The Grave

When Per Hansa first arrives on the American prairies, he feels like a kid in an unstaffed candy store. Who would have thought that there would be so much uninhabited land just waiting for him to conquer and make his own!

Except, of course, there are people already living on this land. Per Hansa first realizes this when he stumbles across a mound in the earth and thinks, "There are people buried here…. That is a grave!" (1.2.3.20). But he's still undaunted in his dreams of land. As the narrator tells us,

This vast stretch of beautiful land was to be his—yes, his—and no ghost of a dead Indian would drive him away. (1.2.3.31)

The truth is that even though Hansa knows the Native Americans live on the land, he doesn't think of the land as theirs . Yup, racism among white settlers ran deep.

Over time, Per Hansa's family and friends grow nervous about the grave on his property. A grave means that Native Americans are used to travelling through their area… and the Norwegians have heard lots of stories about Native Americans killing people and cutting off their scalps. As we read early on,

The grave where they found the stones had now begun to strike a chill into their hearts; but it also exerted a strange and irresistible fascination. (1.3.1.8)

And this juxtaposition, between "a chill in their hearts" and a "strange and irresistible fascination" pretty much sums up the pioneer mentality. The American continent was vast and terrifying and full of unknowns, but that meant that exploring it was super-exciting . And, of course, the entire project of Westward Expansion was undertaken with about as much respect for Native American peoples, their land right, and their religious sites as Per Hansa shows to the grave: approximately zero.