Finns, or Finnish people, were encouraged to migrate from the Finnish part of the Kingdom of Sweden to
Sweden proper, where they were initially well received by the Duke of Södermanland (who became King
Karl IX (1604–1611). At the time, the kingdom of Sweden covered both Sweden and
Finland, as we know them today. The migrants were settled on crown lands in
Värmland and
Dalsland to occupy the area immediately adjacent to the border with
Denmark-Norway. More were encouraged to come to Sweden during the reign of
Gustavus Adolphus (1611–1632). Their loyalties during the
Hannibal War (1643–1645) were with Sweden and some were caught spying on Norwegian troops. In 1709, the
Danish-Norwegian general
Hausmann so distrusted them that he ordered they all be evacuated from Solør. The bailiff declined to evict them on the basis that they were subsistence farmers and so poor they would have starved if moved from the land they customarily used. During the second half of the 19th century, many changes came to the area. The slash-and-burn farming techniques ended in the 1850s. In 1870, a new modern road through the area made travel and commerce much easier. Many of the residents began moving to new areas and intermixing with the Norwegian population. By the 20th century, the blood had so intermingled that it was probably impossible to find inhabitants of pure Finnish descent in the Finnskogen. But in Grue, over a quarter of the place names are still in Finnish. ==References==