About the """"statare"""" system

[Karen Kelsey]

My ancestors would be considered as members of the class of statare in southern Sweden - if I have used that term correctly.  How did this type of land tenure develop, i.e. a home and a small piece of land in exchange for work on an estate?  I know that there used to be both crown peasants and freehold peasants in the 17th century.  Did these classes of peasants end up as statkarls (this word was used in my family's letters)?

[Inger Eriksson]

If you would like to read about statare in Sweden in the past hundred years, there are a number of authors who have made great literature about the lives and conditions for theese workers, i e Jan Fridegård, Ivar Lo-Johansson, Moa Martinsson. You can also find some of their works in English (and other languages), see
http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/authors/
Best wishes from Inger Eriksson

[Olle Elm]

Maybe there is already something written in English about the statarsystemet = the system with agricultural labourer receiving allowance in kind. If not, here is a short article in Swedish. Maybe someone has got the time to make a short summary in English.
Regards from,
Olle Elm

[Joel Vogler]

Some information about statare is given by  Huseby Cotter Museum

[Ann Little]

Hello Karen!
 
In resonse to Olle Elm's plea for someone to help out with the English, I have translated a small part of Hans Högmans article  Statarsystemet. It covers only that which is not mentioned on the Huseby Cotter Museum site above.
 
 For those who looked after the cattle, the working day would begin at 4 o'clock in the morning. They would then work for up to 8-9 hour spread out over 24 hours.
The women began milking as early as 3.30 a.m. The work was divided into three shifts, with the last shift at 18.30 p.m.
 
They worked on weekdays as well as on the sabbath and on holy(holi)days. They had the right to between 30 and 50 days off a year, which would include Saturdays and Sundays.
Out of these so called 'freedays', only 13 could be taken on a Sunday.
A Cotter had the right to 7 payed 'freedays' per year but less than half could be taken consecutively i.e. he could have only a 3 1/2 days' holiday at any one time.
 
There was an unwritten law that, when the Cottager signed his contract, his wife and growing children would also be contracted to work on the manor or farm.
The wife's duty was to milk the cows and she may have to milk up to 150 litres of milk a day or 16 cows! Afterwards, she would also have to clean all the milking utensils.
The pay was very low and this kind of work had the least status on the farm/manor.
 
The Cottagers married young as the work under the  Statarsystem involved the whole family. Without a capable wife, the man could get no employment.
 
When the wife of a Cotter gave birth, she would not be given much time off from her work and she was expected to carry on working until the labour pains began.
Soon after giving birth, often on the following day, she would be back on her milking-stool or performig her outdoor duties.
 
 
Kind regards,
Ann Little

[Karen Kelsey]

Thanks to all of you!  This has helped me understand the type of life my ancestors had.  Their letters talk about laundry duties, carpentry, caring for the sick, and general work at the manorhouse.  They were always short of cash, and expected their grown children to send home coins to help the family.  They did raise crops and have a cow, and I think they kept the crops for their own use.  When Gustaf took over the property in 1899, after his grandfather died, he did not mention that he signed another contract, but I'm sure he must have done so.  All of the men were carpenters and woodworkers, along with doing their other duties on the estate.  The women sewed, and performed whatever duties were expected of them.  A hard life it was!

[per bjurling]

I get a little curious here!
I may not have the correct terms in english clear but from Your description I wonder if You haven?t mixed up statare with torpare.
I decend myself from both categories (am actually born as a statare-child, something to brag with today) and as I remember it statare never had land or cows and rarely did handcraft work. It was farm-work. I should know, I was there. We could keep a pig and grow some carrots that?s all. The torpare on the other hand often was a handcraft-worker like my mothers father who was a brick-layer and his father who was a blacksmith. The torpare grew crops and kept cattle. They worked night and day and were often called moonlight-farmers. What torpare and statare had in common was that they always had very little money. The torpare payed his rent for the land to the proprietor with work while the statare=statkarl got payed with room, firewood, potatoes,cereals and a small salary.  Most of the torpare bought their torps free from the manors the decades around 1900. This was possible because they could keep whatever money they could get from their farming. My grandparents also did so. I lived a year (1950) on my grannies torp. The happiest year in my life.

[Anders Andersson]

I agree there may be some confusion here between the two kinds of household. The translations seem to be:
 
statare = cotter (according to the website mentioned above)
torpare = crofter (according to a dictionary, I think)
 
Not that the terms alone really explain what they refer to, but this discussion should...

[Bo Johansson]

Or like this:
 
Statare = farm labourer who received part of his pay in kind.
 
Torpare = Tenant farmer who payed the rent with work on the main farm.
 
// Bo Johansson

[per bjurling]

I forgot to tell about an important distinktion between torpare and statare that you probably will find interesting.
 The employer was free to beat up his statare as a corrective measure.  This was regulated in a law named legohjonsstadgan.There are cases when statare and/or farmworkers even were beaten to death without any other consequenses for the estate-owner than that the priest noted the fact in the death-book.(I think they stretced the law somewhat then.)
During the later part of the 19-teenth century this right was cut down step by step. I have forgotten when (maybe after 1866) but at one of the changes the employer?s right was restricted to only teenagers, and he had to stop beating girls at a somewhat lower age than boys.
The last reminiscences of these laws were abolished in 1926.
The torpare was a poor but free man who\s relation with the estate-owner was regulated trough a mutual contract. As I understand it, it was a criminal offense to beat up a torpare.

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

Crofter is a British word, that we find in our dictionaries, as they are based on the British vocabulary. The word crofter is usually not understood by Americans, but we could use share-croppers instead, as that refers to something they are familiar with.

[beritnightingale]

I might be the one to blame here because I  
suggested  that Karen's family were statare.  
They seemed to live on land owned by the  
fideikommiss Näsbyholm in Skåne.
 
Mvh. Berit

[Karen Kelsey]

Although this discussion took place a long time ago, I read it and have continued to investigate the Ahlgren family.  After having their letters translated, I have decided that they would be called abo.  The Ahlgrens had a contract for a large farm (grain and fruit), and that contract could be passed from one generation to the next.  Therefore, in 1899 when the elder Nils Gustaf Ahlgren died, his grandson, Nils Gustaf Ahlgren, assumed the contract on the farm.  This type of land tenure made the family much more stable than if they were involved in the statare system - nothing like the characters in Martinsson's novels.
   Their contract was renegotiated regularly (according to the letters), and the new contracts concerned their annual rent and what was included with the contract - such as the family's supply of peat.  In the early 1890s their peat supply was eliminated, and the annual rent was decreased to reflect that fact.  The younger Gustaf eventually became a manager on the Nasbyholm estate, giving him a steady income and allowing him to add on to the thatched-roof cottage that was provided by the estate.
   Does anyone know where I could find an example of one of these contracts?  I think it would make an interesting addition to the Ahlgren family history that I am writing.

[Ingemar Sundewall]

Lease-holder might be the most appropriate translation, since Nils Ahlgren leased land from the estate of Näsbyholm. In the 1890 Census he stands as Arrendator Snickare which means Lease-holder Carpenter. Åbo he was not, since that would have meant that he farmed land owned by the Crown!
The contracts I should think were written in just two copies, one for the proprietor and one for the lease-holder, so it could be difficult to find one for Gerdslövs Sjöhus, as the farm apparently was called.