Hans Mattsson

Hans Mattsson (December 23, 1832–March 5, 1893) was a Swedish American politician who emigrated from Skåne in the south of Sweden to North America in 1851 and settled in Goodhue County, Minnesota. He served with distinction as a colonel in the American Civil War (1861–65) and in 1869 became Minnesota's Secretary of State.

Mattsson returned to Sweden as representative of the Minnesota Immigration Board in 1867–68 to recruit settlers, a successful undertaking. He returned again several times in the 1870s as emigrant agent for the Northern Pacific Railroad. These visits are described in his memoirs "Reminiscences", which were published in both English and Swedish in 1891, and which show Mattsson viewing the social snobbery his old home country with a sardonic eye.

References

*Barton, H. Arnold (1994). "A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans, 1840—1940," pp. 59–62. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
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