The first novel describes conditions in
Sweden that caused people to become emigrants and make the long and strenuous journey. A party of assorted people living in the province of
Småland, Sweden, is explored as they decide to emigrate to the
United States in 1850. (Later novels deal with their journey and settling in the
Minnesota Territory.) They are among the first significant wave of
Swedish emigration to the United States. The novel focuses primarily on Karl Oskar Nilsson and his wife, Kristina Johansdotter, a young married couple who live with their four small children (Anna, Johan, Lill-Märta, and Harald) and Karl Oskar's parents and his rebellious younger brother Robert. The family lives on a small farm at
Korpamoen, where the soil is thin and rocky and so growing crops extremely difficult. Robert works for a neighbouring farm family, which mistreats him. He and with his friend Arvid first come across accounts of going to America. When he talks with Karl Oskar about the idea, his brother says that he too is intrigued by pamphlets that state that farmers' conditions in
North America are much better. Also, they will be able to
homestead to acquire land. Kristina, however, adamantly opposes emigrating since she does not want to leave her homeland or to risk the lives of her children during the journey. In the winter of 1849, the family has very little food. To celebrate the christening of their youngest child, Harald, Kristina prepares a large bowl of barley porridge and puts it into the basement to cool. Although she is told to wait, their eldest child, four-year-old Anna, helps herself to so much porridge that she becomes ill. Her parents send for Beata, a healing woman, but she says that Anna's stomach has burst and that she cannot be saved. After Anna dies, Kristina agrees to leave with her husband for America. As they prepare to emigrate, the young Nilssons are joined by Kristina's uncle and aunt, Danjel and Inga-Lena Andreasson, and their four children. Danjel is the pastor of a local
conventicle of the
Radical Pietistic Åkianer sect. He has suffered severe persecution by the established
state-controlled Church of Sweden. Andreasson seeks
religious freedom in the United States. His family is joined by Ulrika of Västergöhl, a former
prostitute and member of the conventicle who wants to start a new life with her
illegitimate teenage daughter, Elin. Andreasson is paying for the passage of Ulrika and Elin and for Robert's friend Arvid, who worked for him as a
farmhand. The last member of the party is Jonas Petter, a friend of Karl Oskar, who is fleeing an unhappy marriage. The party sets off by wagon for the Swedish port city of
Karlshamn, on the
Baltic Sea, where they board the
brig Charlotta, bound for
New York City. ==Recognition==