The search for a promised land: three settlement plans, three agents, and three handbooks for Icelandic migrant-settlers from 1875

Abstract

ABSTRACT The nineteenth century was a time of mass migration from Europe to North America, and in the last quarter of the century, Icelanders joined the flow of European settlers. Icelanders were one of the last European peoples in this period to start sailing west, between 1870 and 1914; but, one in every five Icelanders moved to North America. This article looks at three handbooks for prospective Icelandic migrant-settlers – all published in 1875 – and the settlement plans they promoted (in Nova Scotia, today’s Manitoba, and Alaska), to analyse the information presented to prospective settlers, especially depictions of land and its inhabitants. While the texts, written or translated by three Icelandic immigration agents, vary greatly in their scope and tone, all perceive Icelanders as desirable settlers, suitable for advancing the goals of settler colonialism, and portray the areas as terra nullius, minimizing perceived Indigenous presence in the places marked for European settlement. The texts show that prospective Icelandic emigrants reading these booklets were aware that they contributed to and benefited from Indigenous dispossession, and that Icelanders and other ‘ethnic’ migrant-settlers in British settler colonies should be considered in settler colonial studies, as settler colonialism and migration policy are intimately linked.