of reindeer, which would have left them with no livelihood. To make things even worse, the borders with Sweden had been closed in September 1852, shutting off the winter grazing areas.
Thus, the only two alternatives were either to wait to get their reindeer herds confiscated by the Sheriff, mr Bucht, or to preemptively attack the colonialist power, represented by mr Ruth, the Sheriff, and Hvoslef. They chose the last alternative.
This post was based on the following sources:
Johan Brox: Kautokeino-opprøret: Kautokeino 1852
Wikipedia: Kautokeinoopprøret
Altaposten: Det blodige opprøret
2 comments:
This film is made with sami eyes and does not tell the thrut. The letters from Lars Johan Bucht to his wife in Sweden tells us that he was quite another person, not at all like the Sheriff constructed by Mr Gaup
The director mr Gaup himself and many of the staff including the actors are Sami, so I guess it's natural that the film is the 'Sami version' of the story. As with all stories there are at least two sides to it..
Mr Ruth, mr Bucht and mr Hvoslef were all portrayed as villains in the Movie, and quite one-sidedly so. If you would like to embellish on this, feel free. It would be interesting to hear your viewpoints.
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