Amager Island, Denmark-- Where our Story Begins...

This is a shelf in the shape of an A that is from Amager Island.  

During the early part of the 1600's, King of Denmark, Christian IV persuaded a colony of Dutch farmers to settle on the island of Amager.  Amager is situated of a small island just across from Copenhagen, Denmark.  Jacob Bastian, son of Bastian Sorensen, was born on the island of Amager in the village of Sundbyvester.

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Below is an interesting article on the History of Amager

The Danish and Dutch Settlements on Amager Island: Four Hundred ‘Years of SocioCultural Interaction1

ROBERT T. ANDERSON Centre National La Recherche Scientijique

INTRODUCTION

IN 1520 a colony of Dutch farmers settled on the Danish island of Amager. The history of these colonists and their neighbors chronicles more than four hundred years of sociocultural interaction, offering evidence on the social and cultural processes of change in a contact situation. The first part of this paper presents a description of the historical facts. This description begins with a study of the sociocultural situation as it was in the 16th century, including an account of the colonization, of the immigrant Dutch Amagerians, of the indig- enous Danish Amagerians, and of the early sociocultural distinction of Dutchman and Dane. The subsequent history of the islanders is then re- counted, subdivided into three successive phases: first, a period of ethnic ac- culturation lasting two centuries (the 16th and 17th); second, a period of folk amalgamation, also lasting two centuries (the 18th and 19th); and third, a period of urban assimilation lasting half a century (the 20th). In the second part of this paper, the data are subjected to a sociocultural analysis.

THE COLONIZATION

Denmark is a nation of some five hundred islands plus the peninsula of Jutland. One of the many islands is Amager. Small (65 sq. km.) and flat, it is separated by a narrow strait from Copenhagen, located on Sealand, the largest of the Danish islands.

Tht story of the Dutch colony on Amager begins with a love affair. While still crown prince, Christian I1 fell in love with Dyveke, an exile from North Holland whom he met while sojourning in the Norwegian provinces. In 1513, after ascending the throne, Christian brought Dyveke and her mother, known as “Mother Sigbrit,” to Copenhagen, giving them a house in the capital as well as a summer residence on Amager. Through his love for the daughter, Christian came under the influence of Mother Sigbrit, a forceful woman who had a hand in many events in his reign, including, it seems quite certain, the negotiations that brought immigrants to Amager from North Holland.

The Dutch were invited to settle in Denmark because their skill and ad- vanced techniques in agriculture and dairying would enable them to supply the court and the capital with high quality vegetables, butter, and cheese. Mother Sigbrit was apparently quick to see that the island of Amager, flat, fertile, and convenient to Copenhagen, was well suited to Dutch techniques, and because it was the private property of the king it could be made available. In 1515 Christian issued his earliest invitation to the Netherlands. In 1516 a few Dutchmen came to Denmark, presumably to inspect personally the land

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being offered them. Late in 1520 the colony came, 184 people comprising 24 families.

In a letter of privileges granted in 1521, King Christian I1 gave the immi- grants all of the island of Amager, excepting the royal fishing camp at Dragor but including the neighboring island of Saltholm; the utility of the latter was limited by its seasonal inundation. Although much of Amager lay unused, the 736 Danish inhabitants were told to turn over their farms to the newcomers. However, the situation remained fluid for a number of years. Before all of the Danes were evacuated, Christian I1 was forced to flee the country and was re- placed on the throne in 1523by his uncle, Frederik I, who lacked special inter- est in the Dutch. In 1541,twenty years after the Dutch first came, the situation was crystallized by the issuance of a royal letter of protection which affirmed the Danish farmers’ rights to their farms on northern Amager as well as their equal rights with the Dutch to use the meadows, chalk deposits, and fishing grounds of Saltholm. Many of the farms were returned to the original owners, and although in 1547 Frederik’s successor, Christian 111, reaffirmed the privileges of the Dutch essentially as they were originally given in 1521, the practical effect was that the immigrants were confined to the southern part of the island, leaving the northern part to the original inhabitants.

The center of the colony was ancient S$ndre Magleby, a village of about twenty farms. Renamed Store Magleby (Dutch, Grote Maglebeu), it was much changed in order to satisfy the newcomers’ needs for land distribution and was completely rebuilt after suffering destruction in the Count’s Feud (1533-36).

THE IMMIGRANT DUTCH AMAGERIANS

The land was the private property of the colonists. As stated in the original letter of privileges and reaffirmed by Christian 111, the Dutch were free to divide the land among themselves, to sell it, and to give it in inheritance, all according to Dutch customs. The only restriction on ownership, other than the requirement to pay taxes, was that if a family died out completely the land was to revert to the crown, but with the proviso that it was then to be auctioned off by the village head to the highest bidder, who was always a Dutchman. In accordance with these privileges, the 24 families divided the land into 24 farms of from 35 to 40 acres each. The rest of the land was used in common; each farmer had the use of grazing areas in proportion to the amount of his land kept under the plow, the total amount of land available to each of the original farmsbeing approximately 135acres. With the passage of time and the division of farms by inheritance and sale, the land became parcelled into many small plots, a single farmer having as many as 30 or 40 separate strips. The farms also became unequal in size and value.

The royal privileges included the right to local independent government according to Dutch customs. The communal government thus ordained was under the leadership of a schout or schultus, who was elected for life by the

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adult farm owners (gaardmaendene) and was under oath only to the representa- tive (Zensmand,later arntsmand) of the king. The schout was chairman of the village council, consisting of himself and seven men called scheppens. Schep- pens were elected for one-year terms every New Year’s Day when a village meeting was held. In this meeting it was also customary to read aloud ac- counts of public affairs and to vote upon village ordinances (vedtaegler), suf- frage being the prerogative of the male farm owners.

The village had its own law court, also patterned upon Dutch practices. The nine members were the schout, the seven scheppens, and a secretary (shiver). The secretary, also elected by the villagers, was generally the man who became schout when the incumbent died. The court judged in all legal cases except those where the punishment would be “neck or hand,” in which case the king judged. Later, the king’s vassal (Zensmand) came to function as an appellate judge, and in 1576 he appointed two royal chancellors to under- take a revision of the Dutch laws in view of some dissatisfaction that existed with their fairness. Later, still under Christian IV (1588-1648), the Dutch were told to replace their laws with the laws of the Sealand Lawbook and to have the Sealand parliament (Zandslhing)as a superior court. In 1615, on ap- peal from the Dutch, they were allowed to use the Jutland Lawbook with the royal representative (amismand)in the castle of Copenhagen as a court of ap- peal, and with ultimate appeal to the king and the royal council. Later yet, “Christia~V’s Danish Law” was made the law of the nation, but the Dutch were permitted to retain deviating rules in a number of areas, as well as their

old form for holding court. Court met four times a year-at            New Year’s Day, Easter, Saint John’s Day, and Michael’s Day. As symbol of his judgeship, the schout carried a long white staff and, on opening the court in the name of God, the king, and the congregation, drew three crosses on the table with chalk, to be erased when court was adjourned.

The church in Store Magleby, which had formerly belonged to the cathe- dral in Copenhagen, was part of the property given the Dutch when they settled on Amager. The first priest was probably one of the original Dutch settlers. Subsequent replacements were speakers of Low German, mostly brought in from the Duchy of Holstein. The parish was independent of the Sealand bishop and exempt from the so-called church tithe and priest tithe, paying only the third of the three divine payments, the king’s tithe. In 1560 the king allocated his tithe to the Sealand see, very likely to reimburse the bishop for the loss of income sustained by the king’s generosity to the colonists. In 1672 the congregation was also exempted from paying the king’s tithe, in return for taking upon themselves all expenses for church, parsonage, priest’s farm, and school.

The school may date from the earliest settlement. I t was administered by the priest, who was probably also the school teacher. The first mention of a school master is not until around 1640, when it was noted that in addition to a regularannualsalaryhewasentitled tomoneyofferingsmadebythewomenat

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infant baptismal ceremonies. A knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic was important in this community where most adult men had an active role in communal administration.

The town treasury consisted of a large locked chest in the charge of the schout and, possibly, the secretary. This chest functioned as the village bank. It not only held the village funds but also the fortunes of the inhabitants, in- cluding money inherited by minors.

Funds came into the public treasury from payments made for the use of communal properties and facilities. Such payments were made by those who grazed cattle on Saltholm or dug its chalk, by the man who leased and ran the Dutch windmill, by any family that had a new grave dug in the cemetery, by the men who fished for eels, and by others. Royal taxes and assessments were levied on the community as a whole, the responsibility for payment falling upon the schout. Since the village chest always contained sufficient funds, it was never necessary to charge local taxes. On the contrary, income from eel fishing alone appears to have been enough to pay the yearly land tax (land- gilde) and sometimes there was so much money left over that it was divided among the members of the community. The village was often able to make loans to the inhabitants of the Danish villages of northern Amager against mortgages in land, interest and sometimes land augmenting the wealth of the Dutch community.

The expenses of the community were first of all a money 1and.tax (Zand- giZde) and guest duty (gaesteriafgift), set at 300 marks by Christian I11 and later changed to 100 kurantdaler. In 1547 it was further demanded that the castle secretary (slotsskriveren) in Copenhagen be provided with root crops and onions to meet the needs of the castle and the court; this obligation was prob- ably regarded as a substitute for villeinage labor (koveri),from which the Dutch had been exempted in the privilege letter of 1521. The Dutch were also originally exempt from transportation duty (aegt),but under Christian 111 were required to perform it on the king’s behalf for the royal vassal (Zensmand) in Copenhagen. Set at 24 “pantry-trips” (fadebursrejser) a year, it only amounted to one trip for each farm. In 1541the right to free and exclusive use of Saltholm was rescinded and the Dutch had to share use and expenses with the Danish Amagerians, the yearly cost being 40 Jochumsdaler (160 marks), plus 200 loads of chalk; the Dutch paid two-fifths and the Danes three-fifths. In the 1660’s these charges were replaced by an assessment according to the amount of land held under cultivation (hartkorn), and gradually they dis- appeared completely. An extra tax, which soon became a regular annual ex- pense, was 40 rigsdaler a year, to which were added taxes on grain and pork as well as money subscriptions at the time of the Swedish wars at the end of the

17th century. Those earning interest on loans paid the throne 24 percent a year on this income. Finally, there were other smaller communal expenses such as bridge assessments, customs and excise, and payment for eel fishing rights. The village did not pay the priest tithe or church tithe and was exempted from the king’s tithe as well after 1672. For home defense in later years the Dutch were

ANDERSON]                  Danish Village Acculturalion                  687 not required to quarter soldiers but did have to provide boatmen for the fleet,

30 or 40 being demanded on some occasions. THE INDIGENOUS DANISH AMAGERIANS

I n the early period of the Dutch colony there were approximately 90 farms in the Danish parish, each leased directly from the king. Generally the right of usufruct lasted for the life of the farmer and his wife, although some farms were given to father and son or to mother and son for as long as one of them lived and continued to pay the land tax. On the death of the lessee a new letter of life tenure (livsbrev) had to be obtained; it was most commonly given to a son or son-in-law in return for the promise to pay a renewal charge (indjaest- ningssum) in addition to the annual rent.

The farmers in the Danish villages were subordinate to the king’s vassal in Copenhagen’s castle. The king’s vassal had almost unlimited authority in virtually every aspect of daily life, including farm management, fees and taxes, and villeinage. However, the farmers rarely saw the lensmand, for he was repre- sented in turn by the circuit sheriff (ridejogden),who directly supervised and controlled the area, appeared in court in law cases such as tax or lease disputes, and on the whole represented the king’s vassal and the king. In each village, subservient to the circuit sheriff, was a local sheriff (joged) or alderman            (older- mand), generally one of the biggest farmers in the area. It appears that the alderman was elected for life by the villagers, subject to the sanction of the king’s vassal. I t was his job to see to it that the town ordinances were kept, that the farmers worked without complaint or disturbance, and that problems which occurred were, if possible, resolved without resorting to lengthy and ex- pensive court proceedings. The alderman also assigned farmers their turns in transportation duty, road corvges, and work on other public projects, on the whole carrying out the will of the crown and the royal vassal. I n return he was freed from certain extra taxes, transportation duty, and public work.

When the Dutch came, the old Amager judicial district (birk) was divided; the Dutch became independent and the Danes came under a new jurisdiction, the Taarnby district court (birkething),functioning under the royal vassal and headed by a court sheriff (thingfoged).The latter, at first one of the district’s most important farmers, was later called district sheriff (birkefoged),and in- stead of a farmer became a city man trained in law and governmental adminis- tration. The position required ability to read and write, which was uncommon at that time, as well as familiarity with the old laws, legal rules and orders of the king and the council of the kingdom (rigetsraad).He was assisted by the court secretary (thingskriveren),also trained in law. Both district sheriff and court secretary had to sign all judgments, decisions, and ordinances. The court met on Fridays in the Amager village of Taarnby and consisted of twelve jurors (thingmaercdor stokkemaend) in addition to the district sheriff, sitting as judge (birkedommer),and the secretary. To be a juror was a royal duty divided among the older villagers; there were generally two from each village. The court had jurisdiction even in cases concerning “honor and life,” but the au-

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thority of the judge became more and more absolute until the jurors had no in- fluence in decisions. The farmers responded by neglecting their duty so that nonland-holding farm laborers (husmaend) came to be taken as permanent jurors in return for having their houses freed of taxes and royal burdens. Around 1700 the number of jurors was reduced to nine. The original court sheriffs were paid partly from the fines collected and partly in exemption from the land tax and most of the other burdens common to tenant farmers. In 1578it was ordered that each farm in the district was to give a certain amount of “judge-grain” to the sheriff, but this was soon replaced with a money assess- ment amounting to two marks from each farm; although many were in arrears in their payments, the total sum due the judge in the 17th century was around 100 sletdaler, a rather good wage for that time. The court secretary was paid out of the money collected in fines. Judgments could be appealed to Sealand’s parliament (landsthing) as a superior court when it was a matter of life, honor, or property. Such cases were common, since the court was strict and the of- fensesincluded fornication and adultery,fighting, “neglecting the court,” hold- ing a big wedding, and illegal sale of liquor. Many of the cases concerned ex- tramarital sexual affairs, which were severely punished. According to a law of

1558, adultery was punished the first time with loss of nonreal property and money to the last farthing, the second time with loss of all property including real estate, and the third time with decapitation for the man and drowning for the woman. A man guilty of defloration of a virgin (jomfrukrenkeri)had to pay nine marks to the woman’s guardian plus eight skilling grot to the court. On Amager as a whole, one or two cases of sexual misconduct (lejermaalssager) were generally tried each year. Most of the offenders were Dutchmen, who had been made subject to similar proscriptions on sexual conduct during the reign of Christian IV (1588-1648).

Taarnby church, like that of Store Magleby, had been an annex of the cathedral in Copenhagen. In 1474, before the Dutch colonization, the two Amagerian churches and the cathedral were taken from the pope and put under the jurisdiction of the university; the income from the churches was to provide wages for university teachers, who in turn were to hold church services or have them performed by a vicar. Apparently the crown had a superior right, since the churches were given in fief to the secretary of the castle (slotsskriver) in Copenhagen. Oftentimes the king obtained money by selling rights to church income and priest tithe, and the buyer then had the responsibility of providing a curate for the church. Following this custom, Taarnby church came under the jurisdiction of the university again in 1542, remaining there during the following centuries. The university had the right to appoint the priest for Taarnby parish, which had economic importance for the university faculty in providing a place of retirement for old professors. The congregation seldom had a word in the choice of their pastor, in spite of the church ordinance of 1539 which made free choice a legal right. Indeed, they usually did not even have a chance to hear him preach before he was called to his post.

Without a school before the 1700’s, only a few of the farmers obtained any

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education for their children other than the teaching of the catechism by the priest after Sunday church services.

The Danish Amagerians were not land-bound serfs. On the contrary, in order to retain their farms they were subject to various taxes and assessments. Thelandtaxwasoriginallyeightbarrelsofbarleyforeachfarm, butwaslater increased by two barrels of oats. Guesting expenses were levied on the villages as wholes, and amounted to approximately one-fourth of a cow, one sheep or pig, or two lambs, one goose, four hens, and one daler in money from each farm every year. I t is not known when these payments were changed to money, but the old rules were still in force around 1700. The tithe, not literally a tenth of the farmer’s crops, was divided into three parts-king’s            tithe, church tithe, and priest tithe-and            the amount of each was determined independently, varying yearly according to the harvest. The king often leased rights to his tithe, and thus in 1560 he gave the Taarnby king’s tithe to the bishop of Sea- land, probably as a replacement of the loss sustained by the bishopric when the church was given to the university. At first the amount of villeinage which could be required was unlimited, and the Danish men were sometimes required to work daily during sowing, harvesting, and plowing seasons to the detriment of their own farm livelihood. I n response to a complaint in 1529, the king set a maximum to the amount of work that could be demanded; the farmer had the right to be released from more than the maximum amount in return for paying one-half l$demark. In 1624 complete freedom from villeinage could be pur- chased for 300 speciedaler a year for the parish (four rigsdaler per farm), which was more than the Dutch paid in land tax for their whole parish. Exemption from villeinage did not include freedom from transportation duty, which, how- ever, did not become oppressive until after the inauguration of the absolute monarchy in 1660. In 1627, for example, each of 80 Danish farmers was re- quired to bring two loads of firewood to the court in Copenhagen. In addition to these permanent annual taxes, assessments were made which themselves often became permanent. During the long war with Sweden in the 1560’s the government added special assessments in money and provisions and required the inhabitants to quarter soldiers. The extra tax or land help (landehjuelp) of one daler from each farmer soon became a regular yearly expense, and under Christian IV it was doubled and tripled, with the addition of a grain tax, a pork tax and, in 1646,a copper and tin tax. During armament for the Swedish war of 1658-60 there were a number of new taxes such as a cattle tax of one mark a head and a monthly contribution in money, a defense tax of twenty

speciedaler from each farm, an increase in land help, pork tax, and grain tax. Finally, under Christian V, these taxes were unified by assesgng a single tax according to the amount of land under cultivation (hartkornskontribution).

R.l%UME OF THE EARLY DIFFERENCES

With the settlement of the Dutch in the southern part of Amager, the island became the habitat of two distinct societies, each with its own culture. In their own eyes and in the eyes of their contemporaries, the sociocultural differ-

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ences were of considerable magnitude and importance. The Dutch farms were privately owned and could be sold or inherited, subject only to the payment of taxes and assessments. The Danish farmers were the king’s tenants, with only life-time leases. The Dutch community was governed by locally elected repre- sentatives according to Dutch procedural form and law (later, Danish law codes with allowances for Dutch practices). The Danes were governed by out- siders according to Danish law codes, their locally elected representatives acting only to enforce decisions made outside of the community. The Dutch lived under pronounced, voluntary communalism, while the Danes functioned as individuals except when forced by the government to act as a body. The Dutch owned their own church, chose their own Low German-speaking priest, and followed Dutch Protestant ritual. The Danes worshipped in a church be- longing to the University of Copenhagen under a priest chosen independently of their wishes, according to Danish Protestant ritual. The Dutch supported their own church and minister. The price paid for religion by the Danes went to powers outside of the community. The Dutch had public schools. The Danes waited approximately two centuries before their children could get an ele- mentary education. The Dutch, like the Danes, were subject to land tax, guesting duty, transportation duty, and special assessments, but the land tax was levied on the village as a whole and continued to be based upon a com- munity of twenty-four farms. In addition, they were free of villeinage, which greatly oppressed the Danes. Dutch economy differed from Danish in its emphasis upon dairying, horse breeding, eel fishing, and vegetable cultivation as opposed to grain farming. All of these differences were epitomized in the view of contemporaries by the possession of mutually unintelligible languages, different types of clothing, differences in houses and furnishings, and different customs in the celebration of holidays and personal events such as engagements and weddings.

Social intercourse was limited almost entirely to meetings resulting from spatial propinquity, the major exception being those instances in which Danish farmers mortgaged their farms to the Dutch. Socializing was kept to a mini- mum, and each sought out their own. The Dutch did not permit intermarriage; no Dane could be brought into Store Magleby and any Dutchman who married out was no longer considered a member of the community and was not allowed to participate in village affairs nor enjoy their special rights and privileges.

ETHNIC ACCULTURATION: THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES

For the first two centuries the Dutch increased in wealth and numbers. The original 24 famfies which established the colony in 1520 had become approxi- mately 75 families in 1600,80 in 1615, and 130 in 1650. I n 1651 twenty families moved to the island of Sealand on the other side of Copenhagen to found the colony of New Amager. The plague of 1654 and the contemporaneous Swedish war reduced the population temporarily. Thirty farms and houses were aban- doned, most of the farms supporting two or more families. By 1688, however,

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the population had increased again to 99 families in Store Magleby and 30 in New Amager.

The Danes, depressed to begin with, sank lower and lower into poverty under tax burdens, assessments, and villeinage. Soon after arriving the Dutch took over the two farms in Dragor, “the king’s fishing camp” south of Store Magleby. In 1547, and again in 1574, royal permission was obtained to lease farms in the Danish villages, and the subsequent infiltration of the Dutch into the Danish parish increased at an accelerated pace. By the time of the wars which preceded the absolute monarchy in 1660, one-fourth of the Danish land was in Dutch hands. During the early decades of the absolute monarchy the economic position of the Danes deteriorated rapidly; by 1680 the Amager Dutch averaged 3.5 horses or cattle to every 1.363 hectares of land, while the Amager Danes averaged only 1.5. During this recession many Danes were forced off their farms into the land laborer or worker class, and the farms were invariably taken over by the Dutch. In the prewar period many cases oc- curred in which the Dutch loaned money to the Danes, and the creditors re- ceived ownership or usufruct of the land. After the war, in order to get the na- tional economy on its feet as rapidly as possible, the king overlooked the fact that such farms were taken over without lease or payment to the crown, thus bringing life leases to a de facto end at the same time that a fifty-year period was inaugurated during which the land tax was not demanded. By the time the land tax was required again in 1708, much of the Danish farm land was in the hands of the Dutch.

The Dutch farmers came into positions of influence and power in the Da- nish towns. In 1672 the sheriffs of T$mmerup and Ullerup were Dutchmen, and by 1691 Dutch officials were also to be found in Maglebylille and Sundy- vester. By 1718 almost one-third of the farmers in the Danish towns were Dutchmen who had taken over Danish farms either completely or in part as creditors, or had leased the farms from the crown. All of the large farms, in par- ticular, were in Dutch hands.

Some of the Dutch worked the Danish lands as part of their own farms, while others moved to the new farms. All, however, continued to regard them- selves as belonging to the mother village and for the most part managed to avail themselves of its privileges, especially with respect to permanent owner- ship of property and freedom from villeinage. In cases where Dutch were elected officials of Danish villages, it was because of their influence with the authorities deriving from their wealth and reputation for dependability and punctuality, and not because they had amalgamated with the Danes. I n social life they kept as much as possible to the Dutch community, speaking Dutch and avoiding the Danes in daily life, regarding the latter as economically, socially, and intellectually inferior. Endogamy was a strict rule, and in the 17th century the king’s permission was frequently sought to marry within the third degree of kinship; permission was always given in return for a judgment

in favor of the poor, generally a hospital, although sometimes the king appro-

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priated one-half of the sum for himself. Nor would the Dutch permit their children to work for Danes, not even, it was held, if it were for the most im- portant man in the kingdom. I n addition to guarding their social and cultural integrity, the Dutch retained their special reIationship to the royal house, the basis for their prosperity, by always being prompt in payments due the crown and by continuing to supply the capital and the court with their desirable products. Unique in their way of life and protected by the royal house, they stoutly insisted that they were not peasants (bbnder) but “the king’s Ama- gerians.”

In contrast to their conservative neighbors, the Danes changed and came more and more to follow the Dutch way of life. In particular, they adopted the Dutch econofny, learning to cultivate vegetables and to emphasize dairying, horse breeding, and eel fishing. Eveiy Wednesday and Saturday all Amager- ians carted their produce to the market at Amager Square in Copenhagen. Before the coming of the Dutch mostly fish was sold, but the Dutch created a reputation for fine vegetables, cheese, and butter-milk, and became especially known for their sweet cup-butter (“sdde koppesm#r”) which was sold to “gen- tlemen and bishops.” The market constituted the most important source of money income for Amagerians, and the Danes began to capitalize on the suc- cess of the Dutch by offering similar products for sale. In order to do this, it was found advantageous to present themselves as Dutchmen, and by the 17th century it was customary for them to wear a variant of the Dutch national dress. Although not able to obtain the special prerogatives of communal government, land tenure, and villeinage exemption held by the Dutch, they did adopt at least one legal custom; in 1686royal permission was received to use the Dutch rules of inheritance which divided property equally between sons and daughters, rather than the Danish rules which gave twice as much to

a son as to a daughter. By the last half of the 17th century the Danes were clearly borrowing traditions out of a pure desire to be Dutch undiluted by ob- vious economic motivation; for example, they adopted the Shrovetide (faste- Zavn) celebration of the immigrants, even though they were not able to match the rich display of the latter. Finally, there was an important but poorly docu- mented diffusion of the Dutch propensity for steadfast hard work, initiative, and reliability.

Relations between Dane and Dutchman were not free of conflict. As al- ready noted, the indigenous farmers objected to expulsion from the island by Christian I1 in 1520 and succeeded in retaining or regaining much of their original territory, primarily under the protection of King Frederik I. I n sub- sequent decades the outstanding trouble spot was Dragor, the royal Danish fishing village on the southern, Dutch part of the island. In 1520 the village, with two farms and a small fishing population, was no longer the important center it had been in the late middle ages when the Hansa league flourished in the Baltic. But during the 16th and 17th centuries its population grew stead- ily. On the one hand, Dutchmen came. The two farms of the village were leased by the king to Dutch farmers. In addition, the Store Magleby village

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government financed expansion and improvement of the harbor, thereby gain- ing rights to participation in shipping, fishing, and ship-salvage; this resulted in the influx of many young Dutchmen, especially from families with more sons than the paternal farm could support. On the other hand, Danes immigrated from Sealand and the larger Sound area, coming to fish, salvage, and partici- pate in the small-scale shipping of produce, firewood, and building materials.

The Dutch acquired political control of Dragor. Around 1600, when Hansa trade no longer necessitated a customs agent in the village, the job was given by the king to the schout of inland Store Magleby, who thus came to function as the supreme local authority Cfoged) in both villages. When Dragor later be- came larger, the schout got royal permission to appoint a deputy sheriff (underfoged) as resident chief of the harbor village, and a fellow Dutchman was always chosen.

While the Dutch Dragorians profited from this arrangement, the Danish did not. The latter were forced to share the obligations of the residents of Store Magleby, such as contributing to the payment of the Dutch land tax, without receiving the corresponding privileges; for example, they had no part in the commons, not even enough to tether a goose. In the long-continued dis- pute, sole recourse was to the king. Standing before the throne in 1674, the Dutch pleaded that the two communities, always united in the past, should continue to form parts of a single church parish and politico-legal district. In spite of its basis in an incorrect statement of local history, the plea was upheld. Although there is no record of violence, Dragorian Danes continued to com- plain during succeeding decades, but as long as the Dutch enjoyed the special benevolence of the king, complaints were in vain and grumbling was the only solace.

FOLK AMALGAMATION: THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES

Between 1700and 1720Denmark was at war with Sweden, and as in pre- vious Dano-Swedish wars, Amager suffered greatly; it was overrun and de- stroyed by armies, and drained of all resources to supply the besieged capital. The disaster of the prolonged war increased when the Black Plague struck in 1711, leaving half of the island’s inhabitants dead and as many as two-thirds in two of the Danish villages. This time the Dutch did not have the resiliency they had displayed in responding to past disasters, no doubt because of the royal act of 1717 which ended their special privilege of a permanent land tax assessed on Store Magleby on the basis of the original twenty-four farms. A number of the farms in both the Danish and the Dutch parish were left un- inhabited in 1711, and even after 1750 there was still frequent mention of abandoned farms (fdegaarde).

The Dutch no longer enjoyed superior economic position; they had lost special privileges. And developments following the introduction of the absolute monarchy had resulted in a de facto end to life-time limits on farm ownership in the Danish parish; Danish property ownership now also included the right to sell and inherit with freedom from taxation on property transfer. In

694            American Anthropologist                  [60, 1958

addition, the Danes had adopted the profitable farm economy of their neigh- bors.

The Dutch who suffered these changes in the second decade of the 18th century were reluctant to give up their sociocultural integrity, but they were now fighting a losing battle against many of their own younger generation as well as against the Danes, who had ceased to be socioeconomic inferiors. I n 1731a Danish priest was called to work at Store Magleby church beside the Dutch priest, so that church services could now be offered in both languages, and in 1735the first Danish language wedding ceremony was held. The biggest break in the ethnic barrier came in 1758 when the schout of Store Magleby married the daughter of a well-known and respected Dane, the sheriff (foged)of the Danish town of Sundbyvester.The first sanctioned marriage of a Dutchman to a Dane, it was followed the next year by the marriage of the secretary of Store Magleby to another Danish girl from Sundbyvester. Before long, Dutch and Dutch-mixed elements dominated the whole island. I n the 1770’s half of farms in the Danish parish were in Dutch hands and only five farmers were not in an “in-law” relationship with the Dutch.

In 18th century Dutch homes, people still spoke their own language, which by then was a mixture of Dutch, Low German, and Danish. For some time the men had been able to speak Danish; from the first they had known enough to deal in the Copenhagen market place and from an early period they had been forced to use Danish in law cases which came before the king or his vassal, as well as in other communications with the court. Yet, in law cases of a purely local nature, Dutch was used. The communal laws of 1711 were written in Dutch, and school and church functions were conducted in Dutch. In 1788the Dutch priest issued a school-book in Low German, and the Dutch song book, authorized in 1715, was still in use around 1800. By then, however, many people in the community spoke only Danish. When new communal laws were drawn up in 1811 they were written in Danish, and in the same year Dutch ceased to be used in church services. I n 1818 the special jurisdiction of the Store Magleby court was revoked and the Dutch came under the Danish court system.

Some adults of the mid-19th century attempted to perpetuate the Dutch language. A traveler in 1846described a family in which the old farmer wrote a Dutch glossary for his son’s Danish wife. But it was a hopeless fight against the younger generation, which could see no advantage to speaking Dutch rather than Danish.

With intermarriage, loss of language, and loss of unique forms of communal organization, the Dutch merged with their Danish neighbors. The result was neither a Dutch nor a Danish culture, but an Amager culture-strongly Danish, but differing from the rest of Denmark in a number of ways. Above all, Amagerians had their own form of economy, adapted to the contemporary market by increasing specialization in vegetables and the development of flower cultivation (especially tulips and carnations) at the expense of fishing

and dairying. They had their own dress which, though changed considerably

ANDERSON]                  Danish Village Acculturation            695

from its prototype in Holland, still distinguished the King’s Amagerians from other Danes. The Scandian dialect of Danish spoken on the island had ac- quired words and sounds from Dutch, including a certain singing tone in the vocals. Details of housing and furnishing, such as the so-called Amager shelf, were distinctive features, as were holiday activities such as rolling and throw- ing eggs a t Easter time, eating “bag porridge” a t Christmas, and ceremonially riding the rounds of the farms on horseback at Shrovetide. Amagerians were known for their fine products, for their propensity for industriousness, and for reliability. Amager culture of the 19th century, an amalgam of Dutch and Danish proudly shared by all regardless of ethnic background, was unique enough to set the islanders off in contemporary eyes as the “Amager Dutch,” purveyors of the best cabbages and vegetables in the realm.

URBAN ASSIMILATION: THE 20TH CENTURY

The means of communication with Copenhagen changed radically in the 1900’s.For centuries roads were maintained by the farmers themselves; the in- habitants of each town formed corvCes, and their work was supervised by local aldermen and subject to inspection by the king’s vassal and his circuit sheriff. Under this arrangement roads were narrow, the surfaces deeply rutted in summer and winter and muddy bogs in spring and fall. The situation was not improved in 1790, when toll was charged. Half of the money collected went to Amager residents and the other half to the state for road maintenance, but half of the toll was not sufficient for repairs. This resulted in vociferous com- plaints in the 1830’s and a change in organization in 1840, when road care be- came the responsibility of a state agency. During the rest of the 19th century the roads were improved, and in the 20th century the main roads were given

an asphalt surface. When the Dutch first came to the island it was connected with the capital

only by a ferry. In the first half of the 17th century a small foot-bridge was built which Amagerians used in the transportation of goods in hand-carts, and around 1660this bridge was expanded and strengthened to accommodate horse- drawn wagons. I n 1686 a second bridge was built, although most Amagerians continued for a long time to use the older one. These bridges, since rebuilt sev- eral times, are still the only dry connections with Sealand and the outside world.

Around 1600 Christian IV erected a gate on the island through which all travelers to the capital had to pass, and from that period until about 1850 it was the means by which all traffic was controlled; it levied a toll on market goodsand denied passage during the night hours. Over poor roads and through this gate, centuries of Amagerians drove wagons to market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but otherwise seldom ventured from their island. Even on these twice-weekly trips, however, they rarely had cause to go beyond the market place (Amagertorv), and intercourse with Copenhageners was limited to com- mercial dealings. Urban influence on Amagerian culture was minimal.

Both the city and the means of communication changed. The population of

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Copenhagen, which was ca. 10,000 in 1500, grew to be 102,000in 1801,477,000 in 1901, and about one million in 1951. I n the 1890’s bicycles came into use as a means of communication which all could afford. In 1907 a railroad was built along the isIand to offer regular, although somewhat expensive, transportation to the capital. The growing city began to expand across the bridges and onto the northern part of the island, where some farms gave way to suburban resi- dences, and small summer villas were built along the beaches. However, most Amagerians were little affected. Their daily life continued much as before, and the most notable change was the disappearance of the Amager costume. I n the 1880’sthe last man died who wore this distinctive garb; women ceased to wear it after the turn of the century except on holidays and to family celebrations, and since 1940it has become rare even on these occasions. In part this was the result of pride attaching to the wearing of city clothes, but it was also argued by those adopting the new styles that the old were prohibitively expensive and very uncomforable.

Quite different was the change that took place after World War 11.By that time the need for housing was acute in the capital, since the population had sky-rocketed during the war years when it had been impossible to build resi- dences. Because of modern developments in communication, it proved practi- cal to meet this need by the construction of suburban communities on Amager. The hour-long bicycle trip from Dragor or Store Magleby to Copenhagen was not considered too long for daily commuting. I n addition, the bus and street- car, replacing the train, provided regular and dependable transportation at rates reasonable enough for the average commuting laborer or white-collar worker. The postwar years also witnessed a large increase in the number of motor-bikes, motor-scooters, and motorcycles, especially after 1950. Auto- mobiles, however, remain a luxury enjoyed by few and are of significance for daily commuting primarily for the professional classes.

Amagerians were suddenly and dramatically urbanized. Much farm land was converted into residential developments or into the new international air- port. The whole of the northern and central part of the island and many areas in the south became thickly populated. Of the remaining farms, many changed from truck gardening to modern hot-house cultivation, but still found it diffi- cult to make a living because of the high taxes assessed since agricultural land became so valuable for suburban development. Influenced by their new neigh- bors, the Amager Dutch now look to Copenhagen for entertainment and large- scale shopping. Their young people and displaced adults commute to easy jobs in the city and are not forced to stay with the hard and now ill-paid work of farming.

The meeting of urbanites and islanders occurred without overt hostility or violence. Property disagreements were settled in the law courts, and occasional disgruntled Amagerians bemoaned the loss of a cherished way of life. On the whole, however, there is little evidence of significant individual maladjustment or interpersonal difficulties related to urbanization, no doubt due to the nature of the Copenhagen patterns of behavior. The rapid growth of the city has been

ANDERSON]                  Danish Village Acculturation            697

largely the result of immigration from the Danish countryside, with few non- Danish participants. Although the city is large (one million), the country as a whole is small (ca. four million) and has a relatively homogeneous rural cul- ture. Growing primarily by immigration from the agricultural hinterland, the culture of the city represents a continuing compromise between urban ways and Danish rural culture which could be accepted by the Amagerians with a minimum of friction.

People still farming differ but slightly from other Danish farmers. Some still emphasize vegetable crops and flowers, but otherwise little of Amager cul- ture remains. The young people have given up the local accent for the Copen- hagen dialect. Unique Amager foods are rarely served. Indeed, the Shrovetide ritual is the only practice which still clearly marks the people as Amagerians. On the two Mondays of Shrovetide, when they wear high silk hats and cordu- roy vests and ride their decorated horses, they are following an old tradition which delights them and the many urban spectators as well. However, interest is waning, and the horses have largely been replaced by tractors. I n 1956 the villagers rode on only one of the two Mondays, and since the airport will ex- pand into more farms in 1958, the 1957 celebration may have been the last. The Amagerian is virtually extinct, and the island belongs to Copenhageners.

CONCLUSIONS

Three phases of culture change are discernible in the history of Amager is- land. In the first phase, lasting about two centuries (the 16th and 17th), the cultural integrity of th’e Dutch as a separate and distinct ethnic group per- sisted unimpaired. In fact, the Danish Amagerians adopted many Dutch traits. This phase of change is termed acculturation since the trend was for these adjacent cultures to become more similar.

I n the second phase of culture change, which also lasted two centuries (the 18th and 19th), acculturation ultimately resulted in a single culture which was neither Dutch nor Danish, but Amagerian-a            blend of the two ways of life. The change represents a special case of acculturation in that the cultural iden- tity became complete, and it is therefore termed amalgamation.

The third phase comprised approximately the first half of the 20th century, during which time the island was urbanized. Here the dynamics of change con- stitute a special case of acculturation in that former rural differences were leveled, and rural and urban ways of life became virtually identical. This proc- ess is termed assimilation because the product was not a new culture, but a sur- vival of one of the old-the            urban-into            which the other had been absorbed or assimilated.

The process by which cultures change when in prolonged contact entails the selection of traits from the donor culture, their modification, and the subse- quent adjustments made in the host culture. In the case under study, selection and the direction of borrowing varied. In the first phase, the Dutch were wholly exclusive, accepting nothing Danish. The Danish borrowed forms of technology and modes of dress from the Dutch, with a sporadic infusion of

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other traits. In the second phase, the Danes continued to utilize traits bor- rowed in phase one, and Dutch festive practices became more widespread. The Dutch adopted the Danish language, which they embellished with a certain tonality that spread back to the Danes. The two halves of the island continued to differ for some time in forms of government and law, since the authority of the national government presented obstacles to adjustment to local circum- stances. In the last phase, those traits distinguishing Amager islanders from Copenhageners, specifically occupation, clothing, dialect, government, and legal institutions, as well as forms of celebrating the yearly holidays and rites of passage, were abandoned for city ways.

Traits borrowed in all phases were modified, but the process was remark- able for the superficial nature of this modification, which left the traits sub- stantially the same as in the parent culture. The host culture was necessarily altered with each increment, but only to the extent that it now possessed the borrowed forms of behavior; the process was not marked by chain-reactions resulting in extensive and dependent secondary changes nor by basic reorgani- zation of culture patterning and orientation. The minimal adjustive reaction in the host cultures is associated with a near absence of culture conflict and may be traced to the fact that the differences in behavior patterns, great in the eyes of participants and contemporary observers, were actually only variants of a single generalized way of life, the Northwestern European culture. Conflicts between individuals and between communities of the two cultures did occur, but they were social conflicts, not cultural ones. They did not reflect contrasts in life ways, but were economically-based rivalries for the right to use the same resources. In contrast to the modification of traits and cultural wholes, selec- tivity is not understandable primarily in cultural terms. Even though some borrowing, including significant technological accretions, may be regarded as a response to indigenous culturally-defined values oriented toward well-being, selectivity as a whole is very responsive to noncultural influences.

A distinction between cultural and social process is implicit in the history of change on Amager island. Cultural process concerns the fate of culture traits and culture wholes in a dynamic situation; social process concerns the forma- tion and maintenance of social groups. On Amager, the successive cultural phases of acculturation, amalgamation, and assimilation were associated with three phases in social alignment: phase one, in which the island was divided into two ethnic societies; phase two, in which the island formed a single folk society; and phase three, in which the island population was incorporated into the large metropolitan agglomeration of Copenhagen. In the creation and maintenance of these social groupings, three phenomena were prominent: intragroup interaction, communication, and group consciousness.

In phase one of this social history, Dutch intragroup interaction was in- tense and well-structured, characterized by a strong communalistic govern- ment, an active church, endogamy, and a high degree of economic cooperation. The social life of the Dutch of the whole area focused upon the mother village. For the Danish islanders, social cohesion was relatively weak and was ex-

ANDERSON]                  Danish VillageAcculturation            699

pressed primarily by attendance at a single church and submission to the au- thority of the king of Denmark, although a network of kinship ties through intermarriage was undoubtedly a salient factor. Within their villages, com- munal organization was largely imposed by the national government and ex- pressed in the mandatory corvke rather than voluntary communalism. Coop- eration between farmers was minimized by the demands of villeinage upon work time. Social relations between the Dutch and the Danish communities were limited to casual encounters in the market and to the granting of loans by the Dutch. Other economic cooperation was absent, and intermarriage was pre- cluded by Dutch endogamy. Means of communication within each ethnic group were efficient, but between the halves were minimal by virtue of the possession of different languages and lack of mutual understanding in the face of contrasts in way of life. Dutch group consciousness was strong. The cultural practices that distinguished them from their neighbors functioned as symbols of their social integrity and economic superiority. The Danes had a relatively weak sense of group consciousness, and opportunistically adopted technologi- cal traits, modes of dress, and ritual practices which were patent symbols of the

Dutch way of life. In phase two, intragroup interaction expanded to join the ethnic moieties

into a single folk society. Through intermarriage a common kinship network spread over the entire island. Economic cooperation made ail Amagerians part of a single agricultural unit. Churches became the meeting places of local resi- dents regardless of ethnic background. Communication within the island was facilitated by the spread of Danish as the common language and by the re- moval of class distinctions and marriage prohibitions hindering individual social intercourse. The amalgamation of culture eliminated misunderstandings derived from differences in way of life. Group consciousness of the emergent Amagerian folk culture now focused upon the island as a whole, as something distinct from the rest of Denmark. It found symbolic expression in common values resting upon unique shared forms of dress, dialect, architecture, ritual, and agriculture. Technological primitivity in means of land transportation isolated Amagerians from other Danes but it was not a serious impediment to intrainsular communication, and the total effect was to reinforce the unity of the hybrid population, which was epitomized in the reference to themselves as the “Dutch Amagerians” or the “King’s Amagerians.”

In phase three, interaction between the island and the capital developed rapidly as the Amager population entered the metropolitan labor market, intermarried, and developed ties based upon mutual interests. Communication became rapid and easy as means of transportation were modernized, and was facilitated by the minimization of cultural contrasts by substituting the

Copenhagen dialect for that of the island and by dropping unique cultural practices, especially-with respect to clothing and ritual. Group consciousness came to be focused upon the capital. Urban modes of dress, speech, and ritual became symbols of belonging to the capital population rather than to a folk enclave.

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In the three phases of social change, aggression and hostility were con- strained, since overt expression would have represented revolt against na- tional authority in the form of the king and, later, the parliament. Except through sanctioned legal channels, disagreements had no outlet other than grumbling. The small amount of social conflict must be attributed largely to the occurrence of the process in the context of a national government. How- ever, submission to national authority requires that the different peoples con- cerned be capable of integrating their ways of life, including forms of social organization and evaluation of material goals and punitive strictures. Surely, then, the relatively smooth social transitions were functions of the associated conflict-free cultural changes.

In short, while Amagerian social and cultural processes are analyzable as different phenomena, the three phases of social change were dynamically linked with the three phases of cultural change. This was a reciprocal dependency. In the social process on Amager, intragroup interaction was culturally based, i.e., upon established economic and social institutions. Communication was based upon the function of such culture traits as language, marriage rules, transpor- tation, or even the whole culture regarded as a system of shared understand- ings. The expression of group consciousness was largely a matter of culture patterns functioning as symbols.

Conversely, social alignments affected culture change in determining the neighboring social groups that bore the cultures and accepted the changes. Be- yond this, the process of social change was a factor in the process of culture change in its influence upon selectivity in borrowing. Insofar as borrowed traits contribute directly to improvement in standard of living, they may be re- garded as responding primarily to cultural factors. Some selectivity, however, is best understood in terms of the social process. T o take the outstanding ex- amples, language changes in all phases were correlated with the development of new communication areas and with areas unified in group symbols; changes in modes of dress, with practical advantages indicated for the last phase only, were clearly significant in symbolizing changes in group membership; realign- ments in the sharing of life-cycle and holiday rituals were also referable to changes in the application of group symbols. In addition, those cultural trait selections responding to cultural factors were also influenced by social ones; changes in forms of agriculture, for example, were not only responses to cul- tural values, but functioned as symbols of the social unity of the Dutch in phase one and of the island as a whole in phase two, just as urban occupations became a symbol of membership in the urban group of phase three.

Inthefinalanalysis,therefore,astudyof socialand cultural dynamicsrequires one to think in terms of a single sociocultural process. In Amager’s history it is found that only minimal cultural or social conflict occurred, and that the socio- cultural process was characterized by ease. Had there been cultural conflict re- sulting from profound differences in way of life, it might be expected that the social changes would have been hampered. Conversely, social conflict could have offered barriers to communication and interaction which might have hin-

ANDERSON]                  Danish Village Acculturation            701

dered the processes of culture change. While these can only be suggested from the case under study, their possibility suggests the need to utilize a sociocul- tural approach to problems of change in either society or culture.

NOTE

1 This study was financed by a fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, to which sincere thanks are extended. Older historical data are taken from the sources listed in the bibliog- raphy. Recent historical data were collected in the field.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ROBE, LOUIS 1945 Amager. In Holland-Danmark, Knud Fabricius, et al. eds. Vol. 1. Copenhagen,

Jespersen og Pios Forlag. NICOLAISECNH,RISTIAN

1887 Drag$rs Fortid og Fremme. Copenhagen, Rasmussen and Olsens Bogtrykkeri. 1907 Amagers Historie, bilagt med de vigtigste breve og aktstykker om $ens forhold. I.

Del. Copenhagen, Nordisk Forlag. 1909 Amagers Historie, bilagt med de vigtigste breve og aktstykker om $ens forhold. 11.

Del. Copenhagen, Schous Forlag. 1915 Amagers Historie, bilagt med de vigtigste breve og andre aktstykker om $ens for-

hold. 111. Del. Copenhagen, Schous Forlag. OLSEN,GUNNAR

1945 Landbruget. In Holland-Danmark, Knud Fabricius, et al. eds. Vol. I. Copenhagen, Jespersen og Pios Forlag.

MYGDALE,LNA 1932 Amagerdragter Vaevninger og Syninger. Danmarks Folkeminder Nr. 37.Copen-

hagen, Det Schdnbergske Forlag.

STRUNGEM,OGENS

1935 Jernskiaegs Amagerrim 1693.Copenhagen, Levin and Munksgaard.

1936 De Thurah og Hans Amagerbog fra 1758.Copenhagen, Levin and Munksgaard. TRAPJ,. P.

1929 Kongeriget Danmark. Vol. 11,Kplbenhavns Amt. 4th rev. ed. Udgivet af Gunnar Knudsen. Copenhagen, G. E. C. Gads Forlag.

ZIBRANDTSENJ,A N 1938 Den Hollandske Kultur Paa Amager. Copenhagen.