Mapping Land and People in the North: Early Modern Colonial Expansion, Exploitation, and Knowledge

Introduction

This paper explores the early modern Swedish expansion in Sápmi2 by examining the mapping of Sámi lands and the exploration and exploitation of Sápmi’s natural resources, in particular in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the paper, we analyze this process of expansion as a double colonial process. On the one hand, it entailed the construction of the Sámi as “the Other,” radically different from mainstream understanding of Swedishness as it was articulated during the early modern period. On the other hand, it was important for the agents of the Swedish state, the Swedish Church, and private industry to gain more knowledge about, and somehow “understand” and develop relations with, “the Other” in order to control the land, resources, and people of Sápmi. However, in this process, Sámi populations were not passive “objects,” but participated and acted in various ways, using different strategies of adaptation and resistance in relation to colonial pressures.

The processes of Swedish expansion in Sápmi took place in competition with the Danish-Norwegian kingdom and Russia over Sámi territories, and similar strategies were exerted by the three main powers in the northern parts of Fennoscandia. In this article, we will, however, focus primarily on Swedish colonial history and what is today the Swedish part of Sápmi. The strategies to gain control over natural resources, trade, and taxation, and to integrate the Sámi population into the Swedish state and the Swedish Church, were founded on surveying and mapping projects. In order to be controlled, the land and the people needed to be mapped and understood. Furthermore, map-making served to define, depict, and transform Sámi lands in order to make them Swedish. These maps, surveys, and projects of knowledge production form the empirical foundation of this paper.

Our aim is furthermore to emphasize the complexities of colonial relations in Sápmi, including the practices of colonial mapping. We wish to underline the importance of Sámi knowledge about the land and its resources, and the different roles of the Sámi population, Sámi agency, participation, and resistance in the early modern colonial processes— a question that has been largely unexplored in earlier research. By looking at Sámi agency, it is possible to deepen our understanding of Swedish colonial dynamics and development in Sápmi. Finally, we wish to point to possible alternative modes of mapping land and history in Sápmi, which have been put forth as part of the Sámi ethnopolitical and cultural revitalization movements (relating to similar movements in Indigenous cartography and counter-mapping in other parts of the world), and which may offer opportunities to engage with and visualize colonial histories and relations in a more dynamic manner and furthermore contribute to decolonization movements in Sápmi and Sweden.

Maps, Colonialism, and Power

In the colonial processes in Sápmi, and elsewhere in the world, the conquest and control of land has been one of the most fundamental issues. Today, land—to be used for mining, forestry, dams for hydro-electric power, wind power, or tourism—remains central to state and corporate interests in the Sámi areas. At the same time, the Land (with a capital L) is in many ways of fundamental importance for upholding and developing Sámi culture and identity, as well as for the possibility to express Sáminess. This centrality of land is shared with indigenous groups in many parts of the world who are facing similar threats to their traditional living spaces. Consequently, land and the understanding of land have been, and still are, of central importance in the colonial confrontations and negotiations in Sápmi, and certainly in the different mapping projects affecting this region. Today, conflicts over land rights in connection with the expansion of mining projects and other industrial enterprises in Sápmi are of great concern to Sámi communities and a priority for Sámi activists and politicians. The multiple pressures from different extractive industries and other encroachments in the Sámi areas, which threaten nature, reindeer grazing lands, and traditional livelihoods, have led to resistance and protests from local Sámi communities as well as from central Sámi organizations and the Sámi Parliament (Gärdebo, Öhman, and Maruyama 2014; Ojala and Nordin 2015; Liliequist and Cocq 2017). These protests are part of a larger Sámi ethnopolitical movement, struggling for recognition of land and cultural rights, which in turn forms part of the international indigenous rights movement. In these protests, the understanding of colonial history and the notion of indigeneity become of central importance.

In this paper, we wish to emphasize the connections between map-making, cartography, surveying for natural resources, and Christian missionary work in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the close connections between the scientific study of Sámi lands, history, and culture and the exploration and exploitation of natural resources in Sápmi. We use “mapping” not only to denote map-making, but as a broader, more complex concept, including ways of exploring and knowing land and people in Sápmi. The concept of mapping, in this sense, combines economic and material aspects as well as ideological and aesthetic dimensions of colonial history. We see the making of maps as part of a world-making: the making of ideas, notions, and images of the world, which in turn affect the lived realities of people, as well as physical landscapes. Maps are always an expression of specific, delimited, and situated perspectives on the world. And as such, they are always embedded in power relations.

The scholarship dealing with colonial mapping and geographical knowledge in colonial and imperial contexts constitutes a vast field, which cannot be covered in all its complexity and diversity in this article. Map-making has played a central role in processes of exploration and colonization around the world, and in the interactions with indigenous peoples in the lands being colonized, which have been discussed by scholars in different fields of study (see, among many other works, Lewis 1998; Driver 2001; Hostetler 2001; Kivelson 2006; Short 2009; Seegel 2012; Miggelbrink et al. 2013; Lennox 2017). This theme has, however, received little attention in relation to Swedish colonialism in Sápmi (see, though, e.g., Svalastog 2015).

Critical perspectives on cartographic politics and maps as instruments for those in power in colonial and imperial, but also, for example, commercial, contexts have been put forth by scholars in cultural geography and related academic fields (see, e.g., Gregory 1994; Harley 2001; Wood 2010; Rose-Redwood 2015). In recent years, a field of critical cartography, or critical mapping, has developed, often focusing on performative aspects of mapping, experiential maps, and “post-representational mapping,” not least in the new digital worlds (see, e.g., Kitchin and Dodge 2007; De Nardi 2014; Hacıgüzeller 2017).

Although our aim here is not to delve deeper into such theoretical reflections and argumentations, this critical scholarship provides an important framework for rethinking maps and map-making in a colonial context. More important for our purposes are the developments in critical cartography of counter-mapping and indigenous cartography, which criticize the colonial mapping of indigenous land and culture and put forth alternative modes of mapping from indigenous perspectives, building on spatial notions, worldviews, and mapping techniques in different indigenous contexts (see, e.g., Chapin, Lamb, and Threlkeld 2005; Sletto 2009; Louis, Johnson, and Pramono 2012; Hunt and Stevenson 2017; Young 2018). In this alternative mapping, participa-tory and collaborative mapping are often central, as part of a larger movement of participatory community-based and community-initiated research, for instance, in archaeology and heritage projects in indigenous contexts in different parts of the world (Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson 2008; Atalay 2012; Smith 2012; Atalay et al. 2014; cf. also contributions in Hillerdal, Karlström, and Ojala 2017). Critical perspectives on indigenous counter-mapping have also been put forth. Wainright and Bryan, for instance, argue that indigenous participa-tory map-making, in the context of legal land claims, does not reverse colonial relations but rather reworks them, remaining framed by the spatial configurations of modern states (2009; cf. critical discussions on the potentials and limits of decolonizing geographies in de Leeuw and Hunt 2018).

The colonial heritage in Sápmi, including colonial map-making, is a contested issue in contemporary Swedish society. The very notion of Swedish and Scandinavian colonialism in the Sámi areas has been very controversial, with widespread denial and ideas about Scandinavian colonialism as exceptional and somehow “kinder” and less “colonial” than that of other empires—a theme discussed in several articles in this issue of Scandinavian Studies (see, for example, the introduction by Höglund and Andersson Burnett, and articles by Jensen and by Körber). In relation to Sámi history, the idea of Scandinavian and Swedish colonialism has been especially controversial, as this notion has direct relevance to present-day conflicts over land and water rights in the Sámi areas. The colonial histories and relations have also been actualized in several important court cases dealing with land rights of Sámi communities in Sweden.3 Although a number of scholars in recent years have discussed Scandinavian colonialism in Sápmi and Scandinavian participation in more general European colonial projects and ideologies (e.g., Fur 2006; Naum and Nordin 2013; Ojala and Nordin 2015; Weiss 2016; Ojala 2017; 2018; see also the recent five-volume book project on Denmark and its colonies4), there is still a great need to acknowledge and further analyze Scandinavian colonialism in Sápmi, an area of study that remains under-researched. As mentioned above, this article will focus specifically on the Swedish part of Sápmi, but it is nonetheless important to keep in mind the profound impact of the state boundaries dividing the Sámi lands and the importance of the interactions and competition between the different states for the Sámi territories and resources, on the lives of Sámi individuals and communities.

Two central aspects in our discussion of early modern colonial mapping in Sápmi concern, firstly, the relationships and encounters between the Indigenous Sámi population and the cartographers, explorers, scholars, and different agents of the Swedish state, and, secondly, the agency, participation, and resistance of the Sámi population in these mapping endeavors. Similar topics have been explored in other contexts, for instance, in relation to Indigenous peoples in North America (e.g., Lewis 1998). In the following, we will first discuss some important threads in the early modern Swedish expansion into and exploitation of the Sámi lands, before turning more specifically to the issue of early modern colonial mapping in Sápmi.

Early Modern Swedish Expansion in Sápmi

The early modern colonial expansion of the Swedish kingdom toward the north took place in competition with the Danish-Norwegian kingdom and Russia over territories, resources, taxation, and trade routes in the Sámi areas. Therefore, the border issue was a constant concern for the Swedish authorities, constituting one of the most important reasons behind the different map-making projects that were initiated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The establishment of the state boundaries in the Sámi areas was a long and complex process that stretched over centuries, which we do not have the space to describe in detail here.

There were several concurrent reasons behind the colonial expansion toward the north: to establish Swedish sovereignty over the territory, to control the lucrative trade in the Sámi areas and the trading routes in the North, for instance, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, to explore and exploit natural resources as sources of wealth for the Swedish crown, and to Christianize what were perceived as “heathen” Sámi populations. To these reasons, one may add a general curiosity and scientific interest, which also played a role in the exploration of the northern areas and Swedish expansion (see, e.g., Broberg 1987).

During the medieval period, before the early modern expansion-ist politics, the patterns of interaction and contact between the Sámi population and other groups, and the relationships between the local populations and the developing central state of Sweden, had a different character. Several scholars have in recent years suggested that these patterns of interaction and exchange were less centralized and more reciprocal and have emphasized the relative autonomy and strength of local Sámi communities (see, e.g., Hansen and Olsen 2014; Bergman and Edlund 2016; Lundmark 2016).

One of the most important driving forces in the early modern Swedish expansion was the desire to explore and exploit the natural resources in the Sámi areas (see Ahlström 1966; Hansson 2015; Nordin 2015; Ojala and Nordin 2015; Nordin and Ojala 2017). In the 1630s, the discovery of silver at Nasafjäll/Násavárre,5 in the high mountains adjacent to the border with Norway, led to great expectations of new sources of wealth for the Swedish crown, which was much needed not least because of Sweden’s involvement in the wars on the European continent (Bromé 1923; Bäärnhielm 1976; Hansson 2015). The discovery of silver in what was a period of booming metal extraction in Sweden and Denmark led to a rapid and extensive organized pursuit for metal ores. Precious metals were naturally most coveted, but iron and lead were also sought after. In Norway, in the southern part of Sápmi, Røros copper ore was discovered in 1644 and in the Jokkmokk/Jåhkåmåhkke area, several mining projects were undertaken during the 1640s and 1650s. Most well-known and successful was the Kvikkjokk/Huhttán silver works with the mines Kedkevare/Gierggevárre and Alkavare/Álggavárre, which were started in the 1660s (Awebro 1983). Simultaneously but further to the north, in the Torne River valley, copper and iron ore were discovered in Junosuando/Junosuanto/Čunusavvon6 and Svappavaara/Vaskivuori/Veaikevárri, which led to the most substantial mining activities in Northern Fennoscandia, and later to the opening of the large-scale Gällivare-Malmberget and Kirunavaara-Luossavaara mines (cf. Ahlström 1966; Hansson 2015; Nordin and Ojala 2017).

Pearl fishing and the search for rock crystal, for which Sámi local knowledge was central, also played a part in the Swedish colonization of the Sámi lands. In the 1540s, Swedish king Gustav Vasa ordered an investigation of the rivers of northern Sweden to find out where river pearls could be found. In a proclamation in 1613, the Swedish crown urged the Sámi population to search for rock crystal and mineral ore. In the seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century, pearl fishing in rivers in the Sámi areas was at times quite intense. The Swedish crown also officially employed several pearl fishers during the seventeenth century. Furthermore, between 1691 and 1723, pearl fishing was made a royal privilege in order to bring the revenues to the crown (Storå 1989; Awebro 1995; Awebro and Öberg 2001).

The fur trade constituted a central pillar of colonial resource extraction, with a long history stretching far back in time. Furs had played a substantial role in the economic relations between Northern Fennoscandia, Central Sweden, and continental Europe since the Iron Age and the Middle Ages. Sámi control over much of the hunting grounds and their role as specialized suppliers of fur products had ensured that Sámi communities had a relatively strong position in trade relations during the Middle Ages (Steckzen 1964; Mulk 1996; Bergman and Edlund 2016). During the Renaissance and the early modern period, the fur market continued to be important. The continental and global markets for felt hats and furs propelled trade colonialism not only in North America but in Sápmi as well (Nordin 2012). For the Swedish state, one of the primary goals of colonial expansion in Sápmi was to control this lucrative trade and gain access to the best fur products. In order to achieve this goal, the state needed to restructure the old trade relations between different populations in the North and introduce a new, more centralized system of economic interaction and exchange in which the establishment of fixed marketplaces in the Sámi areas played an important role (more on these markets below).

Another fundamental aspect of Swedish expansion in Sápmi, in many ways parallel to the exploitation of natural resources and control over trade, was the mission of the Swedish Church among the Sámi: the desire to bring the Sámi population to the “right” faith (that is, the Lutheran faith) and to combat any Sámi non-Christian indigenous religious beliefs and practices—once again in competition with the neighboring states, in this case, the Danish-Norwegian Church and the Russian Orthodox Church (see, e.g., Rydving 1995; Christoffersson 2010; Rasmussen 2016b). In discussing the Christian mission and colonial politics, it is important to understand that the Sámi populations employed varying and changing strategies when confronted with state and church expansion, including strategies and acts of opposition, resistance and avoidance, as well as adaptation and acceptance. There were also several Sámi individuals who participated, in various ways, in more “elevated” positions in early modern Swedish society, for instance as university students and clergymen within the Swedish church—which further emphasizes the complexities of colonial roles and relations (Rydving 2010; Rasmussen 2016a; Nordin 2017).

In the early seventeenth century, a process of establishing permanent churches and marketplaces in the Sámi areas in the Swedish kingdom was initiated, on royal initiative (see further Bergling 1964; Wallerström 2017; Ojala and Nordin, forthcoming). During the first decade of the seventeenth century, marketplaces were established and churches were built in each of the different Lappmarker,7 at Lycksele/ Liksjoe in Ume Lappmark, Arvidsjaur/Árviesjávrrie in Pite Lappmark, Jokkmokk/Jåhkåmåhkke in Lule Lappmark, and Enontekiö/Eanodat (which is located in today’s Finland), and Jukkasjärvi/Čohkkiras in Torne Lappmark. Later during the century, new churches and marketplaces were established in Sámi lands, for instance, in Arjeplog/ Árjepluovve and Åsele/Sjeltie. At these sites, trade, tax collection, church services, and judicial affairs were concentrated during certain periods of the year when the Sámi population in the area was obliged to be present. We have argued that these sites formed nodes of Swedish colonialism in the Sámi landscapes and constituted colonial arenas where relationships, identities, and material cultures were negotiated and transformed (Ojala and Nordin, forthcoming). With these sites as nodes in the colonial landscapes, the Swedish state and Church strived to exert control over the social, economic, and religious life of the Sámi communities. It is, however, important to stress that the Swedish state did not succeed in all its ambitions in the seventeenth century, and that the Sámi communities could still uphold some of their autonomy (which was to change in later centuries of Swedish colonial control). It is also important to recognize that the places chosen for the churches and marketplaces were part of Indigenous Sámi landscapes, with long histories. The administrative process of deciding where to establish the marketplaces and build the churches also illustrates the relationship between the state and the local Sámi population in the early seventeenth century, with different consultations and discussions between the agents of the state and the Sámi populations, where the opinions and interests of local Sámi people seem to have mattered, to some extent, to the central authorities (see Bergling 1964, 160–3; Wallerström 2017).

Concurrently with the founding of the marketplaces in the interior regions, the Sámi areas were, to a growing degree, encircled by urbanization in the northern coastal regions of Norway and Sweden-Finland. The new urban centers along the coasts of Northern Fennoscandia were, to a large extent, based on trade with resources from the inland Sámi areas, such as fur products and dried fish, and were to play important roles in the early modern colonial systems in the North, linking together the mining and industrial sites, and the Church and marketplaces with Stockholm and other central towns in the Swedish kingdom, as well as towns such as Trondheim and Copenhagen in the Danish-Norwegian realm, and further with the rest of the world (Herva, Ylimaunu, and Symonds 2012; Hansen and Olsen 2014).

During the latter part of the seventeenth century, the Swedish state also strived to promote new agricultural settlements in the inland Sámi areas and to encourage Swedish and Finnish people to move to these areas. The state promotion of new settlements was formalized in a series of state decrees, starting with the so-called lappmarksplakat (Lappmark decree) in 1673, providing freedom from taxation for 15 years and lifetime freedom from conscription to the army for those who were willing to start new settlements in lappmarkerna. Despite the efforts of the Swedish government, few new settlements were established in the Sámi areas during the seventeenth century. Many of the early new settlers were also Sámi people. However, in Kemi Lappmark (in today’s Finland), many new settlements were established, not least in the form of Finnish slash-and-burn settlements, which had severe negative effects on the Sámi economies and led to protests from the local Sámi populations (see Tegengren 1952, 75–88; cf. also Hultblad [1968, 158–71] about new settlers in Lule Lappmark after the lappmarksplakat; see Göthe [1929] on the Ume Lappmark; and Bylund [1956] on the Pite Lappmark). The lappmarksplakat was renewed in 1695 and included new regulations against widespread slash-and-burn agricultural practices as a response to the Sámi protests. In 1749, the so-called lappmarksreglementet was issued, which further specified the rights and obligations of new settlers in lappmarkerna and regulated the formal process of establishing and upholding new agricultural settlements, including inspections by the authorities.

Because of the different regulations, as concerned for instance taxation, in the lappmarker and in the coastal regions, the definition of the Lapland border became a central and partly contested issue, which was discussed for a long time. The formal border, the so-called lappmarksgräns, was finally officially established in the 1750s. This border, in effect a colonial construction, was to play an important role in the coming centuries, not least in relation to the rights of Sámi villages to reindeer grazing lands.

Closely interconnected with the processes of state and industrial colonialism, the surveying and mapping projects, and the missionary activities were the interest in and the collecting of Sámi material culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As part of a widespread interest in the Sámi, and not least their perceived heathen rituals and witchcraft, Sámi material objects, such as sacred drums, were much sought-after by many collectors around Europe. During the colonial campaigns, many drums and other sacred objects such as stone or wooden sieidi were destroyed by missionaries and their helpers (see, e.g., Tornæus 1900, 32–3; Reuterskiöld 1910, 42; 1927, 9; Rydving 1995, 62–7). But many drums were also confiscated and brought to different collections in Uppsala, Stockholm, and Copenhagen, and from there to collectors all over Europe. This process of colonial collecting was thus marked by a certain emotional ambivalence: on the one hand, repulsion and a will to destroy, on the other, desire and a will to possess (see Snickare 2014; Nordin and Ojala 2015; 2018). Later, in the early nineteenth century, as a continuation of the seventeenth-and eighteenth-century collecting and mapping, scholars, explorers, and local doctors and clergymen also started to gather Sámi human remains from deceased individuals as well as from graves, for anatomical collections and subsequent racial biological collections at universities and museums. The mapping and collecting of Sápmi now included not only land and culture, but also the people of Sápmi themselves—aiming to define and control land, culture, and people (see further Ojala 2009, 242–70; 2016).

Early Modern Maps of the Sámi Areas in the Swedish Kingdom

As discussed above, in order to control the land and people in Sápmi, the Swedish state needed to understand and map the landscapes of the northern areas. There was also a need to visually and aesthetically incorporate the Sámi lands into the imagined geography of the Swedish state. Maps can, of course, be many things and be used for many different purposes (cf., e.g., Harley 2001; Ehrensvärd 2006; Wood 2010). The map-making of the Sámi territories, which the Danish-Norwegian, Swedish, and Russian states competed over, has a history that stretches far back in time, even beyond the founding of the Swedish land survey (Lantmäteriverket) in 1628. In fact, one can argue that Fennoscandinavian map-making was in part born in what has generally been perceived as a periphery, the Far North of the Nordic kingdoms. These territories were among the first areas of the Danish-Norwegian and Swedish realms to be mapped (Lönborg 1901; Ehrensvärd 1984; 2006). This can be compared with the English situation where map-making was swiftly developed in Ireland and the Ulster region during the Elizabethan invasion in the 1580s, long before the colonial map-making in England’s overseas empire described by Benedict Anderson (1983; see also Raj 2007, 60–94; Horning 2011).

The earliest map of the Sámi areas with place-names and discernible geographical features was Carta Marina (fig. 1), which was published in Venice in 1539 by Olaus Magnus (1490–1557), the last Catholic archbishop of Sweden (in exile), who left the country in connection with the Protestant reformation (Balzamo 2015; Nyman 2017). Olaus Magnus had traveled to the North in 1518–1519 and visited, among other places, the marketplace in Torneå/Duortnus in 1519. Olaus Magnus is also well known as the author of the famous work Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (History of the Northern Peoples), first published in 1555 (Olaus Magnus 1976). The descriptions of the Sámi in this work were marked by ambivalence, including both negative and positive judgments, condemning their perceived heathen practices while admiring their natural virtues (Balzamo 2015, 109–26).

Another example of the mapping of the northern regions in the late sixteenth century is the so-called itinerary of the Torne and Kemi Lappmarker by the lappfogde (Sámi bailiff) Olof Burman (Fellman 1910, 299–308), which describes the distances between different places in the Torne and Kemi River valleys and ways to pass the rapids in the river systems. The description was ordered by Duke Karl (the future king Karl IX) as part of his ambition to control the north-ernmost areas of Northern Fennoscandia and the coast of the Arctic Sea, and in connection with the ensuing border conflicts with Russia and Denmark-Norway (Fellman 1910, 299–308; cf. also Hoppe 1945, about the construction and maintenance of roads and transportation routes in the Sámi areas in the early modern period, for instance, for the purpose of mining).

With the cartographer Andreas Bureus, or Anders Bure (1571–1646), a new phase in the history of cartography began (see, e.g., Lönborg 1901; Vennberg 1926; Bäärnhielm, n.d.). His map from 1611, Lapponiæ, Bothniæ, Cajaniæqve Regni Sveciæ provinciarvm septentrionalivm nova delineation (see fig. 2), has been of great importance in discussions on early modern Sámi history and geography. On this map, several Sámi settlement sites are depicted, with the names of contemporaneous lappbyar (Sámi villages). What the locations of these villages on the map actually represent has been much discussed (see, e.g., Aronsson 2009; Eidlitz Kuoljok 2011). Do they represent central places, winter villages, in a “pre-colonial” Sámi social organization—or do they actually represent a colonial construction? In a recent book, archaeologist Thomas Wallerström has discussed this issue at length. Based on archival and archaeological studies, he puts forth the argument that the “winter villages” depicted on the early maps show a colonial structure produced by an expanding Swedish state rather than a pre-colonial indigenous landscape (2017, 211–26). In 1626, Bureus also produced a map of the Nordic countries, Orbis arctoi nova et accurata delineatio, Auctore Andrea Bureo Sueco, which played a central role in the subsequent history of cartography in the Nordic countries.

Fig. 1.

Olaus Magnus’s Carta Marina, from 1539 (photo courtesy of Uppsala University Library).

Another central cartographer in the mapping of Sápmi was Olof Tresk (d. 1645). In 1635, Tresk was instructed to travel to the place of the newly discovered find of silver ore at Nasafjäll and to determine and describe the border between the Swedish kingdom and the Danish-Norwegian kingdom in the mountain region, in order to prove that the silver mine was in fact on the Swedish side of the border (Ahnlund 1928; Nordin 2014). During his work in the Sámi areas in the following decade, Olof Tresk, with his assistants, produced a map of Kemi Lappmark in 1642 and a map of Torne Lappmark in 1643 (fig. 3). For these tasks, it was necessary to gain knowledge and support from the local Sámi populations. This is evident, for instance, in Tresk’s recounting in 1640 of the determination of the border between the Swedish kingdom and the Danish-Norwegian kingdom, where the different points of reference and delineations along the border are, to a large extent, based on, and confirmed by, groups of local Sámi men (see Tresk 1928). This case exemplifies, once again, the importance of local Sámi knowledge of the landscape to the colonial ambitions of the Swedish crown in the seventeenth century.

In the early 1670s, the county governor of Västerbotten, Johan Graan (1610–1679; see Nordlander 1938), initiated a project for surveying the Sámi areas, which focused on the Ume Lappmark. Graan had developed and promoted the so-called “parallel theory,” which proclaimed that the reindeer-herding Sámi population and the new agricultural settlers could co-exist in the Sámi areas as they would—according to his theory—not compete for the same ecological resources. Graan was himself of Sámi descent and played a central role in the development of the state policies toward the Sámi populations. In several instances, he intervened in the state-run industrial projects in the Sámi areas, in defense of the Sámi population, calling for a less harsh treatment of Sámi workers (cf. Rydving 2010).

Fig. 2.

Andreas Bureus’s map Lapponiæ, Bothniæ, Cajaniæqve Regni Sveciæ provinciarvm septentrionalivm nova delineatio, from 1611. In the map, several Sámi settlements are depicted (photo courtesy of the National Library of Sweden [Kungliga biblioteket], Stockholm).

Fig. 3.

Map of Torne Lappmark by Olof Tresk, from 1643 (photo courtesy of the Swedish National Archives [Riksarkivet], Stockholm).

Graan also cautioned about the need to treat the Sámi population well, in order that they would be loyal to the Swedish crown in cases of military conflicts with the neighboring countries. One result of Graan’s surveying project was the map of Ume Lappmark from 1671, made by Jonas Gedda (d. 1697; Göthe 1929, 178–86), who was employed as a land surveyor in the counties of Västerbotten and Österbotten from 1667. One central purpose of the survey project was to find suitable areas for new settlements in Ume Lappmark. In the survey work, local Sámi knowledge of topography and landscape resources was central. The map (see fig. 4) has been of great importance for understanding the Sámi landscapes in the seventeenth century and the organization of the so-called lappskatteland (approx. taxation lands of the Sámi). For instance, on the map, the names and borders of the lappskatteland in the district are depicted, which provides valuable information about Sámi social organization as well as Sámi place-names (see further Norstedt 2011; 2018). Unfortunately, the idea behind the parallel theory proved wrong, and the politics of new settlements in the Sámi areas created many conflicts over land use and eventually led to the loss of Sámi land rights—including the lappskatteland—in the late nineteenth century.

Another seventeenth-century map of Sápmi, which was widely distributed, was the map published in Johannes Schefferus’s book Lapponia (fig. 5), first published in Latin in 1673 and quickly translated into several European languages (English 1674, German 1675, French 1678, and Dutch 1682, but Swedish not until 1956). Lapponia was commissioned by the chancellor of the realm Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie (1622–1686), and was the first major published work on the Sámi lands and Sámi culture. The Uppsala professor Johannes Schefferus (1621–1679) never traveled to the Sámi areas, but he based much of his descriptions on commissioned accounts from missionaries and clergymen working in the Sámi areas, as well as on some Sámi informants, such as Sámi students in Uppsala (see Löw 1956; Berättelser om samerna i 1600-talets Sverige 1983; see also the article by Andersson Burnett in this issue of Scandinavian Studies). Lapponia became widespread in learned circles in many European countries and had a great influence on subsequent notions of Sámi culture and religion in the coming centuries in Sweden as well as internationally, contributing to ideas of Sáminess as distinctly different from Europeaness and Swedishness. The book also confirmed Swedish control over parts of Sápmi, and the map helped to visualize the power of the Swedish kingdom in the northernmost regions of Europe. Although the information in Lapponia comes from sources produced mostly by male missionaries and clergymen, and restricted geographically to only certain areas of Sápmi and limited to a short time period, the book has often been read as a general ethnographic description of a Sámi culture and religion that is homogeneous in time and space. This homogenization of Sámi identity, culture, and religion has had profound importance for academic representations of Sáminess until present times.

Fig. 4.

Jonas Persson Gedda’s map of Ume Lappmark, with names and borders of lappskatteland, from 1671 (photo courtesy of the Swedish National Archives [Riksarkivet], Stockholm).

Over time, the map-making practice in Sápmi would split into several currents or branches as part of an increasing professionalization of cartography. Map-making for the purpose of determining, and defending, the state borders with Denmark-Norway and Russia, which were drawn through the Sámi lands, had been of central importance from the earliest era of cartography and continued to be so in the coming centuries (see Enewald 1920; Gustafsson 1995).

Maps of mines and works constituted a special branch of map-making in Sápmi. The mining maps of Nasafjäll from the 1630s and 1640s are a case in point. Hans Philip Lybecker (1608–1671/2), bergmästare in the northern regions of the Swedish kingdom, made a set of maps in the 1640s. These maps show the route from the mines to the Silbojokk/ Silbbajåhkå silver works (where silver ore from the Nasafjäll mines was refined) and towards the town of Piteå on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. The maps also indicate distances and places to stay along the long route from the silver mines and works to the coast. Importantly, they show where the hållappar were based and where the transportation loads should be shifted. A hållapp was a Sámi who was charged by the crown with carrying out transportation of resources along a stipulated part of the route. The transportation work conducted by the Sámi population, with reindeer and sleds, was essential for the existence of the mining business. However, forced or coerced labor was periodically used by the state, and protests from the local Sámi population were at times intense, leading to evasion from the work and depopulation in certain areas (cf. Bromé 1923, 156–8). In particular, many Sámi fled to Norway. As stated above, this was seen as a serious problem, for instance, by the county governor Johan Graan, as the Swedish crown needed a loyal local population in the border areas with the Danish-Norwegian kingdom. The Nasafjäll maps contain several depictions of Sámi people with reindeer transporting goods to and from the mines (see fig. 6). They show Sámi equipages, seemingly without the strongly prejudiced gaze that characterizes many later depictions, recognizing the importance of the Sámi knowledge and workforce in the industrial ventures.

Fig. 5.

Map from Johannes Schefferus’s Lapponia, 1673 (Schefferus 1956).

Mapping the Industries of the North

There are also industrial maps made by professional surveyors attempting to, as “correctly” as possible, depict technical aspects of the industries, including production facilities and the spatial organization of the industrial installations and workers’ settlements. As an example, we can mention the maps of the Kengis (or Torne) iron and copper works conglomerate in the Torne River valley from the 1660s. These maps are unique in the sense that they are geodetically very exact, quite beautiful, and among the earliest industrial maps of their kind in Sweden (see further below).

Another group of maps are the cadastral maps, which are also geodetically very thorough and often artistically beautiful. They were produced with the purpose of displaying ownership, as well as access, to land in both rural and urban contexts. Villages in the lower parts of the river valleys in the northern parts of the Swedish kingdom were mapped and described, as well as the new towns along the coast, such as, for instance, the town of Torneå8 (Herva and Ylimaunu 2010; Herva, Ylimaunu, and Symonds 2012).

As mentioned above, one branch of cartography in the Sámi areas was more specifically tied to the early modern industrial sites. Since the medieval period, Sweden’s main export commodity was iron, in the form of pig iron, and copper in the form of sheets and rods (Hildebrand 1992). During the early modern period, the metal industry shifted to producing more consumer-oriented goods. Instead of exporting pig iron in barrels, leading iron producers started making bar iron and, for example, canons for the rapidly growing European and global markets. A similar development is visible within the copper industry where more of the copper, in Sweden, was turned into brass, which was even more coveted on the global market than copper.

Fig. 6.

One of the Nasafjäll maps, from the 1640s, with depictions of Sámi equipages (photo courtesy of the Swedish National Archives [Riksarkivet], Stockholm).

Since most of metal industry was run by private enterprise, with the notable exception of the silver production, the state had little interest in surveying these industries. The early maps from the Nasafjäll mine and the Silbojokk works, which were owned and run by the Swedish state, should be understood as part of a particular interest by the crown to exploit the newly discovered riches in the Sámi areas, and as part of a larger colonial and visual project to incorporate these regions into the realms and defend them against the Danish-Norwegian state.

It is in the light of this situation in the Swedish industry and the development of copper production that we ought to see the copper and iron industry of the Torne River Valley and the making of maps depicting its mining and refinery sites. In the Autumn of 1660, the markscheider (surveyor of mines) Olaus Simonis Nauclerus (1626–1706) was contracted to survey these industries in the Torne River valley. Nauclerus produced maps covering Kengis iron and copper works, Masugnsbyn iron furnace and mines, Svappavaara copper works, and Svappavaara copper mines. All of the maps are very detailed and geodetically accurate, which has been confirmed by field studies (Lindgren, Nordin, and Ojala, forthcoming). In contrast to the maps from the 1640s from Nasafjäll and Silbojokk, there are no people or animals in these map images, just mountains, streams, dams, industrial buildings, and workers’ houses. These maps give the impression of being economic maps where people are not depicted as an asset.

The Kengis map is the most detailed. This industrial site at Kengis, by the Torne River close to present-day Pajala, was the largest, making up the core of the industrial complex owned by the brothers Momma-Reenstierna,9 covering the vast area from the copper mines and works at Leppäkoski and Pahtavaara by the Vittangi River near Jukkasjärvi in the Northwest to the town of Torneå in the Southeast (Nordin and Ojala 2017). The depictions on the map are, however, a conscious selection by the surveyor, highlighting certain aspects and downplaying others. This we know from a very lucky coincidence. There exists a drawing, also unique in the Fennoscandian context, depicting the very same area of the Kengis works as the map, but from a different angle.

The scribe of the Kengis works, Denis Joris, made a drawing of the works where the buildings are depicted en façe, the same year as the map, 1660 (see fig. 7). There are no people in the drawing either, but there are traces of them. There is smoke coming out of the chimneys, spume from the rapids, and water streaming from the copper furnace. On the map, the islands in the stream are depicted very correctly according to shape and form, but in the drawing, there is a depiction of buildings on the largest island, which are not on the map. Two distinct Sámi dwellings, goahti, are depicted on the island.

The Kengis works employed many Sámi workers during its heyday in the 1650s and 1660s. Salary charts and inventory lists mention several Sámi workers, and a large number of reindeer, responsible for arranging transportation between the different branches of the industrial conglomerate (see, e.g., Lindmark 1963). It is actually not at all surprising to find the depictions of the Sámi presence in the drawing since the copper and iron works was such an important employer for the local Sámi population. On the other hand, it is not surprising that the map does not show any Sámi or other people at all. The map tells about the technical systems that were employed in the area. Here, the most sophisticated techniques of the day are displayed. The French-type forge and iron mill were at the time newly introduced to Northern Europe from its heartland in the Low Countries, and represented the latest innovations and technical know-how.

All of the maps from the Kengis works conglomerate also show a rather strictly divided space. The Masugnsbyn map (fig. 8) displays a divided physical space with workers’ dwellings on one side and those of officeholders on the other. The overseer’s building was located to the far west as a counterpart to the furnace and the mines in the east. The map from the Svappavaara copper works displays a similarly arranged space (fig. 9). What the maps thus depict is not only progress in technical terms, using the most sophisticated practices available, but also a social distinction according to class, in an early capitalist society where class relations were still in their advent and where land was turned into property (cf. Thompson 1991; Johnson 1996; Hall 2010). In this mapping of modernization and progress, there was little space for the Sámi people and the Sámi cultural landscapes.

Fig. 7.

Denis Joris’s drawing of the Kengis works, by the Torne River, near presentday Pajala, from 1660 (photo courtesy of Jernkontoret, Stockholm).

Fig. 8.

Map of the forge and iron mines at Masugnsbyn, part of the Torne works, from 1660. Kommerskollegii bruks- och gruvkartor, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (photo courtesy of the Swedish National Archives [Riksarkivet], Stockholm).

Fig. 9.

Map of Svappavaara copper works, part of the Torne works, from 1660. Kommerskollegii bruks- och gruvkartor, Riksarkivet, Stockholm (photo courtesy of the Swedish National Archives [Riksarkivet], Stockholm).

Conclusion: Mapping the Complexities of Colonial Relations

In this article, we have discussed some of the early modern map-making in the Sámi areas, viewing the mapping projects as part of the larger processes of colonialism, missionary work, and exploitation of natural resources in Sápmi. The mapping of Sámi lands and cultures played an important role in the Swedish colonial expansion in Sápmi in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and we have argued that the mapping projects need to be critically examined in order to better understand the colonial histories and relations in Sápmi.

Considering the centrality of land in the colonial processes, as well as in the present-day Sámi ethnopolitical and cultural revitalization movements, maps and map-making form an important point of contestation and conflict. In rethinking the colonial history in Sápmi, it is also necessary to rethink and critically examine the mapping of the Sámi areas as part of an early modern world-making. For rethinking the early modern mapping, recent research in the field of critical cartography, as discussed above, might be useful.

In the case of Sápmi, many of the early modern maps served to incorporate the Sámi lands into the envisioned geometry and identity of the Swedish kingdom, leaving little or no space for the Indigenous Sámi notions of the world. Furthermore, the map-making entailed a certain aesthetics, which was part of the construction and maintenance of the Swedish imperial iconography and representation. The maps visualized lands, old and new, and in some cases only wished-for, of the Swedish realm. Other maps, such as the industrial maps discussed in this paper, also served to visualize a landscape of technical structures, arrangements, and progress in Sápmi, where the resources of the land could be exploited by the state and by private industrialists without having to deal with the local Sámi people and their landscapes.

In the seventeenth century, Sámi communities still retained power and control over much of their internal affairs. Sámi knowledge of the land and its resources was of critical importance to the expanding Swedish state. In the industrial enterprises in the Sámi areas, the Sámi population was needed as workforce, especially with regard to the long and difficult transportation of ore and supplies. From the late seventeenth century, the Swedish state encouraged the establishment of new settlements in the Sámi lands, which gradually led to the influx of more people. Over time, Sámi communities lost most or all of their power and control over the lands as the Swedish state consolidated its power. The state and the private enterprises no longer needed the Sámi population and their knowledge of the lands in the same way as before. In this article, we have focused mostly on the seventeenth century and have not discussed the mapping of the Sámi land and culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in much detail. However, the seventeenth-century colonial history is, as we have argued, very much relevant in present-day ethnopolitical struggles and conflicts over land and resources in Sápmi. In many ways, the seventeenth century formed the basis for the colonial expansion, exploitation, and power relations to come in later centuries.

As mentioned earlier in the paper, we wish to underline the power dynamics involved in mapping land and culture in Sápmi and bring forth the contested nature of map-making. To conclude the paper, we therefore wish to point to some of the discussions on alternative ways of mapping territories and resources in Sápmi, and elsewhere. In recent research, approaches to mapping in collaboration with local and indigenous communities have been developed, for instance, with the aid of so-called participatory geographic information systems, or PGIS (computer-aided mapping). Such projects have also taken place in the Sámi regions (see, for example, Robinson and Kassam 1998; Mustonen and Mustonen 2011; Barlindhaug 2013). Many of these projects work with participatory, community-based, and community-initiated methodologies, involving collaboration between local communities and professional geographers or archaeologists. Land and resources are mapped by local inhabitants and tradition-bearers, visualizing landscapes, places, resources, stories, and values other than those that official cartography has produced. Furthermore, the participatory mapping is embedded in the local communities, responding not only to the interests of state and commercial organizations and professional cartographers and scholars, but also to the needs and priorities of the local communities (see, however, critical perspectives on PGIS in, e.g., Chapin, Lamb, and Threlkeld 2005). Here, the need to defend Sámi rights in connection with threats to the lands in the form of the expansion of extractive industries, such as mining, and other encroachments has been a central concern, highlighting the interrelated politics of land rights and maps.

The representations of Sápmi, and its boundaries in space and time, have also been critically discussed by some scholars in recent years (e.g., Ojala 2009; 2014; Svalastog 2015). In a recent paper, Anna Lydia Svalastog has discussed the history of map images of Sápmi, as well as alternative ways of mapping Sámi landscapes (2015). As part of Sámi revitalization processes, the Sámi lands have been remapped— or counter-mapped—by Sámi artists and activists. One prominent example concerns the maps of Sápmi by the well-known Sámi artist Hans Ragnar Mathisen (b. 1945). These maps center on Sápmi, turn the world upside down, and use Sámi place-names and Sámi storytelling as part of the mapping (Lundström 2017; Stephansen 2017). The colonial mapping—in Sápmi and elsewhere in the world—often involved renaming of landscape features and settlement sites (in Sápmi, the use of Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Russian names), and therefore one important element in the remapping of indigenous landscapes has been the reclaiming of Sámi topographical and settlement names.

These examples point to a possible future where map-making is diversified and incorporates the complexities of landscapes and relations between people and nature. They also point to the need to recognize colonial histories in Sápmi and to discuss Sámi rights and self-determination, as well as the influence and control of concerned Sámi and other local communities over the mapping of their land and culture, which entails political control over the lands—as described above, a controversial political topic in Sweden, and the other states in Sápmi, today. Thus, in the attempts to decolonize the relationships between the Swedish state and the Sámi people, maps and map-making need to be part of the decolonization process. Map-making can be an instrument for state and industrial colonization and exploitation, but it can also be an instrument for local and indigenous empowerment, revitalization, and decolonization. In this sense, new ways of understanding colonial histories and relations might be visualized and performed in the future—not forgetting that the most important issue are not the maps as such but the geopolitics and power relations behind the images.