The source texts also draw parallels between Finns and the Indigenous people by portraying them as brothers and sisters in troubles, and fellow victims of the white US society and authorities. This is Finns and the Indigenous People in the Great Lakes Region particularly the case with the episodes of Down from Basswood detailing the early days of Finnish America in the first half of the 20th century, when both Finnish immigrants and the Ojibwe are being alienated, stigmatized, and downtrodden by white Americans with their racist, prejudiced, and oppressive attitudes. Both groups are at the bottom of the society. Despite their wisdom, knowledge, and skills, they both are othered, distanced from white America, either as “primitive Natives” destined to die out in reservations or as low-paid manual workers: “Finlanders … weak minds but strong backs” at best, or ungrateful and undesirable “alien filth – scum” and “violent radicals and revolutionaries” at worst. Oppression and violence are directed at them both. While the Ojibwe are removed from their ancestral lands against their will, sent to the reservations to live under the government’s control and restrictions, and forced to hide or abandon their heritage altogether, Finnish immigrant laborers are simultaneously “treated like beasts” in the mills, lumber camps, and mines. They are “less than a slave,” and are blacklisted and persecuted indiscriminately after labor strikes in which the Finns participated.
https://jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/84666/1/finns-and-the-indigenous-people.pdf
![no violence occurring during the strike. In reality, opposite was true.80 the Company response to the strike was the infamous "blacklist." After the strike, the Oliver systematically denied Finns re-employment-regardless of political af- filiations, it seems. Before the strike about eighteen percent of the company's work force was Finns. After the strike, only eight percent was. This means that over 1,200 Finnish breadwinners were cut off from the major source of em- ployment in northern Minne- sota.31 The Finns who remained on the Oliver's employment rolls apparently had not participated in the strike or were able to per- suade their foreman that they had not. In 1963, it was confirm- ed by an Oliver historian that the strike had not only spawned the blacklist but that it had given rise to an espionage net- work, designed to suppress organized labor, which was used until at least the late 1920's. The espionage system employed hired spies from all ethnic groups who reported regularly the names of workers who advocated unionism or who supported radical Finnish, Slavic or Italian newspapers.32 Kaapo Murros A year after the strike, when queried by the United States Immigration Commission about the qualities of their immigrant workers, mining company superintendents on the Mesabi and Vermilion Ranges answered as follows about the Finnish workers in their mines. All the races employed on the Vermilion Range are good laborers except [the Finns]. Their people are good laborers but trouble breeders. We refuse -78- work to every one who applies wearing the red button of the socialist organizations. and it is my desire to weed out this element and see the move- ment suppressed. . . . The Finns are good workers when they want to work, but are not to be depended on. For hard physical work the Finns are preferred, but they are a surly, troublesome lot, and among the younger men are many who are anarchists. I have noticed, first, that when labor is needed [the Finns] are bullheaded and troublesome; and, second, that when work is scarce and labor plenti- ful that they are excellent workmen and tractable. I mean by this that they are a race that tries to take advantage of the companies at every oppor- tunity and are not to be trusted. The younger set, and especially those who have received a little education, are troublesome and agitators of the worst type.33 Not only did the local businessmen, the press, the state government and the companies heap wrath on the Finns, the Federal government stepped forth a few months after the strike with what was believed to be at the time a new form of harrassment, related to the strike and the socialists' role in it. On January 4, 1908, District Attor ney John C. Sweet of St. Paul, held up the application for "second papers" of one John Svan, an alleged socialist from Eveleth, on the grounds that "being a Finn he is a Mongolian and not a 'white person'" within the mean- ing of United States law. Therefore, Mr. Svan was not eligible for American citizenship. The papers of fifteen other Finns were similarly held. The case went to District Court in Duluth where Judge W. A. Cant, on January 17, 1908, threw it out, saying that though perhaps the Finns had been "Mongols" in the remote past, their blood had 79](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEus718JrJvR4RvOj0c_7mG6OlF3oyGDAjtFo6hygUROMNFdQimGEfWNY3-gzmRzGhWm95wjD0YLLPadJhw8JbruVcWtBCqXAWSXfqDbqp81uY8tVn8xn_FWLiorvV-j_myxRRHvHm6cnOpkxGw0dBILy6GXHo2WTMBZI9gWTzXBp04wNkqBv4odo4vlI/s2338/finns-worker-stereotype.jpg)
Early Finnish StereotypesThe Finnish people in the novel were radical in their politics. Because of this radicalism, stereotypes were made. Often, they were used to label all Finns. In the multi-tiered society which evolved on the Mesabi Iron Range, with the older immigrants from Northern Europe were on top and the newly arrived southern Europeans and Finlanders were on the bottom.Polly Bullard, an Eveleth School Teacher, in 1908, described in a personal letter her summary of the people she works and lives with “… They say there are 10,000 people here but only 2000 are civilized folks – of the others, the Austrians and the Finns are the majority.” Only two ethnicities are mentioned: Austrians and Finns. The word Austrian was often used for eastern Europeans who were a part of the Hapsburg Empire that collapsed after World War I.This characterization of the immigrants has an unknown authorship, ““The Irish, English, Scotch and French Canadians have worked up from unskilled labor to skilled occupations in the mines. Many Finns, however,” he noted, “seemed to thrive where hardships are most severe, but their progress in the mines is retarded by the surliness and radicalism.” Among the newer immigrants the writer concluded, “… the Poles are good workmen but not all that ambitious … the Croatians are lazy, indifferent workmen and are among the lowest in the industrial scale.”Finns Worker StereotypeOne of the more frightening incidents of bias towards the Finnish acted out is described in an article from a Duluth newspaper: In September 1918, a group calling itself the Knights of Liberty dragged Finnish immigrant Ollie Kinkkonen from his boarding house, tarred and feathered him and lynched him. His body was found two weeks later hanging in a tree in Duluth’s Lester Park. Kinkkonen did not want to fight in World War I and planned to return to Finland.A common nickname for the Finnish lumbermen was Jack Pine Savages. This derogatory nickname equated them with the Native Americans of the area, who were hated. This label has lasted. For example, Jack Pine Savage Days are celebrated in Spooner, WI every year. The participants of this festival may not understand the origins of the nickname, but the characters in the novel did (Chapter 12, The Fight).
https://brucemineincident.wordpress.com/about/finnish-stereotypes/
The Finns are responsible for much of the Union activism on the Iron Range. Nobody up here calls Finnish people dumb anymore; they have done quite well but remain reticent by nature.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/11okcht/historical_trivia_about_finnish_immigrants_in_the/
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