""""backstuga"""" and """"torvhydda""""

[Larry Danielson]

I've been told my great-grandparents first lived in a torvhydda on their Kansas homestead in 1870.  Is this something like a sod-house/dug-out combination?  Is it related in any way to the backstuga in Sweden, a small cottage which had one or two sides built into a hillside?

[Yvonne Mård]

Larry, It is not the same. Backstuga meens  not on  a hill. It is a cottage built on an other persons land. The  inhabitant was  unable to buy land because of poverty and had to earn his living by being a farmer s hand or being  a shoe-maker or somthing like that. He could have a cow  some chichen and a pig and cultivate potatoes for him self and food för the animals.
Yvonne

[Margaretha Johansson]

Hello Larry
Torvhydda can be directly translated as peat-hut.  
Margaretha

[Margaretha Johansson]

Hello!  
This is a photo of a backstuga in Sweden.
Margaretha

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

Larry,  
Backstuga is ambiguous, so both you and Yvonne are correct about the meaning. But I've read that it was more frequently used in the sense Yvonne lists.
 
(Source: the SAOB dictionary.)

[Mary Nelson Keithahn]

These alternate definitions of backstuga make sense, but what is the meaning of backstugusittare?
 
(My grandmother was born in 1870 in a sod/log dug-out house on prairie land in Minnesota that her Swedish immigrant parents homesteaded around that time.  They didn't yet own the land as you had to live on it awhile in order to claim it.  I think this would qualify as a backstuga on both counts!)

[Thomas Vikander]

The settlers on the plains/prairies where trees were either scarce or non-existant built sod huts, hopefully into a hillside for added protection. In treed areas, log structures were built which later became  shelters for animals. Settlers moved into dimensioned wood houses or larger log homes as fast and as quickly as they could afford to do it. Almost secondary was whether they could prove up the land first and be awarded title to the land.

[Ingela Martenius]

A backstuga was a small cottage built on land that wasn't owned by the person living in the cottage; the land either belonged to a farmer or, more likely, was part of the village commons. Backstuga could mean - some argue that the original meaning was - a cottage where one or two of the walls was replaced by the cottage being built into a small hill. This was practical for several reasons: less material needed, easier to keep warm.
The further on you go in time, the less likely it was that the backstuga was built this way; it was simply a small cottage.
 
A backstugusittare was simply a person who lived in a backstuga. In the north they were instead called utanvidsfolk, but the meaning is the same.
 
Excepting gentry (ståndspersoner) people basically lived in three ways in the country:
1/ On a farm (bondgård). Farms were either owned or leased. A farmer with a perpetual, inheritable and transferable lease was an åbo. A farmer with a limited, short-term lease was a landbo (not that common, but did exist, e.g. in Skåne). Sweden never had a feudal system but instead a large and very independent estate of farmers; they were in fact so powerful that they were represented in parliament (riksdagen) which was very nearly unique in Europe.
If the farmer owned the farm he paid taxes for it to the state (and was therefore called a skattebonde - a taxed farmer). If the farmer leased the farm he didn't pay taxes for it but paid a rent, and from this rent the actual owner of the land paid the land taxes. The rent was paid in cash or often a mix of cash and produce (cheese, butter and linen were everywhere accepted in lieu of cash for taxes and tithes - in fact, paying tithes in cheese was so common that there is still a cheese called clergyman's cheese (prästost)).
Depending on the size of the farm, there were usually some farmhands living there too. Farmhands - male (dräng) and female (piga) - were by law hired for one year at a time; all contracts began and ended on the same dates all over Sweden (until the 1830's it was Michaelmas, then it was changed to Oct 24th). Wages were decided by law - both minimum and maximum, but it wasn't that unusual for farmhands to be able to make better deals. Female farmhands were never maids in Sweden - a maid here was someone who worked indoors at all times and they were found only in manorhouses and equivalent establishments.
 
2/ On a croft (torp). A crofter (torpare) built his croft on someone elses land, usually a farmer's but also on village common grounds. A crofter didn't pay taxes for the land to the state, instead he paid rent to the farmer (or the village) and they paid the taxes. But unlike the farmer-tenant (åbo, landbo) a crofter didn't pay in cash or produce - he and his family paid by working a set number of days for the farmer. Men did a day's work in one day, women and children 12-15 did a day's work in two days; also younger children were expected to help out.
A croft usually consisted of a small house with a couple of fields, a kitchen garden, a cow or perhaps two, a pig, some goats, perhaps even some sheep and of course hens. There was rarely a horse, unless the crofter also worked in the woods or was able to get occasional work as a carter.
This may not seem like very much, but in fact quite a few crofters managed to hire at least a female farmhand.
 
3/ In a cottage (backstuga). Just looking at the house there need not be that much difference between a croft and a cottage. But the cottage had no land, only a kitchen garden, a pig, perhaps some goats (called poor man's cows) and the mandatory hens.
If you were a backstugusittare you paid no land taxes; you paid rent by working for the owner of the land. But primarily you belonged to the work pool: a farmer didn't employ more farmhands than was necessary to run the farm at all times. At peak times like harvesting, he hired extra hands for those critical days - and the people he hired came from the cottages.
To make a living the cottagers did all sorts of extra tasks: they could hunt small animals (free in Sweden), eat the meat and sell the fur, or help out with carpenting and other such things. The women would weave; fabric from some areas in Sweden were well-known and sold well. But it was a precarious life; a good year they made it, a bad year would be very bad and their children would have to beg.
 
In some places in Sweden - not everywhere - there was a fourth way to live in the country:
4/ On a great estate, as a farm labourer (statare). If e.g. a male and a female farmhand wanted to marry, but they hadn't saved up enough to start a croft of their own, they could become farm labourers. This was a very hard life. None but married men were hired - because the family was included in the contract. The women had to take care of the cows at these great estates; milking the cows was called the white hell or the white whip. The children also had set chores they had to do from a very early age. Very little of the wages - some places none of it - was paid in cash; it was paid in produce, available at the estate store where it was very, very easy to get into debt. This shameful system wasn't abolished until after WW II!
 
Ingela

[Gunnar Håkansson]

There were some other ways of living, too.
5/ When a farmer grew old, he often sold his farm, usually to his eldest son (or his son-in-law), but kept a small house, some land and the right to get burning-wood and also caring for himself and his wife, when he grew very old and/or sick. This part of the contract still worked, if the man he sold the farm to did sell in his turn. The old farmer was then called an undantagsman.  
6/ Quite a lot of people did live at a farm as inhyses.  That means that they did not own a house by themselves but paid rent, for a house, a room or even a bed. Usually they earned their money by craft-work and by helping the farmer, when there was need for help.
7/ There were titles like gårdman and gårdkvinna,  too. I don't know exactly what this means, but they were old people, and had seen better days.
8/ When nearing the year 1900, husegare becomes more frequent. These did own their house, but almost no land except for the house and a small garden. These houses were better than a backstuga.
 
Also, the borders between all these types of living were a little floating. Originally, all taxes were paid in natural, i.e. products from the land, or working for the king. But the farmers always tried to change for money, as this became cheaper with the inflation. The rent to pay by an åbo or landbo was about the same size as the taxes for an equal skattebonde,  but at least a landbo often had to pay by working for the land-owner. Most of the crofters also had to work for the land-owner. The croft system was abolished gradually; some crofters did buy the land and became farmers, others instead became farm labourers.
And very often, young people moved away, to USA, Denmark, or Germany.

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

The words crofter and croft are used by many Swedes, as that is what we find in our dictionaries for the words torp and torpare, and that is because our dictionaries are based on British English.  
 
As far as I have found out the best translation for a torpare is sharecropper in U.S. English.

[Ingela Martenius]

Crofter/croft is nearly exclusive to Scotland; yet it's the best translation for torpare/torp since the conditions were very similar.
Sharecropper is not a good translation since it is the equivalent of hälftenbrukare (also other fractions) - rent is paid by giving a predetermined share of the crop to the landowner as rent - which was common in certain parts of Sweden.
 
Since both crofters and sharecroppers existed (simultaneously) in Sweden our English translations must reflect this fact.
 
Ingela

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

This article explains torp and torpare from the American point of view: http://www.genealogi.se/roots/nwotorp.htm
 
If we want our American cousins to understand facts about life in Sweden in the old days, we have to start by using references that they are familiar with.

[Ingela Martenius]

How are you going to refer to a hälftenbrukare if you have already used up sharecropper? If you've once taught someone one definition it's very, very difficult to correct it.
 
I have a much greater faith in our American cousins, namely that they are willing and eager to learn about their Swedish ancestors and their way of life. I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to handle the fact that a Swedish torpare was not a sharecropper - a very different system.
 
I also believe most Americans have at least a nodding acquaintance with the crofts and crofters of Scotland since the enclosure movement which to a large extent abolished the ancient system of croft/crofter is what drove hundreds of thousands of Scots to emigrate and settle in America. They made up a vital part of the 18th century immigration history of North America (US as well as Canada).
 
And I doubt anyone with a Scottish ancestry learns that his crofter ancestors were sharecroppers and if a Scots-American can handle crofts I don't see why Swedish-Americans can't.  
 
Ingela

[Elisabeth Thorsell]

I just speak from my experience, having worked with Swedish Americans for more than 30 years, and met in person a fair number of them. This ends my part in this discussion.