Enskiftet was an agricultural land reform in Sweden–Finland in 1803-1807. Its purpose was to replace the scattered farmland in village communities to connected lands for each farm. This was in fact a continuation of the previous land reform '' storskiftet'', but it was more radical and effective, as it did not merely divide the land, as the previous reform, but also forced the villagers to move their farms from the village closer to the land they had been given, which signified the end of traditional village life.Hadenius, Stig, Nilsson, Torbjörn & Åselius, Gunnar, Sveriges historia: vad varje svensk bör veta, Bonnier Alba, Stockholm, 1996 Enskiftet was initiated in the province of

Scania Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conterminous with Skåne ...

by Carl Gideon Wadman at the estate Svaneholm Castle, owned by

Rutger Macklean Rutger Macklean (28 July 1742 – 14 January 1816) also Rutger Macklier II was a Swedish jurist, military officer, politician and land owner. He was a driving figure in the introduction of Swedish agricultural land reforms ('' Enskiftet'') w ...

. In 1785, Macklean had the 701 villagers of his estate evicted and forced to relocate their homes on the new land he divided to them. The experiment was deemed so successful, that the government enforced it in the entire province in 1803. In 1807, the reform was enforced in the entire Sweden-Finland. In practice, however, the reform was never as thoroughly enforced in other provinces as it was in Scania, and in Finland, the reform was not quite given the time to be introduced until the

Finnish War The Finnish War ( sv, Finska kriget, russian: Финляндская война, fi, Suomen sota) was fought between the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire from 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809 as part of the Napoleonic Wars. As a re ...

. The reform was followed by the ''

laga skiftet Laga may refer to: Places * Laga (East Timor), a subdistrict of Baucau in East Timor * Laga, Lochaber, a village on the north shore of Loch Sunart, Scotland * Club Laga, a concert venue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1991 to 2006 People * Mart ...

'' of 1827, which did not force the peasants to abandon their villages and relocate, but did finish the reform introduced by the '' storskiftet'' in 1749.

References

{{reflist *Niklas Cserhalmi, Fårad mark. Handbok för tolkning av historiska kartor och landskap, temanummer av tidskriften Bygd och Natur (Lund 1998). History of agriculture Agriculture in Sweden 19th century in Sweden Sweden during the Gustavian era